2015 CALL CENTER IQ

EXECUTIVE REPORTS
By Brian Cantor
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE REPORT
PAGE 3 ON THE CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE

CLOUD CONTACT CENTER

PAGE 34 TECHNOLOGY: NOT “IF”
BUT “HOW”

THE EVOLUTION OF
PAGE 61 CONTACT CENTER
PERFORMANCE

2015 CALL CENTER IQ EXECUTIVE

PAGE 99 REPORT ON THE OMNI-CHANNEL
CONTACT CENTER

EXECUTIVE REPORT
PAGE 136 ON THE FUTURE OF
THE CONTACT CENTER
EXECUTIVE REPORT
ON THE CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE
Introduction: Resolving
the Customer Experience
Dilemma
One can define it using a myriad of vastly different
parameters. One can devise and execute it using
input from a set of staunchly different stakeholders.
One can measure it using an array of dramatically
different metrics. One can improve it using markedly
different strategies and technologies.
At the end of the day, two things are true.
The customer experience is experienced by customers.
The customer experience is created by businesses.
That disconnect of agency is inherently unavoidable.
No matter how philosophically “customer-centric”
the organization’s decision maker, there is no way to
change the fact that the decision maker is imposing a
business decision on customers.
Similarly, no matter how expertly constructed an
engagement strategy, there is no way to change
the fact that the customer is under no obligation to
experience it the way the business intended.
This fundamental dilemma underscores very real
challenges associated with customer experience
management. It reveals why a business that says
it cares about customers can continue to operate
at a significant distance from customer interest. It
reveals why a business that actualizes its philosophical
“customer-centricity” does not guarantee itself
results.
The dilemma dooms business strategy to imprecision,
but if the business sees the customer experience as
a pivotal part of its operation, the dilemma cannot
compel inaction.
This report investigates how organizations are taking
action and navigating the dilemma. What are they
doing to determine what customers want? What are
they doing to transform that insight into strategy?
What are they doing to transform that strategy into
action? What are they doing to measure that action?
What are they doing to turn that measurement
insight into a call for improvement? What are they
doing to answer that call?
The report will confirm that businesses and their
leaders identify customer loyalty and customer
satisfaction as the biggest experience priorities. It will
confirm that they promise to build human-to-human
relationships with customers while resolving issues
during the first contact. To determine whether they
are succeeding, they rely extensively on customer
feedback surveys and assessment from internal senior,
mid-level and front line employees. They also rely on
metrics and pay specific attention to CSat score and
retention rate.
Metrics like average handle time and average speed
of answer are no longer priorities for businesses,
but they continue to play integral roles in customer
experience performance culture. Businesses will
not necessarily rid them from the mix, but they will
commit to improving the more valuable metrics and
leverage higher quality interactions to do so.
While not an attractive brand promise, accuracy
plays an enormous role in shaping the interaction
and will remain a priority moving forward. Quality
of resolution also matters – businesses do not simply
want to do enough to get the customer off the
phone or out of the chat window; they want to end
the matter on the correct terms.
Specific technologies and customer experience
initiatives will help businesses remain agile in the face
of marketplace changes. More importantly, they
will help businesses conquer lingering performance
challenges.
Businesses cannot escape the fundamental customer
experience dilemma, but they can take actions to
minimize the consequences of that dilemma and, in
turn, maximize the results of their strategies.
callcenter-iq.com 3
Methodology and
Demographics
In January of 2014, Call Center IQ conducted
this research with collaboration from an audience
of customer service, customer experience and
contact center professionals. Representing
buy-side organizations, vendor organizations
and independent consultancies, respondents
contributed insights via a web survey and/or
targeted, one-on-one interviews.
Requests to participate were issued irrespective
of company size, contact center size or region,
assuring that the sample represented a global
customer management audience.
Participation nonetheless skewed in favor of larger
organizations 45% of respondents represent an
organization with more than 1,000 employees,
and a total of 58% operate in workforces with
at least 500 on the payroll. Only 34% work for
organizations with fewer than 250 employees, and
only 17% work alongside fewer than 50 people.
Experiencing the
Customer Experience
Applying a broad term to a complex concept
naturally produces ambiguity. When it comes
to the notion of a “customer experience,” that
ambiguity has produced many an inquiry into the
meaning of the concept.
A frequent talking point for customer service
professionals, the “customer experience” naturally
finds itself used synonymously with the customer
service experience. When discussing the impact of
initiatives like “omni-channel customer care” and
“average handle time” on the customer experience,
individuals are very clearly looking at the concept
through the customer support lens. What happens
when a customer contacts the customer service
department?
The heavy involvement of larger organizations did
not, however, produce an equivalent skew in favor
of large contact centers. If anything, the sample
skewed in favor of smaller contact centers. A
sizable 27% of respondents employ more than
250 agents, but 46% of respondent organizations
contain fewer than 50 contact center seats.
Example respondent job titles included “VP, Global
Customer Care,” “EVP, Corporate Strategy,”
“Contact Center Team Leader,” “Chief Information
Officer,” “SVP of Operations,” “Call Center
Manager,” “Senior Director of Support Services,”
“VP of Customer Operations,” “Director of
E-Commerce,” “VP, Marketing” and “Global
Director, Consumer Experience.”
Others, meanwhile, adopt a broader approach.
They recognize the customer experience as
the totality of interactions between brand and
business and thus consider all facets and forms
of engagement. In this scenario, sales efforts,
marketing efforts, advertisements, pricing
structures, customer support and all related forms
of passive and active engagement collectively
define the “customer experience.”
Important for driving processes and determining
which departments and stakeholders must be
involved, the question of where the customer
experience begins nonetheless carries significantly
less strategic importance than why it begins.
callcenter-iq.com 4
Businesses, after all, will focus on challenges
related to sales, pricing, marketing and support
regardless of whether or not they are considered
components of the customer experience.
Incorporating a particular business function into
the customer experience definition might more
overtly articulate its relevance, but it does not
actually create importance. The sales effort matters
regardless of whether it is superficially presented
as an independent focus or as a checkpoint on the
customer experience journey.
What will meaningfully impact the various business
functions is the core objective it sets for its
customer experience. By defining the purpose of
the customer experience, that objective will serve
An experience for the customer
The very use of the term customer experience
seemingly comes with a clear directive for those
businesses determining their core objectives.
Insofar as it is an experience for the customer, the
concept naturally suggests that the customer—and
the needs and wants of that customer—should play
a role in its realization.
“Ultimately customer experience is what your
customers tell you it is,” declares InMoment’s
Lonnie Mayne.
The nature of the business world, however,
presents a potential challenge to that notion.
Insofar as customers are not the ones developing
or executing organizational strategy, their role in
either process is certainly not assured. It might be
called the customer experience, but it is a concept
conceived and operationalized by businesses.
And the dilemma is not simply one of derivation
and execution. It also concerns outcomes.
The manifestation of a customer experience
affects customers more than it does businesses.
Customers are the ones doing the experiencing
and thus the ones ultimately affected by what the
business chooses to offer.
The results, however, emerge in business terms.
Customers react to what they are experiencing,
but they have no inherent say in how the business
measures and then manages against those
reactions
If the reaction to a “dissatisfying” experience has
no impact on the results a business chooses to
measure, it will read far more favorably to the
business than to the customer. Similarly, if an
experience element beloved by customers fails to
produce a tangible impact on business results, the
business’ appreciation will doubtfully mirror that
possessed by customers.
to dictate core strategy and the role each function
plays in that strategy.
Everything—from the departments and
stakeholders involved, to the way the brand
promise is communicated to customers, to the way
performance is measured—dovetails from that
fundamental objective. Every piece of strategic
development, every piece of technology and
every moment of execution either deliberately or
inevitably affects a business’ effort to reach its core
customer experience objective.
A journey to better define, understand and improve
the customer experience thus begins with an
appreciation for that core objective.
“You can say that the customer experience is
philosophically valuable,” asserts Harte Hanks’
Andrew Harrison,” but if it does not produce
results that matter to the organization itself, the
value doesn’t come through.
“Likewise, if the business is still focused on cost
or old world productivity, the customer experience
function will not perform the way the customers
want it to.”
The link between customer reactions and business
results thus determines the extent to which
customer interests drive the business’ customer
experience vision.
Businesses with visions traditionally identified as
“customer-centric” do not necessarily possess
a philosophically greater appreciation for the
customers; they simply see a more obvious
connection between reactions and results. They
believe their best bet for achieving the desired
results is to achieve the desired reactions.
According to Call Center IQ’s annual customer
experience survey, 70% of respondents possess
that belief. 36% say their businesses position
“increasing customer satisfaction” as the
paramount customer experience objective, while
34% believe “increasing customer loyalty” is the
ultimate priority.
Impressed with the customer-minded result, Harte
Hanks’ Harrison nonetheless believes “increasing
customer loyalty” is a dramatically more valuable
objective than “increasing customer satisfaction.”
“If you’re really looking to assess what defines the
customer relationship and whether it can help you
build your brand, you need to focus on loyalty,”
elaborates Harrison. “With satisfaction, you’re just
getting better at answering the customer’s initial
questions.
callcenter-iq.com 5
“Satisfaction is fine as a front-line KPI, but loyalty is
a leadership objective.”
An additional 7% identify “increasing brand
advocacy” as the top objective, while “gaining
customer insights” and “reducing complaints” are
the core focuses for 3% and 2% of organizations,
respectively.
Concepts like customer satisfaction, customer
loyalty and brand advocacy are “scores” rather
than lines on the income statement, which means
that the majority of surveyed professionals do
see a fundamental alignment between customer
experience reactions and customer experience
results. 82% do subscribe to the notion that “what
is good for the customer is ultimately what is good
for the business.”
That is not to say the other 18% wholly rejects
a correlation between business interests and
customer interests. That 18% does, however,
operate within businesses that believe any
customer benefits must dovetail from the effort
to drive favorable financial results. They do not
The business leader’s approach to the customer
experience
The aforementioned data is not without a potential
bias. Insofar as it stems from a survey targeted
at contact center and customer management
professionals, it reflects the views of those directly
exposed to the impact of customer satisfaction
and dissatisfaction. For such a group, reverence
for driving satisfaction and loyalty represents the
intuitive perspective.
To truly understand how businesses approach the
customer experience, it is important to consider
the perspective of those who directly focus on the
business. What C-level executives define as the
ultimate customer experience objective will not only
reveal the universality of the customer-centricity
concept but also the mentality that trickles down
throughout the organization.
While not quite as centered on customer loyalty
and satisfaction, the C-level, too, views those
focuses as most important.
believe focusing primarily on achieving customer
outcomes is a guaranteed means of optimizing
business outcomes.
10% of respondents believe the customer
experience is ultimately designed to drive revenue.
Because of the potential for overlap between
customer-oriented and revenue-oriented initiatives,
these businesses will not necessarily design and
deliver bad experiences. But if a situation emerges
in which the business must choose between a
strategy that only directly promises a revenue
boost rather than one that only directly promises a
customer satisfaction or loyalty boost, the business
will opt for the former. And just as opting for the
customer-centric option could result in less revenue
for the business, the decision to opt in favor of the
revenue-centric one could result in a less satisfying
experience for customers.
5% take that approach with profit as their core
objective, while 2% do so with the aim of reducing
costs.
According to respondents, “increasing customer
loyalty” is a top priority for 29% of C-level
executives. 21% see “increasing customer
satisfaction” as the ultimate goal, while 8% are
consumed with elevating brand advocacy. An
additional 4% most notably use the customer
experience as a means of gaining customer
insights. The same percentage is committed to
reducing complaints.
That means that 66% of C-suites—a clear
majority—adopts the customer-oriented approach
the customer experience. While financial concerns
are more important for this group than they are for
respondents (20% say revenue is the top priority,
while 6% feel that way about increasing profit
and driving cost, respectively), they are not, on the
whole, more notable drivers than customer-facing
objectives.
Customer-centricity is thus not simply an invention
of the overly demanding customer or the self-
glorifying contact center professional. It is a
business reality.
callcenter-iq.com 6
Q1
Top Customer Experience Objective (Respondent’s
Perspective vs. C-Level Perspective)

