Why do you need to ensure quality of service (QoS) positively affects a customer's quality of experience (QoE)? Let's say you call to make a reservation at a nice hotel. You listen to the options and press '2' to learn which rooms are available, then you choose to reserve a room and press '1' to reach a reservation specialist. When you are transferred to a live voice, you reach the wrong person. Although you may eventually get through to the correct line, now you find you're experiencing bad voice quality, which means you can't understand half of what is being said. Perhaps your call is even dropped. Are you still going to make a reservation at this hotel? Most likely the answer is "No."
Contact centers present an opportunity to make a lasting customer impression. Swift responses, knowledgeable agents, short waiting times and clear connections all contribute to a customer's QoE. When technical issues result in a low QoS level, the result is a negative QoE - and that bodes badly for business opportunities and your bottom line.
However, there are a few simple steps you can take to avoid QoS issues from the start and give your customers a positive experience.
- Understand your business needs
When developing a contact center environment, it is critical that you understand your business and customer needs. This includes the ability to answer questions such as: What is the average call volume your company will experience? What would cause call spikes in call volume (e.g., holiday sale season or weather emergencies)? What is your company's current peak call volume? How will you scale efficiently as your business grows?
In addition to call volume, you must also consider your unique technical environment, specifically how you balance up-to-date technology with cost-effective environments. Ask yourself if you should invest in Voice over IP (VoIP) and/or speech and Dual-tone Multi-frequency (DTMF) Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. These technologies can help increase revenue, improve customer relations, automate contact center processes and provide high quality customer service at a lower cost. It's important to note, however, that these technologies require an initial investment, as well as comprehensive testing both in isolation and as part of the multi-platform environment, to assure the updated environment produces the required results. - Develop appropriate metrics
Once you understand your business needs, you can use the information gathered to establish a service level agreement (SLA) with your service provider, which, with realistic key performance indicators (KPIs), will ensure that your business' needs are met and your customers receive a high QoE.
The most important KPIs that should be included in the SLA are:- Voice Mean Opinion Score (MOS): a numerical measure (1 - 5, 5 = excellent) of the quality of human speech within the voice call at the end points;
- End-to-end Jitter and Delay: a measure of the jitter and delay experienced across the network, between key points within the network and between the user end points; and
- Packet Loss: a measure of the number of packets lost during a session, which is an indicator of overall network throughput and network quality.
- Assure metrics are met
It is important to ensure that the provider is meeting the agreed-upon levels of service after an SLA has been signed. One way to accomplish this is to comprehensively test the entire environment before making it live.
A thorough testing process can provide you with concrete proof that technology interoperability, high voice quality under varying call volumes and quick prompt response times, among others, operate correctly. This allows you to identify potential issues before they negatively impact the customer experience.
While some testing can easily be performed in-house, a testing company that has experience, knowledge and the technology required to validate contact center quality can ensure that you get the most value out of your technological investments in the least amount of time with the lowest overall financial cost. - Continue to monitor
Once the system is live, it is vital to continue monitoring the environment to catch any issues early, before they can impact customers. Troubleshooting and diagnosis can be a complex task in an IP environment, let alone in today's hybrid IP and Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) environments. Implementing a methodical approach to troubleshooting is critical to reducing variables, isolating faults and preventing problems that will reduce QoE.
By following these four steps, you can be confident that your technology roll-out will provide your customers with excellent QoS, resulting in a positive QoE.
Provided by Bob Hockman who has over 20 years of experience in the network and communications industry where he has been responsible for the creation and delivery of a number of industry leading products, Bob Hockman serves as director of Product Marketing at Empirix. In this role, he directs the marketing efforts for the company's Enterprise business offerings. Prior to being with Empirix, Bob held engineering, marketing and executive positions with leading communications test companies such as Acterna (now JDSU), TTC and Wandel & Goltermann.
January 14, 1:00 Eastern: How to Leverage the Voice of the Customer. Presented by HigherGround. What's most important about hearing the "voice of the customer" is making what you learn actionable. How do you capture enough information about the customer interaction to truly understand the ways in which your agents can perform better? This webcast will explore the critical importance of really listening to what customers are saying, and using that newfound knowledge to gain competitive advantage.
January 19, 1:00 Eastern: Five Steps to Getting Started with Social Media in the Contact Center. Presented by Cisco. Social media sites are quickly becoming a popular channel of communications among consumers. Cisco will provide you with the five essential steps to help your company get started with implementing social media into your contact center including: what tools you need, how to staff for it, and how to track and measure performance.
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"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort."---John Ruskin
Contact Professional provides useful management tools and resources to the contact center professional. Written for executives, managers and directors of contact centers, the editorial focuses on real world solutions to issues faced on a daily basis. From hiring and training to technology implementation, each article emphasizes ROI and increased efficiency within the contact center.
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