Measuring Outsourcer Performance and the Voice of the Customer

Provided by Greg Borton

Unobtrusive, quick to deploy and relatively inexpensive solutions have become available for revealing end-to-end call handling and Voice of the Customer performance for not only Outsourcers but also internal contact centers. These solutions provide intuitive dashboard views that require little training, provide high level executive summaries yet support deep-dive analysis.

Listening Methods, Inc. San Francisco, CA 415 623-8646

Provided by Listening Methods; 415 623-8646; info@listeningmethods.com Copyright, Feb, 2011,

1/14/2014

Easily Measure the Performance and Voice-of-the-Customer of Your Outsourcers

New Performance and Voice of the Customer Metrics for Measuring Outsourcer Performance
Greg Borton Listening Methods January, 2014

Unobtrusive, quick to deploy and relatively inexpensive solutions have become available for revealing end-to-end call handling and Voice of the Customer performance for not only Outsourcers but also for internal contact centers. These solutions provide intuitive dashboard views that require little training, provide high level executive summaries yet support deep-dive analysis. For many years, we have measured outsourcer performance by call volumes, queue durations, hang-ups, first call resolution, sales transactions and other classic contact center metrics such as talk and hold times. However, many companies who use outsourcers continue to express concerns as to whether the performance is optimal. There is often the black hole aspect to knowing how well the Outsourcer handles calls. This is especially the case with the rising importance of the Voice of the Customer and with the growing realization that a customers experience starts the instance they answer the phone. Their view is shaped by each step they take through the entire, end-to-end call, not just by one segment, for instance the agent-caller conversation. In order to identify actual performance and Voice of the customer experience, one must reveal the experience in the IVRs, queues and with agents.

Provided by Greg Borton, Listening Methods; 415 623-8646; greg.borton@listeningmethods.com Copyright, January 2014

Easily Measure the Performance and Voice-of-the-Customer of Your Outsourcers

Addressing the Difficulty of Getting Easy to Understand Insights into Performance It is difficult to get insights into the Voice of the Customer experiences, especially when using an Outsourcer. First, the outsourcer may not have the analytic tools to capture these views, and the acquisition or cost of having the outsourcer add tools may be expensive. Perhaps the Outsourcer may be hesitant to make such detailed insights available. Or the Outsourcer may have some tools, for instance call recordings, but these may give only a part of the required insight, or may only cover the agent-portion of the customer contact. This raises the question of how easily and unobtrusively can one get the information and analytics insights that enable you to evaluate Outsourcer performance and the Voice of the Customer. Recent audio-based analytics solutions are emerging that provide the ability to capture entire end-to-end caller experience in a simple and non-intrusive manner. This is true whether its for monitoring and learning from an Outsourcers activities, or from your own contact centers.

Provided by Greg Borton, Listening Methods; 415 623-8646; greg.borton@listeningmethods.com Copyright, January 2014

Easily Measure the Performance and Voice-of-the-Customer of Your Outsourcers

As hosted or on-site PCI-Compliant analytics solutions grow in importance in the market, they are offering more valuable features than call traffic reports and then offer higher value business insights much deeper insights than available from simple manual quality monitoring departments. The most advanced of these combine in-depth IVR, queue and speech analytics technologies to reveal performance and Voice of the Customer insights through the entire caller experience.

Monitoring Outsourcer Performance and to Get Higher Business Value A main goal of the new solutions is the provision of higher business value by identifying opportunities for improvement and by monitoring whether project goals are achieved. Traditional systems are focused primarily on traffic management and agent adherence. The new solutions support the goal of monitoring Outsourcer performance and they are available in an unobtrusive manner. However, the new analytics solutions address many of these issues.