9.7%
Increase
revenue
19.5%

1.8%

Reduce costs
6.2%

5.3%
Increase profit

6.2%

36.3%
Increase
customer
satisfaction 21.2%

33.6%
Increase
customer
loyalty 29.2%

2.7%
Gain customer
insights
3.5%

Reduce
1.8%
customer
complaints/
negative
sentiment 3.5%

7.1%
Increase brand
advocacy
8.0%

callcenter-iq.com 7
Customer experience: from design to promise
The fundamental customer experience objective
helps dictate the design, but it is not the design
itself. Whether a business chooses to recognize
customer satisfaction, brand loyalty or revenue
generation as its core customer experience
objective, the recognition is only the first step. It
then must determine how to create a customer
experience that achieves the desired goal.
It also must consider how to present its customer
experience to customers. How will the business’
aim to drive customer loyalty impact the
interactions the customer has with the brand?
What does a business’ desire to reduce costs mean
for the experience a customer receives?
A customer, after all, does not have any direct
interest in the business’ internal objectives. His
interest concerns how those internal objectives
result in an external customer engagement
experience.
That a business emphasizes customer satisfaction
as its objective therefore offers no guarantee of an
experience superior to that delivered by a revenue-
minded business. If the satisfaction objective
does not manifest in an optimal experience for
customers, neither it nor the business will actually
read as customer-centric.
Action, obviously, trumps all. But if a customer
were going to assess a business’ customer
experience prior to encountering successful
or unsuccessful interaction efforts, he would
rely on the brand’s promise. When a business
communicates its customer experience to
customers—regardless of its fundamental, internal
objective—what does it establish as its priority?
For what does it expect customers to hold its
experience accountable?
“Your brand is a promise sets expectations for
every interaction your customers have with your
company,” explains IQ Services’ Mike Burke.” It’s
really important to reognize and then promise
Managing the customer experience
Driven by an internal objective and an external
promise, the customer experience represents a
tangible business focus. It is not simply something
about which to think or talk; the customer
experience is something that needs to be designed,
delivered, optimized and sustained.
The objective and promise—and specific way a
business interprets those—will tremendously impact
the design, delivery, optimization and sustenance of
the customer experience.
elements beyond the smile on the teller’s face or
the quality of the good or service you sell.”
For the greatest percentage of businesses, that
promise is one of a long-term relationship.
A logical manifestation of the popular loyalty
objective, 22% of businesses say the notion of a
long-term relationship is their biggest customer
experience promise. They want to assure that
interactions are not singular in nature but part of a
long-term journey between brand and customer.
The popularity of long-term engagement is not,
however, a sign that resolute transactions are out
of fashion. Identified as the top promise by 18%
of businesses, first contact resolution represents
the next-most popular priority. Businesses want
customers to know that a good experience involves
a solution a problem or issue during the very first
contact.
Other popular core promises include
personalization/customization (13%), an emphasis
on human-to-human connections between brand
representatives and customers (12%), high-value
resolutions (9%) and efficiency (9%).
When positioned in a spectrum, the key promises
reveal the absence of a universally accepted
shortcut or “secret sauce” in the customer
experience realm. Treating customers—and
investing in real relationships with those humans—
is a valuable part of the customer experience.
Resolving their transactional problems quickly,
completely and successfully is also very important.
While not necessarily irrelevant, custom/unorthodox
resolutions (0%), proactive care (3%), accuracy
(4%) and omni-channel (4%) are rarely positioned
as top brand promises.
So too will the customer experience’s positioning
within the organization.
The individuals and departments responsible
for influencing and overseeing the customer
experience will directly—and significantly—affect
the realization of that experience.
callcenter-iq.com 8
Q2
What is the brand’s biggest customer experience
promise?

17.7% First contact resolution 3.5% Accuracy

4.4% Omni-channel 13.3% Personalization/

customization of
2.7% Proactive service

8.8% High-value resolutions 11.5% Relationships

(human-to-human
0% 
Unorthodox/custom connections)
resolutions
22.1% Relationships (long-
8.8% Quickness/Efficienc term journey between
brand and customer)

callcenter-iq.com 9
In addition to influencing customer experience
execution by virtue of their management styles,
closeness to the front line, closeness to business
stakeholders, resources and personnel, specific
customer experience leadership also introduce
additional human variance to the already murky
world of customer experience objectives and
promises. Concepts like gaining customer
insights, driving satisfaction and building customer
relationships can mean different things to different
stakeholders, which means two organizations with
the same overarching customer experience vision
can end up with vastly different experiences in
actuality.
While there is no accounting for the vast individual
variance within organizations, the annual CCIQ
survey reveals a commonality of preference when it
comes to situating the customer experience within
businesses.
71% of businesses (41% in the former, 30% in the
latter) offer ultimate customer experience authority
to either the customer experience/customer service
team or the C-level/executive team. Supportive of
the notion that the customer experience is a core
business focus, the majority’s authority distribution
does not treat it as an auxiliary component. For
that 71% of businesses, it either warrants its own
dedicated department or functions under the
auspices of the executive rank.
Harte Hanks’ Harrison is particularly enthusiastic
about situating customer experience strategy within
the C-suite.
“Customer experience needs to start at the
C-level,” says Harrison. “If the top executives
don’t set the pace and priority, then the rest of the
organization can’t align.”
Operations (8%) and marketing (7%) represent the
next-most popular authority options. IT (2%) and
communications/public relations (1%) generally do
not oversee the customer experience function.
Organizational positioning is not, however, merely a
question of authority. The hierarchy reveals which
departments make the final decisions and create
the greatest actualization of objectives, but it does
not capture the full scope of influence on the
experience.
The internal and external entities that partner with
the core customer experience group also contribute
immensely to the final experience.
Internally, such partnership is very common – and
very valued.
65% of businesses confirm significant levels of
internal customer experience partnership, and
a total of 44% believe they need to increase
partnership levels. An additional 29% of
businesses confirm some degree of partnership and
want to expand.
Only 4% exclusively completely manage their
customer experiences in siloes, and half of them
want to begin partnering.
“Now,” explains InMoment’s Mayne, “I see
companies beginning to understand that customers
actually have a lot of incredible insights that can
benefit just about every part of the business, and
those closest to customers can benefit from the
proximity. As a result, we’re seeing more people
and groups within companies climb on the
customer experience bandwagon.”
Mayne does not simply believe the individual
stakeholders stand to reap their own benefits from
a greater involvement in the customer experience
process. He also believes the overall success of
the customer experience hinges on widespread
involvement within the business.
“It’s dangerous to charge a single department
with executing on your customer experience,”
cautions Mayne. “No one person or department
can ‘own’ your customer experience. If you’re
going to succeed in this area, you’ve got to build a
culture where every single employee understands
his or her role in the customer experience and is
empowered to fully own those individual moments
that contribute to your overall success. “
While external customer experience partnerships
are less popular and less valued, they still factor
immensely into the contemporary business
atmosphere.
A total of 77% of businesses confirm at least
some degree of external customer experience
partnership, and 27% identify that degree as
significant. 59% of businesses want to increase
their current level of external partnership.
When pursuing increased external partnerships,
businesses will need to establish accountability for
both performance and cultural standards.
“Just as every person within your organization
needs to be held accountable for and supported
in owning their part of the customer experience,
so do external partners,” says InMoment’s Mayne.
“Customer centricity is a way of doing business
that requires participation for all parts of an
organization, inside and out.”
“Businesses need to impose their culture on
outsourcers,” adds Harte Hanks’ Harrison. “Client
businesses and outsources need to be linked
at every level –from recruiting, to training to
performance management. Creating that closeness
between brand and outsourcer is the only means of
assuring a closeness between outsourced personnel
and end-user customers.”
callcenter-iq.com 10
Q3
Which department is ultimately responsible for the
customer experience?

