Keeping it Real: Leveraging the Benefits of Real-Time Performance-Management Solutions
1 Jan, 2007
By: Patrick BotzA wide variety of performance-management applications are routinely used in contact centers worldwide. Unfortunately, most of them fail to leverage one of the contact center’s most unique characteristics – it operates in real-time and can provide invaluable, up-to-the-minute intelligence that can impact and influence the performance of every sector of the enterprise. Real-time performance-management solutions are enabling the contact center to operate as a mission-critical business intelligence center that delivers a strategic advantage to the enterprise as a whole.
What is Real-Time Performance-Management?
An advanced, real-time performance-management solution translates performance data into in-depth insight into the contact center’s strengths and weaknesses. It monitors both telephony and business metrics in real-time. Used alone or in conjunction with other workforce optimization solutions, performance-management software provides the tools to leverage performance data into business intelligence that can dramatically enhance a contact center’s performance. The software collects and consolidates real-time and historical performance information, delivering it right to the desktops of a call center’s agents, managers and executives.
Monitor, Measure, Analyze, Optimize
Real-time performance-management solutions make it easy for managers to monitor, measure, analyze and optimize contact center performance. This can be achieved by determining trends in call volume, agent occupancy, average call or case duration, peak volume times by channel (phone, e-mail, Web, chat) and the number of cases open and cases closed. An advanced performance-management solution can also identify barriers to achieving “time to resolution” goals by monitoring and analyzing such key trends as resolution time by agent, by product, by customer, by time of day, day of week and average and peak queue times. In addition to enabling the ability to monitor and assess agent performance, establish reachable goals and structure incentives, an advanced performance-management solution will help to drive real-time improvements in staffing, procedures and service delivery. Performance-management solutions help to capitalize on agent skill sets as defined by evaluation results from an integrated quality-monitoring application, and strategically align them based on schedules and integration with a workforce-management solution.
Proactive, Automated Agent Coaching
Agent coaching and training software is an integral component of any good performance-management program. When integrated with an advanced real-time performance-management solution, agent coaching software enables managers to automatically intervene when agents are underperforming by delivering coaching and training content in the form of courses, coaching tips, quizzes, training flashes, pre-shift announcements and bulletins. For managers and supervisors there are no more surprises – performance gaps are easily identified along with the root cause of exceptional and poor performance. This also makes it much easier to identify top and poor performers and helps drive performance and accountability.
An integrated agent-coaching solution enables contact center managers to deliver multimedia training to agent desktops on a schedule- or rules-driven basis. This powerful tool allows them to set rules that send targeted coaching and training to individual agents or groups when predetermined thresholds are reached. The means to trigger training based on agent performance provides an unprecedented level of coaching automation. Training can be launched on the basis of thresholds reached per key performance indicators such as telephony metrics, sales figures and quality scores or from data derived from numerous other integrated solutions, processes or technologies. By targeting the right training to the right person at the right time, agents will offer improved service --- heightening customer satisfaction and ultimately increasing productivity.
Real-time performance-management and coaching solutions are empowering and highly motivational tools for agents. They know their hard work is always acknowledged and rewarded. The dashboards create a positive energy and sense of camaraderie between the agents. They have the opportunity to engage in healthy competition, to support and celebrate each other’s achievements, to pass-on tips and advice, and to motivate themselves when they most need a boost.
A Complete Picture of Contact Center Performance
Real-time performance-management solutions were designed to adhere to a very simple philosophy: to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time in the right context. Real-time intelligence garnered from customer interactions can be leveraged to improve managerial decisions and investments made by strategic-level departments. When integrated with automated agent-coaching applications, real-time performance-management solutions can provide the most complete picture of contact center performance.