Among the values now being offered: 1. Entire end-to-end Call Analytics. A Callers experience begins the instance you answer the phone. Often the greatest caller frustrations occur in the IVR or in the queue. New solutions reveal the quality and performance of each segment of caller experience and they expose the relationship and opportunities between one segment and the next. Thus they provide: a. b. c. d. e. In-depth IVR analytics Queue behavior analysis In-depth speech analytics for agent-to-caller conversation analysis Agent to Agent transfer and skills-based routing analysis Link of post-call survey responses to the callers experience

2. Measure Performance. Reveal specific performance measures based on success and failure in Voice Self-Service as well as with the agent 3. Automatic measures of caller experience. The solutions automatically measure customer experience and what works and does not for the caller. Whether this be in the IVR, with the agent or hidden in the relationship between the various call segments. 4. Analysis of First Call Resolution by Task. Tasks may be accomplished in the IVR, with an initial agent, or via transfer to a specialist. The new solutions can detect what tasks are
Provided by Greg Borton, Listening Methods; 415 623-8646; greg.borton@listeningmethods.com Copyright, January 2014

Easily Measure the Performance and Voice-of-the-Customer of Your Outsourcers

being performed and whether they are successful. They enable users to focus on particular tasks to better understand and fix issues. 5. Measuring solution performance by comparing call flow design intent with actual caller behavior. By comparing the design goals with actual a. If one captures design goals and compares them with actual behavior 6. Focus users on meeting business goals. Innovations help direct users to resources that address their goals, whether they be cost savings, customer experience improvements, improving training and skills routing, or increasing sales 7. Linking design decisions to operations costs. Designs lead to costs of agents and other resources. By linking designs to costs, the solution reveals the financial issues associated with the design decisions.

Measuring Outsourcer Performance is Simple, Fast and Unobtrusive The purpose of using Outsourcers is to offload a number of internal responsibilities to an organization that has the skills and technical resources to accomplish the goals. So getting insights into the Outsourcers performance needs to also meet these same criteria by providing the benefits with little effort on either the users or the Outsourcers part. So how easily and unobtrusively can one get the performance insights that enable a company to evaluate its Outsourcers and identify the Voice of the Customer? The new audio-based analytics solutions meet these criteria, especially in their hosted configurations. They provide the ability to capture the entire end-to-end caller experience in a simple and non-intrusive manner. This is true whether its for monitoring and learning from ones Outsourcers activities, or for monitoring your own contact centers. Another value of this approach is that the responsibility of measuring performance and quality can be kept completely independent of the Outsourcer or your own contact center. This means that there can be, if desired, a true separation of the function of providing services and measuring their performance. The primary option for achieving these goals is to use a hosted analytics solution.

Provided by Greg Borton, Listening Methods; 415 623-8646; greg.borton@listeningmethods.com Copyright, January 2014

Easily Measure the Performance and Voice-of-the-Customer of Your Outsourcers

Option 1: Simply Have the Carrier Fork a Conference Leg to the Analytics Hosting Site

Advantages of this Approach Unobtrusive Does not impact the Outsourcer in any way Entire End-to-End Call Analytics In-depth analytics information presented via browser-based Dashboards for each segment of the call Full audio play-back, book-marked to audio events for efficient research Fully managed services, thus the implementation and ongoing management is provided by the vendor

Provided by Greg Borton, Listening Methods; 415 623-8646; greg.borton@listeningmethods.com Copyright, January 2014

Easily Measure the Performance and Voice-of-the-Customer of Your Outsourcers

Option 2: Have the Outsourcer let the Analytics Provider install an Appliance in their Network Operating Center that can record the entire End-to-End Call

This approach offers the same benefits as the hosted option. However, for companies who want to ensure that their data is always secure behind-the-firewall, this offers the additional security of being located behind the firewall. Both of these approaches are unobtrusive, and can be fully installed, implemented and providing business value in the matter of a few weeks. They also meet the desired business goals.

About Listening Methods: Providing Next Generation IVR & End-to-End Call Analytics across all Platforms (Cisco, Genesys, Avaya or any other platform) Focusing on caller analytics, professional services and technology, Listening Methods has developed Sound Analytics, one of the first and only solutions to automatically analyze entire

Provided by Greg Borton, Listening Methods; 415 623-8646; greg.borton@listeningmethods.com Copyright, January 2014

Easily Measure the Performance and Voice-of-the-Customer of Your Outsourcers

end-to-end calls, including Voice Self-Service interactions as well as agent and caller conversations. Listening Methods' approach removes the typical business value risks associated with analytics solutions. With actionable insights in days, the company offers fast time to value and can support continuous improvement opportunities to enhance the caller experience while helping reduce budget requirements.

Provided by Greg Borton, Listening Methods; 415 623-8646; greg.borton@listeningmethods.com Copyright, January 2014