31.0% C-level/executive team

39.8% Customer experience/

customer service department

8.0% Operations

1.8% IT

7.1% 
Marketing

5.3% Sales/Business Development

0.9% Communications/PR

Q4
What role do/should internal and external
partnerships play in the customer experience?
Internal Partnerships External Partnerships

Do not at all,
Do not think
we should

Do not at
all, Think we
should

Do somewhat,
Think we
should partner
less
Do somewhat,
Content with
current level of
partnership
Do somewhat,
Think we
should partner
more
Do significantly,
Think we
should partner
less
Do significantly,
Content with
current level of
partnership

Do significantly,
Think we
should partner
more

callcenter-iq.com 11
Managing Customer
Experience Performance
The surplus of stakeholders, decision makers,
influencers and partners reflects the magnitude of
the customer experience. Not simply something
that lives and dies in the contact center, it
commands the attention and involvement of many
different voices. It matters to the business.
A source of encouragement, the far-reaching scope
of the contact center also imposes a significant
burden on organizations. In order to direct all
internal and external efforts toward fulfilling the
brand promise and achieving the business objective,
the organization must develop a clear perspective
on what factors impact the customer experience,
how that impact translates into results and how
those results speak to success.
Identifying the Outcomes
What is the overall result of a successful customer
experience?
Whether positioned in the executive suite or in the
contact center, today’s business leaders tend to
see customer-oriented focuses like satisfaction and
loyalty as their top priorities.
There is no rule, however, requiring businesses
to care exclusively about those priorities. The
customer experience is a broad, complex concept,
and it will therefore come with a myriad of
ramifications for businesses. How a business works
to optimize those ramifications will define success
in a manner one might not be able to achieve by
exclusively focusing on a singular priority.
An effective performance management strategy
begins with a statement of those optimal
outcomes. A business might care most about how
well its customer experience generates loyalty and
satisfaction, but its customer experience will also
impact variables like revenue and cost. The value
a business ascribes to these alternative outcomes
will provide a more complete basis for optimizing
the customer experience. It will help determine
which initiatives to undertake, which solutions to
implement and which sacrifices to make.
If you’re going to say the customer experience is
paramount, you have to measure every element
of the customer experience,” says Harte Hanks’
Harrison.
Whether the aim is to reduce customer interaction
costs, improve customer satisfaction or tangibly
drive additional revenue, the business needs to
carefully and productively channel its performance
management efforts. From identifying the right
outcomes, to determining which metrics serve as
proxies for those outcomes, to figuring out which
experience elements impact those metrics and
those outcomes, the performance management
process is what separates an organization that
values the customer experience from one that
receives value from its customer experience.
It, most notably, puts performance measurement
into context. It is what transforms “scores” into
assessments and directives. It is what makes
metrics relevant and valuable for strategy rather
than merely for benchmarking.
“The customer experience must align with how the
brand wants to be represented and what the brand
wants to achieve,” explains Harte Hanks’ Harrison.
“You need to establish that framework before
you can properly assess performance. Otherwise,
you’re just measuring random, static metrics.”
Predictable given their prominence as core
customer experience objectives, “customer
satisfaction growth” and “customer loyalty
growth” represent the most valuable customer
outcomes. Graded on a quantified importance scale
of 0-5, the two outcomes post respective scores of
4.2 and 4.1.
Customer advocacy growth, which alongside
satisfaction and loyalty completes the trifecta
of customer-centric focuses, also represents a
particularly coveted customer experience outcomes.
Businesses assess a 4.0 ranking to such a result.
Other pivotal customer experience outcomes
include “Improved understanding of customers”
(3.8) and “improved reputation” (3.6). The two
outcomes align with the “gain customer insights”
and “reduce complaints” objectives.
callcenter-iq.com 12
Q5
How important are the following customer
experience outcomes?

1 2 3 4 5

Revenue growth

Cost reduction

Call deflection/
volume reduction

Prompt increased
spending/repeat
business from
customers

Gain in market
share

Profit growth

Customer satisfaction
growth

Customer loyalty
growth

Customer advocacy
growth

Reputational
improvement

Improved
understanding of
customers

Media coverage

Industry awards

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 13
While today’s businesses are not developing their
customer experiences for the primary purpose of
increasing revenue or reducing costs, business
outcomes do matter. Their importance rankings do
not trump those of the aforementioned customer-
minded objectives—and thus do not dispel the
notion that many businesses see concepts like
customer satisfaction and customer loyalty as
acceptable ends rather than revenue-conditioned
means—but they definitely help businesses assess
their experience strategies.
On Metrics: Connecting Performance to Outcomes
On the one hand, the clear articulation of customer
experience objectives makes contact center
“metrics” seem insignificant. Why should a
business worry about intermediary “scores” when
it can focus on how successfully it achieves its
overarching objectives?
While perhaps positioned rhetorically, that question
is not without a very valid answer.
Overarching outcomes like revenue and satisfaction
increases are the product of numerous intermediary
movements. Expertly selected metrics help a
business optimize those intermediary components
and thus optimally achieve their core objectives.
To assure ideal output from the people, processes
and technology involved in the customer experience
mix, the business must drive the organizational
conditions that best drive the final outcome.
In addition to driving performance, intermediary
metrics also serve to contextualize outcomes.
Awareness of increased satisfaction, loyalty,
advocacy and revenue might be rewarding, but
it paints a decidedly limited picture. It does not
inherently reveal the specific conditions that are
driving the desirable outcomes and does not
identify the microscopic conditions that could be
bottlenecking the final outcomes.
Naturally—and most importantly--outcome data
alone provides no indication of whether or not it is
being optimized. Is the current level of customer
loyalty good because it is better than where it
was last year or bad because it is not as high as it
should be?
The “profit growth” and “driving repeat business”
outcomes register with scores of 3.5/5. Businesses
ascribe a 3.3 to revenue growth, a 3.3 to increased
market share and a 3.2 to cost reduction.
Outcomes of considerably lesser importance
concern vanity. Businesses rate the importance of
“media coverage” and “industry awards” at 2.2
and 2.1, respectively.
Answering that question requires understanding
how each microscopic metric impacts the
macroscopic outcome and then zeroing in on those
with the greatest ramifications. If an organization
is confident that its performance is optimal, it can
more confidently accept its results as optimal.
To the extent that they directly assess performance
against core objectives, metrics like CSat score and
retention rate are naturally popular with businesses.
Respondents assess the respective metrics at 4.0/5
and 3.5/5.
They are not, however, the only metrics deemed
important when assessing customer experience
performance.
Service level carries the same 3.5/5 score as
retention rate. First contact resolution follows
closely with a 3.4/5, while time to resolution
commands a 3.2/5 from responding organizations.
Statements on the importance of efficiency and
efficacy, the value ascribed to these metrics
underscores the role action plays in customer
experience strategy. Caring about customers – and
their satisfaction – is important, but true success
is not achieved by concern. It is achieved when
the business uses that concern to drive actual
organizational performance.
Metrics of little importance to contemporary
businesses are blockage (1.7), transfer rate (2.1),
self-service utilization rate (2.2), call deflection rate
(2.3) and contact volume by channel (2.3).
callcenter-iq.com 14
Q6
How important are the following metrics?

1 2 3 4 5

Average handle time

First call resolution

Call deflection rate

Average speed of
answer

Service level

After call work

Hold time

Customer effort score

Customer satisfaction
score

Self-service utilization
rate

Abandon rate

Transfer rate

Blockage

Accuracy of agent
information score

Customer loyalty/
retention rate

Time to resolution

Frequency of
customer callback

Net Promoter Score

Social media feedback

score
Contact volume by
channel

Employee satisfaction
score

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 15
On Interactions: Connecting Performance to the
Customer
Properly selected metrics create an alignment
between organizational performance and customer
experience outcomes.
Though pivotal, that alignment represents only one
piece of the performance puzzle.
Just as customer experience results are of direct
importance to the business but not so much to the
customer, the connection between metrics and
experience outcomes is a business-centric focus. An
organization uses metrics to signal and drive the
operational performance that optimizes outcomes,
but a customer’s concern is how that performance
manifests as an actual interaction experience.
Since that interaction experience plays an
instrumental role in driving customer-oriented
results like increased satisfaction and loyalty—
two popular “outcomes” for organizations—it
is important to understand how performance
is shaping those interactions. Aggregate
performance statistics mean nothing if they do not
speak to the actual experience being created.
To properly incorporate this perspective into
performance management strategy, a business
must identify the interaction elements of particular
value to customers. Great experiences might
foster satisfaction and loyalty, but what makes an
experience great?
Accuracy, says today’s business community.
It might not represent a popular brand promise, but
it does play a significant role in the engagement
experience. Businesses assess accuracy’s impact on
interaction quality at a 4.1/5.
“It must be simplistic, efficient and accurate,”
says Harte Hanks’ Andrew Harrison of the optimal
customer experience.
“They’ve got something to do, they want to do it
efficiently, and they want to be done with it,” adds
IQ Services’ Burke.
Other notable success factors include “quality
resolutions” (4.0/5), a human-to-human connection
between agent and customer (3.6/5), an agent’s
empowerment/ability to offer resolutions without
additional approval or delay (3.6/5) and first contact
resolution (3.6/5).
Harte Hanks’ Harrison is a particular proponent of
the human-to-human connection.
“If you can not only pick up the call and answer the
customer’s questions but do so while speaking in
their voice and show that you actually understand
and care – that you’re actually listening – you
create a delightful experience,” says Harrison.
Less relevant interaction elements include offering
the ability to span channels within a single
interaction (2.5/5), assuring agents can access past
customer interaction information regardless of
channel (2.7/5) and minimal transfers (2.7/5).
The importance hierarchy reveals the importance of
interactional substance. A business that provides
the right information and the right resolution on
the first call is doing right by its customers.
“Omni-channel” elements like seamless channel
spanning are not irrelevant, but they do not play
as integral a role in the experience. A customer
might appreciate the ability to switch between
channels without having to restate information,
but his bigger concerns are that his questions get
answered and that his issues get resolved.
callcenter-iq.com 16
Q7
How important are the following interaction
elements?
1 2 3 4 5

Speed

Accuracy

Occurs in customer’s
preferred channels

Details from previous

interactions are available
to agents (in same
channel)
Customer can span
channels during single
interaction
Customer can span
channels and details from
previous interactions are
available to agents

Few or zero
transfers

Personalization

Personal connection
between agent &
customer (relationship,
conversation, etc)

Resolution on first
contact

Quality resolution

Resolution consistent
with customer’s first
demand

Low customer
effort

Agent empowered to
give solution (without
additional approval/
delay)

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 17
Delivering the Customer
Experience
Clarity on the appropriate objectives, outcomes,
metrics and experiential elements assists with
calibrating the effort, but it assures neither action
nor results. Knowing what is right for customers
and most valuable for the business is not the same
as offering those rights and creating that value.
The customer experience function, like all
businesses, must operate with cognizance of the
difference between talking and walking. And
insofar as the customer experience is perceived
as an important business objective that requires
action, businesses must operate with cognizance of
the fact that walking is the behavior that matters.
By not only articulating their various customer
experience objectives but demonstrating clear
synergy between those objectives, the majority of
businesses reveal that bottlenecks will not come
in the form of philosophy. Businesses know what
matters to them and what matters to customers
Customer Experience Outcomes: Strong Alignment,
Weak Performance
When it comes to the customer experience,
priorities breed performance.
Asked to grade their success in driving customer
experience outcomes, respondents reveal a
hierarchy that aligns closely with the way they value
those priorities.
Growth in customer satisfaction, loyalty and
advocacy, which businesses define as the three
most important customer experience outcomes, are
the ones for which they are enjoying the greatest
levels of success.
The consistency continues for the next two
outcomes—improving customer understanding
and reputation the next most valued and next most
realized outcomes.
Alignment also exists at the bottom of the ladder.
Businesses do not believe “industry awards” and
“media coverage” represent meaningful outcomes,
and they are not notably achieving those outcomes.
Organizations are not successful at deflecting calls,
and they do not necessarily believe they need to be.
and therefore know what they must achieve
when devising and executing customer experience
strategies.
Unfortunately, many other potential bottlenecks
do still exist. Knowing what matters to the
customer experience is not the same as knowing
how to deliver it. Knowing the potential value of
a customer experience strategy is not the same as
knowing how to win organizational support for
the initiative. Knowing how a customer experience
should transform is not the same as knowing how
to break the organizational inertia that prevents
that transformation.
A business might possess the right mindset, but it is
the manifestation of that mindset that determines
success. An inquiry into the customer experience
therefore requires a comparison between the type
of experience businesses believe they should be
offering and the one they are actually offering.
The connection between performance priorities and
performance scores does, however, come with two
notable points of divergence.
One concerns profit growth. While businesses
ascribe a comparatively solid level of importance
to profitability, they have not proven particularly
successful in doing so. Of the outcomes assessed
by respondents, it was deemed the seventh-most
important but only the eleventh-most successful.
The other, which is a considerably more
macroscopic disparity, involves disconnect between
value and success. While the hierarchies are
generally similar, the performance grades are
dramatically weaker than the value scores.
Priority outcomes like satisfaction, loyalty and
advocacy, for instance, possess respective value
scores of 4.2, 4.1 and 4.0. Their performance
scores, however, register at 3.0, 2.7 and 2.6.
The disparity exists throughout the food chain.
Low priority objectives like industry awards, media
coverage and call deflection possess respective
value marks of 2.1, 2.2 and 2.9, but they command
performance grades of only 1.3, 1.6 and 2.2.
callcenter-iq.com 18
Q8
How well does your organization achieve these
outcomes?

1 2 3 4 5

Revenue growth

Cost reduction

Call deflection/
volume reduction

Prompt increased
spending/repeat
business from
customers

Gain in market
share

Profit growth

Customer satisfaction
growth

Customer loyalty
growth

Customer advocacy
growth

Reputational
improvement

Improved
understanding of
customers

Media coverage

Industry awards

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 19
From the disparity emerges a clear conclusion:
performance is not optimal. Businesses view
certain customer experience outcomes as pivotal—
and none as truly irrelevant—but are not achieving
any with aplomb.
Customer Experience Metrics: Tradition and
Traditional Mediocrity
On the surface, performance related to metrics
adheres to a similar pattern.
As is the case with outcomes, performance scores
are highest for the metrics deemed most valuable
(CSat score and service level, in this case). As is the
case with outcomes, performance scores for those
metrics trail the corresponding value assessments.
Organizations, therefore, are not achieving
performance consistent with the significance they
ascribe to key metrics.
The metrics and outcome performance landscapes
are not, however, without a fundamental point of
divergence.
That divergence concerns the performance level
associated with several metrics that do not fare
impressively on the importance scale.
According to respondents, performance for metrics
like average handle time, hold time, abandon rate
and average speed of answer, which are deemed
to be of moderate importance to businesses, is
comparatively stellar. Businesses rate the value
of the aforementioned metrics at 2.4, 2.7, 2.8
and 3.0 but performance at 3.2, 2.8, 3.0 and 3.2,
respectively.
That positive differential does not exist for any of
the metrics deemed more important. Businesses,
therefore, are more consistently achieving the more
moderate of their performance goals.
While there is logic to that notion – it is easier to
meet lower expectations – it is counterintuitive
from a priority standpoint. Since effort should
intuitively be proportionate to priority, the
differential should be consistent throughout.
A business should not be inherently better at
achieving lower priority goals (which are easier to
achieve but also warrant less effort) than higher
priority goals (which are more difficult to achieve
but command more attention).
The hierarchical consistency of customer experience
outcomes supports this notion; businesses were not
routinely over-delivering in their low-priority areas.
Their performance levels were consistent—and
consistently low.
Moreover, the fact that performance for lower
priority metrics like average handle time (3.2
performance; 2.4 importance) notably exceeds
that for higher priority metrics like customer
retention rate (2.7 performance; 3.5 importance)
They might be channeling their efforts correctly, but
they are not supporting those efforts with enough
ferocity.
and first contact resolution (2.8 performance; 3.4
importance) renders the expectation discussion
moot. Performance for lower priority metrics
is not simply favorable in the context of lower
expectations; it is favorable in comparison to higher
priority metrics.
Tradition represents a potential culprit. Insofar
as metrics like average handle time and average
speed of answer have long reigned as standard
indications of contact center performance,
businesses are potentially conditioned to deliver in
those regards. Their contact center and customer
experience functions were built to keep handle
time and answer speed low. As a result, they
continue to do so even though such metrics are no
longer considered meaningful customer experience
barometers.
Insofar as they are either newer—or at least
newer priorities—customer-oriented metrics
naturally inspire performance gaps for businesses.
Organizations believe those metrics matter, but
they are less clear—or at least less consistently
successful—in how to translate that importance
into performance.
Agency also plays a relevant role. Metrics like
average speed of answer, which help to measure
operational efficiency, fall more clearly under
the auspices of the organization. If the business
wants to answer interactions more quickly, it can
construct a customer experience function that does
so. If a business wants to improve average handle
time, it can directly build that demand into its
employee management strategy.
A business can certainly take measures to improve
customer-oriented metrics like CSat score and
retention rate, but it has less overt control over
the outcome. If it hires enough staff to cover the
phones, its average speed of answer will meet
expectations. If it introduces supposedly customer-
centric elements to its interaction, it might or might
not make customers more satisfied and loyal.
Superior performance for operational metrics is,
therefore, not necessarily a sign that the business
is trying harder to improve those metrics. It does,
however, mean that the effort (whether significant
or insignificant) it is committing to customer-
oriented metrics is not producing the optimal
outcome. That effort must either be improved or
recalibrated.
callcenter-iq.com 20
Q9
How well does your business perform against
these metrics?
1 2 3 4 5

Average handle time

First call resolution

Call deflection rate

Average speed of
answer

Service level

After call work

Hold time

Customer effort score

Customer satisfaction
score

Self-service utilization
rate

Abandon rate

Transfer rate

Blockage

Accuracy of agent
information score

Customer loyalty/
retention rate

Time to resolution

Frequency of
customer callback

Net Promoter Score

Social media feedback

score
Contact volume by
channel

Employee satisfaction
score

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 21
Customer Experience Elements: Does the Customer
See What the Business Feels
If the business values the customer experience and
cares about driving satisfaction, its mentality should
theoretically produce interactions of the utmost
quality. Those interactions, after all, represent
the most direct link between brand and customer
and thus the most obvious pathway to customer
satisfaction.
Businesses acknowledge that their interactions are
not yet of the utmost quality. They do, however,
believe their delivery of key interaction elements is
far nearer to valuation than it is for many high-
priority outcomes and metrics.
Accuracy (4.1), quality of resolution (4.0) and
personal connections between agents and
customers (3.6), the three elements business deem
most theoretically important to the interaction
experience, are the three strongest components
of actual interactions. Asked to assess how their
customers would score performance against those
metrics, respondents provide respective scores of
3.6, 3.5 and 3.4.
The same connection generally exists at the other
end of the spectrum. Channel spanning within
the interaction (2.5), channel spanning over time
(2.7) and offering interactions in the customer’s
preferred channel (3.4) are three of the four least
important interaction elements, and they are the
ones for which performance is weakest (2.3, 2.4,
2.9, respectively). Performance trails value, but it
does not do so as notably as it does for customer
experience.
While there are some disparities between the value
and performance hierarchies—speed, for instance,
fares better on the latter—the pattern holds true
for all but one metric. Performance scores trail,
albeit narrowly, corresponding value scores.
Customer Experience Elements: Driving
Improvement at the Interaction Level
Businesses might see accuracy as the most
important interaction element, but they believe
improvements in resolution quality will present
more marginal value.
Asked to identify their commitment to improving
interaction elements, businesses confirm that
resolution quality will command the most attention
over the next 6-18 months. Respondents rate that
commitment level at a 4.0/5.
Accuracy is not, however, fading out of focus.
With a score of 3.9/5, it represents the second
greatest improvement priority.
“Few or zero transfers” represents the lone
exception. It is third-least important on the value
scale and only a few places higher on performance,
but its performance score (2.9) actually exceeds its
value score (2.7). That positive differential does not
exist for any other metric.
Data for interaction elements aligns nicely
with that for metrics and outcomes. Like the
operational metrics, businesses possess a strong
degree of agency when it comes to customer
interactions. They cannot account for every
variable and individual customer, but they can
assure the mechanics of the interaction are up to
par. If accuracy, resolution and human-to-human
interactions matter, businesses can work to directly
foster those qualities.
What businesses cannot do is assure a perfect
translation between interaction elements (and
efficiency metrics) and favorable outcomes. Part of
that is attributable to the sum being greater than
the parts; interactions are not the only aspect of
the customer experience, and important interaction
elements are therefore not the only drivers of
customer satisfaction.
Part of that, meanwhile, is potentially attributable
to businesses understanding the importance of the
various interaction elements. Performance levels
might land within the general ballpark of value
scores, but if the value scores are too low, then
the even lower performance scores will not drive
optimal customer experience results.
The answer to better customer experience
outcomes and metrics scores may lie in the extent
to which businesses still aim to improve interaction
elements.
Other key improvement areas include
personalization (3.7/5), first contact resolution
(3.7/5), personal connections between agents and
customers (3.7/5) and reducing customer effort
(3.7/5).
Less significant focuses, meanwhile, include
channel spanning within a single interaction (3.0/5),
channel spanning over time (3.1/5), and honoring a
customer’s channel preference (3.4/5).
The data might confirm resolution quality and
accuracy as the biggest focuses moving forward,
but it also reveals a sweeping discontent with
existing performance levels. That even the low-
callcenter-iq.com 22
Q10
How would customers grade your organization when
it comes to the following interaction elements?
1 2 3 4 5

Speed

Accuracy

Occurs in customer’s
preferred channels
Details from previous
interactions are available
to agents (in same
channel)
Customer can span
channels during single
interaction
Customer can span
channels and details from
previous interactions are
available to agents

Few or zero
transfers

Personalization

Personal connection
between agent &
customer (relationship,
conversation, etc)

Resolution on first
contact

Quality resolution

Resolution consistent
with customer’s first
demand

Low customer
effort

Agent empowered to
give solution (without
additional approval/
delay)

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 23
value “omni-channel” elements will command solid
attention suggests that businesses want to improve
the totality of interactions.
That the top of the pyramid generally aligns with
value scores, meanwhile, suggests that businesses
are not radically second-guessing their importance
assessments. They are already best at delivering
accuracy, resolution and human-to-human
connections, but that status quo superiority is not
enough to spur complacency. The concepts are
important to the interaction experience, and they
will continue to be important to the interaction
experience.
Perfecting the Customer
Experience
Interaction elements might play an instrumental
role in driving customer experience results, but they
are ultimately results themselves. Like outcomes
and metrics, they serve to benchmark performance
more than they do to define the precise
composition of a business’ customer experience.
And though it is necessary for establishing strategic
priorities and assessing return on investments and
initiatives, performance benchmarking does not
capture the totality of the customer experience
challenge. It does not fundamentally account for
transformations in the marketplace, and it does not
wholly address the mechanics of execution.
Data related to management structures, objectives
and performance establishes a vital framework for
tackling the customer experience challenges of
today and tomorrow. It does not reveal precisely
what occurs within that framework.
“We’re typically focused on why the numbers
are moving,” explains Harte Hanks’ Harrison.
“Is it something we did? Is it an environmental
influence? KPIs and outcomes do not answer
that.”
“When I see a company that is solely focused on
scores as the measure of whether or not they are
The most notable misalignments between existing
importance scores, performance assessments and
improvement commitments concern personalization
and reducing customer effort. Neither is considered
one of the five most important interaction elements
and neither is rated as a particularly successful part
of status quo interactions. Both, however, are in
focus moving forward.
That focus does not suggest that businesses believe
the two interaction elements are suddenly of
immense importance. It does, however, reveal that
businesses believe there is work to be done in those
areas and above average value to be gained from
doing that work.
succeeding in their customer experience efforts,
I know that they’re in for a tough and ultimately
unsatisfying journey,” adds InMoment’s Mayne.
“Scores are great indicators, but they can’t help
companies understand why customers are satisfied
or unsatisfied. They also fail to provide direction on
what to fix, and what to reinforce.”
He continues, “CSAT and Loyalty metrics are
extremely helpful in giving companies an indication
of how customers feel about their experience.
However, tapping into the unstructured data –
comments, social stories – as well as bringing
contextual data from CRM and other systems
into the picture can give you a much more
comprehensive view.”
Whether focusing on driving accuracy and quality
at the interaction level or moving the customer
satisfaction, loyalty and revenue needles at the
end of the chain, businesses will need to devise
the right answer for every customer experience
challenge that approaches. They will need to forge
connections with the customers they are serving,
jump in front of marketplace trends and explore
means of operationalizing their philosophies and
value structures.
callcenter-iq.com 24
Connecting to Customers
When it comes to business strategy, the concept
of customer centricity is at constant risk of
succumbing to a massive irony.
It, by definition, implies centering operations
around the customer. Whether one colloquially
refers to that notion as “getting closer to the
customer,” “doing right by the customer,” or
“giving the customer what he wants,” it very much
implies that the satisfaction of a business’ own
interests cannot be a precursor or bottleneck to
satisfying customer interests.
Businesses will approach that concept from
different perspectives—some will legitimately assure
that business interests and customer interests are
precisely aligned, while others will believe that
business interests are met as a consequence of
satisfying customer interests—but they do not
dispute its fundamental philosophy. If a business
is only accidentally or secondarily achieving a
customer’s interests, its claim to the customer
centric label is beyond dubious.
Appreciation for the concept of customer centricity
is not, however, synonymous with appreciation for
customer centric behavior. Wanting to do right by
customers is only part of the battle; the balance
entails figuring out how customers define that
right. Deciding to do conceivably customer-centric
things from within the insular boardroom is not
fundamentally more customer-centric than acting
entirely in accordance with short-term business
objectives. To escalate to the point of customer
centricity, a business’ approach must be rooted in
the voice of the customer.
The manners in which a business captures
that voice of the customer will simultaneously
demonstrate a business’ desire to get “close to the
customer” and affect the quality of information it
receives.
For better or worse, the most popular ticket to
closeness is the customer feedback survey.
Not simply the only voice of the customer tool used
by the majority of businesses, the survey is more
than twice as widespread as all but one option.
A whopping 91% of businesses learn about
customers using formal surveys and questionnaires.
Not surprised by the data, IQ Services’ Burke
Connecting to Other Stakeholders
Data source is not the only bottleneck on customer
centricity.
Indicative of the aforementioned irony, businesses
do not rely exclusively on customer insights to
assess the customer experience. It is a business
endeavor, and organizations afford significant
nonetheless warns of the harm associated with
using survey feedback as a chief source of customer
insights.
“The downside of relying on peoples’ memories of
interactions is that all too often, the experience as
it’s remembered is colored by emotion, fogged by
the passage of time and was probably somewhat
different than the experience that was delivered,”
explains Burke. “That is especially true if the
experience was somehow negative.”
Given its historical prominence and potential for
alignment with specific business endeavors, the
feedback survey’s popularity is far from surprising.
More surprising is the percentage of businesses not
relying on some seemingly orthodox alternatives.
Unsolicited feedback shared during customer
interactions, for instance, is a source of customer
information for only 49% of businesses. That
might make unsolicited feedback the second
most popular source of customer insight, but it
reveals that the majority of businesses do not learn
about customers in that manner. For 51% of
organizations, proactive customer feedback falls
completely on deaf ears.
Insofar as customer-oriented metrics are very
popular, a sizable number of businesses access the
voice of the customer via qualitative assessments
of interactions. By learning how their business is
performing during customer interactions, 43%
believe they can simultaneously learn about the
customers.
While qualitative interaction assessments serve as
proxies for the voice of the customer, businesses
do not ascribe the same value to all performance
indicators. Changes in interaction volume (19%)
and purchasing (23%) are not as commonly used to
gain customer insights.
Despite being predicated on providing in-contact
information, interaction analytics are not a
universal source of customer insights. Only 30% of
businesses rely on contact analytics to get closer to
customers.
An information source in 41% of businesses, online
sentiment is a more popular option.
customer experience influence to internal business
perspectives. The customer might be “right,” but
he is not the only one to whom the business listens.
The existing customer’s perspective is the most
important source of evaluation (4.0/5), but many
others are nearly as important. Senior customer
callcenter-iq.com 25
Q11 How do you acquire the voice of the customer?

Surveys/
questionnaires
90.6%
- proactive

Inbound/
unsolicited 49.1%
feedback

Social media/
online
41.5%
sentiment

In-contact
analytics 30.2%

Qualitative
assessments of 43.4%
interactions

Changes (or
stagnancy) in 22.6%
purchasing

Changes (or
stagnancy)
in number of 18.9%
interactions

callcenter-iq.com 26
Q12
How important are these opinions when evaluating
the customer experience?
1 2 3 4 5

C-level/executive team

Senior contact center/

customer experience
management

Middle contact center/

customer experience
management

Front line agents

Non-customer experience
employees

Existing customers

Previous customers

Prospective customers

Competitors

Media/reviewers/
bloggers

Social media users

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 27
management leaders (3.9/5), middle customer
management managers (3.9/5), the C-suite (3.8/5)
and front line agents (3.7/5) also wield considerable
influence in performance evaluation.
That is not necessarily unexpected given the
realities of business. What is unexpected, however,
is the comparatively limited influence afforded to
former and prospective customers.
Even though their input might hold the key
to eliminating future attrition (and to winning
back lost customers), the perspective of previous
customers is rated at a lesser 3.2/5.
The Transforming Platform
Confident in the multi-channel and omni-channel
revolutions, many customer experience thought
leaders stress the use of “contact center” rather
than “call center.”
Customer interactions are no longer restricted to
the phone, these individuals argue.
While that is certainly true, they primarily take place
in a telephony environment.
Offered by 94% of businesses, telephony is the
most commonly offered contact channel but not
dramatically more widespread than email (92%)
and official websites (86%). Where it establishes
its dominance, however, is in the utilization arena.
69% of use telephony for high-touch customer
engagements. The same is true for email in only
34% of businesses and websites (naturally) in only
6%.
The next-most popular high-touch channel is the
in-person environment, but its utilization for that
purpose clocks in at a considerably lesser 47%.
That high-touch capabilities exceed utilization for
virtually every conceivable channel suggests that
the business is not the only bottleneck. Customer
demand has evidently not compelled businesses to
offer a broader palette of high-touch options.
Mobile and Social Gain Traction
No specific channel is connoted by the multi-
channel and omni-channel movements, which
instead bring the customer experience onto the
myriad of potential engagement platforms.
Through their connection to customer behavior,
social and mobile serve to underscore the omni-
channel transformation and thus come to represent
faces of the movement.
“The customer experience might have driven
people to leave,” explains Harte Hanks’ Harrison.
“But if it’s improved in a manner that will make
them happy, those departed customers will
potentially come back.”
A 3.3/5, meanwhile, is afforded to the prospective
customers whose perspectives stand to reveal how
a business can increase market share.
Not the top influencers, past and prospective
customers are not the weakest influencers.
That distinction applies to entities like social media
users (2.3/5), reviewers/journalists/bloggers (2.4/5)
and non-customer experience employees (2.6/5).
Businesses do anticipate that changing over
the next six to eighteen months. Indicative of
a changing landscape, high-touch engagement
will increase for virtually every channel except
telephony. Today’s organizations absolutely do
foresee a shift away from the “call center.”
But just as one must exercise considerably restraint
when referring to an omni-channel status quo,
he must also recognize the limited velocity of
landscape changes. More contact channels will
become full-service engagement media, but
telephony will remain the most popular host for
high-touch brand-to-customer dialogue. Email,
in some form, will be offered by more businesses
than telephony (95% vs. 92%), but telephony will
remain the most popular high-touch channel (67%
vs. 54% for email and in-person).
“The research tells me that companies need to
expand rather than eliminate the number and
types of communication channels they offer
customers,” explains InMoment’s Mayne. “It’s not
about shifting to ‘new’ ways of engaging, it’s about
offering more.”
The time has absolutely arrived for businesses to
assure their customer experiences expand into
a wide array of contact channels. The time to
dispute telephony’s label as the most significant
channel has not yet arrived.
While omni-channel customers can demand
interactions in any channels of their choosing, they
actually do spend much of their day-to-day lives
in the mobile and social channels. Their organic
behavior functions as a de facto statement of
channel preference and thus turns the abstract
ideal of omni-channel into a relatable reality.
callcenter-iq.com 28
That customers communicate casually in social and
mobile obviously does not meant they desire, let
alone expect, to engage with businesses in those
channels. The findings suggest that many do not.
But the fact that customers are comfortable in such
channels makes their potential interest in using
them for brand interactions easier to envision and
accept. The logical leap becomes smaller, and the
compulsion to act becomes bigger.
A broad look at the trend towards omni-channel
is therefore enhanced by a more granular look
at trends in favor of mobile and social customer
engagement experiences.
That granular look reveals that businesses plan to
grow their mobile and social support experiences
over the next six to eighteen months.
Presently, social plays absolutely zero role in the
support experiences for 23% of businesses. Mobile
plays no role for 37%. After eighteen months, the
social number will be more than halved (to 11%)
and the mobile number will be reduced by nearly
two thirds (to 14%). The majority of businesses
abstaining from social and mobile plan to cease
that policy.
Not simply looking to pay lip service to the ideas of
social and mobile support, businesses also plan to
expand their offerings.
When it comes to mobile, the number of
businesses offering support for all issues will nearly
double (from 19% to 35%). The percentages
of businesses using it exclusively for outbound
Scaling for Success
Establishing a vision is essential part of driving
action. It can also be a hazardous part of the
process.
Customer experience visions that establish clear
performance benchmarks, identify clear challenges
and present clear solutions generally assume a
static marketplace. They focus on taking the
business from a baseline state to an optimal one.
In reality, the customer experience strategy is very
vulnerable to marketplace variables. One minor
shift in the scenario—be it a change in customer
sentiment, a change in product development
or a change in the sales process or a change in
consumption patterns—will impact the nature and
magnitude of the challenges facing the business. If
a business wants to achieve its desired results, its
people, processes and technologies must be able to
adapt to that transformation.
“Companies must operate in very different ways
than in the past,” offers InMoment’s Mayne.
“Creating and executing on five-year roadmaps is
unimaginable.
communication or for routing customers to other
channels will shrink (from 12% to 11% in the
former and from 6% to 3% in the latter).
Presently accommodating all issues in 20% of
businesses, social will do so in 37% of businesses
after eighteen months. The percentage
of businesses using it strictly for outbound
communication will fall from 17% to 11%, while
routing-only use will decline from 15% to 12%.
Those who believe omni-channel requires complete
organizational neutrality—the business must
serve the customer wherever he wants to be
served—will not be satisfied with these numbers.
Even if all businesses adhere to their plans for the
next eighteen months, the majority will not be
accommodating all support issues in their mobile
and social channels. The majority of organizations,
therefore, have absolutely no way of guaranteeing
they can serve the customer wherever he wants to
be served.
Those who fear indifference to the omni-channel
issue, however, will find comfort in the data.
Businesses are committed to adding and improving
social and mobile support elements.
“These forums can be very intimate and effective,
particularly for some demographics,” declares
InMoment’s Mayne. “I believe that social isn’t
just a trend but the beginning of a fundamentally
different way of engaging with customers.”
“The best way to stay agile is to change your
mindset and understand that your customers,
your products and your technology will change
- and change quickly. It’s not necessarily about
choosing the right platform or program now, but
understanding that whatever you select must be
able to evolve”.”
Scalability and agility, therefore, represent essential
pieces of the customer experience puzzle.
Alarmingly, they do not represent strong suits for
today’s businesses.
There is no variable for which businesses possess a
stellar level of status quo scalability. They identify
a surge of inbound complaints as the variable for
which they are best able to adapt, but in providing
a scalability score of just 2.9/5, businesses are not
demonstrating much confidence.
Other scenarios for which they are comparatively
scalable include interaction volume (2.6/5),
growth in market share (2.6/5), new product
launches (2.5/5) and expansion into new markets
(2.4/5). Those modest scores effectively assure
that customer experiences will suffer, at least to a
degree, if any of these variables are introduced.
callcenter-iq.com 29
Q13 Are mobile and social on the rise?
None
Only outbound information
 nly inbound feedback collection (no response
O
 nly inbound for routing (ex - customers who
O
Tweet about a billing issue are given a number
to call)
S upport provided for low-touch, transactional
provided)
matters
Support provided for all issues

Mobile (Present
Day)

36.9% 12.3% 1.5% 6.2% 24.6% 18.5%

Mobile (After 18
Months)

13.8% 10.8% 4.60% 3.10% 30.80% 35.40%

Social (Present
Day)

23.10% 16.90% 1.50% 15.40% 20.00% 20.00%

Social (After 18
Months)

10.80% 10.80% 4.60% 12.30% 21.50% 36.90%

callcenter-iq.com 30
Q14
How successfully can your organization scale for the
following?
1 2 3 4 5

Interaction volume

Resolving customer
support issues via social
media

External customer
complaints (social media,
press, etc)

Inbound customer
complaints (major good
or service malfunction,
recall, etc)
New/changing
demand for contact
channels

New product
launches

Trends in customer
insights

Trends in marketplace/
competitive
practices

Growth in market
share (within same
market)

Expansion into new

markets

New infrastructure/
architecture (switch to
cloud-based technology,
etc)

New operational
technology (desktop,
CRM, etc)

New customer interaction

platforms (virtual agents,
self-service, mobile
applications)

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 31
That suffering will be greater if the variables are
changing demands for contact channels (1.7/5), the
introduction of new customer interaction platforms
(2.0/5), support correspondence in social media
(2.1/5), changes in marketplace or competitive
practices (2.1/5) or the initiation of new operational
technology (2.1/5).
Technology as an Answer
While technology presents its own scalability
challenges, it also empowers businesses to carry
out their customer experience objectives. From
facilitating personalized connections, to improving
interaction accuracy, to managing the efficiency of
the workforce, technology solutions are a gateway
to customer experience success.
Gateway is the key word, because such solutions
ultimately represent tools for conquering challenges
and subsequently carrying out established
customer experience objectives. An outcome is not
valuable because it is associated with technology;
technology is valuable because it can produce an
outcome.
“Success is not just about how well your agents
handle your customers, it’s also about how well
your technology handles your customers,” says
IQ Services’ Burke. “Whether you’re a brand
manager, CCXO, or contact center manager, you
owe it to your customers, your brand, and yourself
to know that your contact center technology is
defending your brand promise and not throwing it
in the tank.”
Sure enough, purchasing trends align with
customer experience strategic priorities
Consistent with the value ascribed to customer
relationships, a healthy amount of businesses are
committed to initiating journey mapping solutions.
31% of businesses say they are not using a journey
mapping solution but plan to start over the next
eighteen months. No other solution will command
the same degree of new investment.
Some will come very close; those, too, are aligned
with strategic priorities. 30% of businesses plan to
introduce mobile application solutions. An equal
percentage plan to purchase mobile customer
experience solutions. Improved mobile support
represents a major priority for the next eighteen
months.
Interaction analytics represents one of the least
prominent options for collecting customer insights.
To change that, 27% of businesses will make their
initial forays into the world of real-time analytics.
Given scalability deficiencies, the fact that 26% of
businesses plan to introduce cloud contact center
solutions is far from surprising.
The value ascribed to the interaction experience—
and specifically to elements like human-to-human
connections—necessitates a need for improvement
Since no such variable seems unrealistic or even
unlikely in today’s flux marketplace, customer
experience assessments need to be discounted. As
far from perfect as it is in status quo conception,
performance will be even worse in practice.
in the agent pool. For 26% of businesses, the
answer to getting there lies in the introduction of
eLearning and training technology.
Insofar as many integral technology pieces already
exist within most customer experience functions,
looking only at new investment naturally paints a
limited picture. An inquiry into plans for increased
investment is also relevant.
That inquiry produces the revelation that hardware
and infrastructure are top priorities.
68% of businesses plan to increase their hardware
and headset investments. 66% say the same about
infrastructure and servers.
Both address factors like accuracy and reliability;
the latter also speaks to the need for scalability in
the constantly evolving marketplace.
By revealing a commitment to improve all
interaction elements, businesses demonstrate the
importance of interaction quality. Some interaction
elements are more important than others, but all
play a role, and all need to be optimized. To assess
that optimization, 66% will increase utilization of
quality management tools.
Integral to assessing and improving the customer
experience but not exhaustively covered in the
status quo, customer feedback is top of mind
for businesses. 60% plan to increase their
investments.
54% will expand their reliance on ACD solutions.
Strategic Initiatives as Answers
Technology provides a means of undertaking
and optimizing strategic endeavors. The nature,
quality and relevance of the endeavors themselves,
therefore, play an enormous role in determining the
relevance of particular technological solutions and
the resonance of their application.
Little variance exists when it comes to jumpstarting
strategic initiatives. A great deal are in the works
for businesses, and no particular initiative is a
runaway favorite.
The slight favorite is establishing a 360 degree view
of the customer. While businesses do not ascribe
significant value to channel spanning, they do
value personalization and relationship-building. A
broader, yet more vivid insight into the customer—
as a customer rather than the person on the other
end of a transaction—plays an integral role in
callcenter-iq.com 32
fulfilling those objectives. 29% of businesses,
therefore, plan to start undertaking this initiative.
28% say the same about accommodating
customers in their channel preferences. Omni-
channel interaction elements did not score highly,
but businesses evidently still value them. That
they are not the most valuable components of an
interaction does not, after all, mean they are not
expected, growingly necessary pieces of the puzzle.
Growing emphasis on customer-centricity does not
mean businesses cannot think about their own
self-interest. It, similarly, does not mean businesses
cannot make internal decisions about how best to
deliver what customers really want. Whether they
are taking the former, glass-half-empty approach
or the latter, glass-half-full one, businesses are
showing that what is on the inside also counts.
26% plan to begin routing multi-channel customers
based on organizational efficiency.
A similar 26% will begin offering proactive
engagement, while 25% will initiate proactive care.
It might be the most popular means of learning
about customers, but businesses have no plans to
remove its spotlight.
As far as existing endeavors go, customer feedback
surveys will command the greatest increase in
attention. 76% plan to increase their reliance on
the practice.
That number is encouraging for a thought
leader like InMoment’s Mayne, who worries that
businesses are not doing enough to capture
customer feedback.
“Opportunities for customers to provide feedback
should be offered at every touch point so that
customers can engage on their own terms,”
says Mayne of one way to improve feedback
initiatives. “Businesses must be able to collect and
surface insights out of all types of data in order to
understand the full customer experience picture. “
64% plan to increasingly empower agents to
provide custom solutions. The increased attention
makes sense in light of the fact that businesses
want to improve resolution quality, first contact
resolution and customer effort. All three improve
when the agent is in position to seamlessly do what
is best for the customer.
Agent coaching and engagement (55%), proactive
customer care (55%) and social engagement (53%)
will also command increased attention.
Similar to the emphasis on eLearning, the coaching
focus speaks to the valuable role the agent plays in
driving customer experience success. The agent’s
ability to connect with customers matters, and the
business’ customer experience philosophies and
strategies will help to create that ability.
“Agents need explicit understanding of their role
in the customer experience,” says InMoment’s
Mayne. “They need to be coached to excel in this
role, and supported in growing in areas where they
fall short.”
callcenter-iq.com 33
CLOUD CONTACT
CENTER TECHNOLOGY:
NOT “IF” BUT “HOW”
By the end of the next eighteen months, 76% of
organizations will be actively investing in cloud
contact center solutions. More than 50% are
already doing so.
The question of whether an organization should
adopt cloud contact center technology is therefore
an obsolete one. Organizations have accepted—if
not downright embraced—the inevitability of “the
cloud” and they are sweepingly committed to
being there.
The widespread acceptance of cloud fosters a new
series of questions related to the technological
revolution. Organizational attention now shifts to
matters like how organizations should integrate
cloud solutions into their contact centers, what
that integration process entails and which aspects
of the business will most notably benefit as a result
of the transition.
The product of an exhaustive quantitative inquiry
into the contact center sphere and guidance
from individuals with experience developing and
implementing cloud technology in a myriad of
different contexts, Call Center IQ’s Executive
Report on Cloud Contact Center Technology
uncovers the multitude of pathways that await
businesses as they proceed with this new breed of
solutions.
Whether an organization plans to initiate or
accelerate its cloud journey, it faces decisions that
come with significant ramifications.
To illuminate the stakes—and thus provide a
valuable roadmap for the cloud journey—this
report begins by investigating the framework of
the modern day contact center.
Where do agents sit within the contemporary
contact center? Which business unit oversees that
contact center function? On what technological
infrastructure is the typical contact center built?
After revealing how the modern contact center
looks, this report then focuses on how it operates.
What objectives are paramount for the contact
center? To what extent are businesses achieving
those objectives? What factors are inhibiting a
more optimal level of success?
From there, attention turns to the impact cloud
technology is playing—and can play—in bridging
the gap between objectives and outcomes.
What role is cloud technology playing in
conquering contact center challenges? What role
should it be playing?
With that line of inquiry cleared up, the report
will focus on the costs and rewards businesses
are experiencing from their cloud initiatives. And
insofar as some costs do exist—and rewards are
not yet being maximized—the report will launch
into an action-oriented conversation about
optimizing their technology investments.
The inevitability of cloud technology does not
imply an inevitability of results. By illuminating the
role of the contact center and the way technology
can assist, this report aims to bring organizations
closer to their desired outcomes.
callcenter-iq.com 34
Methodology and Organizational Demographics
From February through April 2015, Call Center
IQ conducted this research with collaboration
from an audience of customer service, customer
experience and contact center professionals.
Representing buy-side organizations, vendor
organizations and independent consultancies,
respondents contributed insights via a web
survey and/or targeted, one-on-one interviews.
Requests to participate were issued irrespective
of company size, contact center size or region,
assuring that the sample represented a global
customer management audience.
In a testament to the openness of the survey
and to the universal relevance of interest in
contact center technology, actual participation
included organizations of all sizes.
Large companies are definitely not absent from
the sample. 23% of respondents represent an
organization with more than 5,000 employees,
and a total of 51% operate in workforces with
at least 500 on the payroll.
Smaller companies also occupy an ample
portion of the response pool. 30% of
respondent organizations employ fewer than
100 employees, and 21% possess fewer than
50 names on their rosters.
Meet the Modern Contact
Center
The rise of the term “contact center”—and
associated fall of the term “call center”—
speaks to an element of change. Whether
transformed by marketplace conditions,
competitive pressure or a revised approach to
customer engagement, contact centers are not
defined by stagnant, universal tradition.
Similar universality exists when it comes to
contact center size. While 20% of respondent
organizations seat least 1,000 agents and 41%
possess contact center rosters in excess of 100
agents, a substantial 45% seat fewer than 50
agents.
While the number of respondent organizations
that focus primarily on inbound interactions
exceeds the number primarily focused on
outbound ones, the plurality pays significant
attention to both. Of those respondents with
formal contact centers, 48.6% say their center
operates with a blended inbound-outbound
approach. 44.6% are either primarily or
exclusively focused on inbound interactions,
while 6.8% possess a decidedly outbound
focus.
Example respondent job titles included
“VP, Practice Support Services,” “Manager,
Global Customer Experience,” “Director,
Customer Interaction,” “Director, Contact
Center Consulting,” “Senior Customer Service
Supervisor,” “VP, Business Transformation,”
“Director, IT,” “Director of Call Center,”
“Customer Service Manager,” “CEO,” “VP,
Client Delivery,” “VP, Customer Experience,”
“Executive Director,” “Systems Analyst,” “VP,
Technology” and “VP, Customer Care.”
Trends in how they are evolving—from how
they are designed to how they are situated
and managed—help to provide context for the
contemporary contact center environment.
callcenter-iq.com 35
Designing the Modern Contact Center
Not a foreign or strictly aspirational concept, cloud
technology is relevant to the modern contact
center.
26% of organizations rely primarily on
cloud or third-party-hosted contact center
architecture, and 19% do so exclusively. For
one in five organizations, the notion of situating
infrastructural technology on-site is a completely
obsolete one.
An additional 26% believe their infrastructure is
a true hybrid between cloud/hosted and on-
premises, which means cloud technology plays a
substantial role in 52% of today’s contact centers.
While that statistic underscores the widespread
relevance of cloud technology, it does not confirm
the death of the on-premises model. 48% of
organizations continue to situate their contact
centers primarily or exclusively on-premises.
The days of on-premises technology representing
the standard for contact center architecture are,
however, clearly numbered. Roughly 50% of the
hold-outs confirm an intention to begin actively
investing in cloud technology over the next 6-18
months.
“The rate of acceptance of cloud for all functions
is accelerating,” explains Aspect’s Joseph Gagnon.
“This is a testament to the robustness of the cloud
offerings and the care that the cloud vendors are
taking to address the key customer requirements
of security, scale, and reliability.
“Companies are becoming more and more in-tune
with the fact that the cloud lets them leave the
infrastructure heavy lifting to an expert so that
they can focus on the core business and what they
do best.”
And while the significant investment businesses
have in legacy equipment might temporarily
thwart some adoption, Gagnon is confident the
inhibitor will fade with time.
“As this equipment ages and depreciates, we
will see a continued increase in cloud adoption
as companies realize the flexibility, agility
and cost advantages that come with a cloud
implementation are too big to ignore,” says
Gagnon.
Scott Kolman (Genesys), meanwhile, adds that
evolution in security is serving to alleviate concerns
about the transition.
“Recent steps have been taken to increase security,
including using certifications to assure the
reliability of data, giving organizations peace of
mind,” says Kolman.
“Data location is much less important than
the measures taken to secure data,” explains
SmartAction’s Tom Lewis. “An on-premises system
can be just as secure or vulnerable as a cloud-
based deployment depending on implemented
security measures and procedures.
“On-premises control might have previously seemed
attractive, but others have realized that it is easier
to rent or hire someone who knows what they
are doing and will take on the responsibilities for
keeping security up to par.”
While not quite as resonant as those related to
cloud adoption, findings related to staffing also
speak to a transformed contact center reality.
Of the organizations that confirm the existence of
a dedicated contact center function—as opposed
to a mere customer engagement “strategy”—58%
say most or all of their agents work from the
physical site.
The remaining 44% of organizations, therefore,
employ a substantial remote workforce. 12% say
the majority of their agents connect from outside
the physical walls of the contact center.
Fairly constant whether an organization has
one or many physical contact center sites, the
data establishes the contact center as a business
concept rather than a business location.
Certainly a source of variance across organizations,
the nature of that concept also plays an integral
role in revealing the value an organization places
on its contact center and determining the impact
strategic and technological solutions can play in
delivering that value.
callcenter-iq.com 36
Q1
What is your current contact center
architecture?
Entirely On-Premises
29%

Primarily On-Premises
18%

Hybrid On-Premises/
Hosted/Cloud 26%

Primarily Hosted/
Cloud 7%

Entirely Hosted/Cloud
19%

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Q2
How are agents situated within the contact center?

No Formal Contact
Center - “Agents”
15.9%
Interact From Within
Other Departments

Single Contact Center

- Most/All Agents 26.8%
On-Site

Single Contact Center

- Some Agents On- 7.3%
Site, Some Remote

Single Contact
Center - Most Agents 4.9%
Remote

Multiple Contact
Centers - Most/All 22%
Agents On-Site

Multiple Contact
Centers - Some 18.3%
Agents On-Site, Some
Remote

Multiple Contact
Centers - Most 4.9%
Agents Remote

0 5 10 15 20 25 30
callcenter-iq.com 37
Driving the Modern Contact Center
The objectives a business establishes and the value
it assigns to those objectives play instrumental roles
in shaping contact center strategy.
By introducing a why into the conversation, the
objectives provide a firmer ground on which to
develop policies and procedures, make hiring
decisions, define metrics, manage against those
metrics and invest in technology.
When made correctly, each of those decisions
brings an organization closer to achieving its
contact center goals.
An effort to contextualize the contemporary
contact center, therefore, requires an investigation
into the objectives against which businesses are
managing their contact centers.
For today’s businesses, increasing customer
satisfaction is the most notable contact center
focus.
Asked to score contact center management
objectives on a scale of 0-5, respondents assigned
a score of 3.66 to increasing customer satisfaction.
While the score’s distance from 5.00 suggests the
reverence is not universal, more support exists for
driving customer satisfaction than for any other
potential contact center objective.
With a score of 3.41, increasing operational
efficiency represents the second-greatest
management focus for contact centers. Indicative
of the fact that efficiency is not an obsolete
concern, the score also proves that organizations
do not see operational excellence as a philosophical
counter to the notion of customer centricity.
Today’s organizations want to drive satisfaction
while being efficient.
Increasing customer loyalty, which constitutes an
aim beyond mere satisfaction, represents another
popular contact center management objective.
Businesses rate its importance at 3.38.
Gaining customer insights (2.98) and increasing
agent satisfaction (2.97) are also popular contact
center objectives.
The least popular management objectives include
revenue generation through sales (2.21), revenue
generation through increased loyalty (2.32) and
reducing total customer experience costs (2.41).
The comparatively low scores ascribed to those
objectives provide illuminating context for the more
popular contact center objectives.
By scoring revenue from loyalty considerably
lower than they do loyalty itself, businesses are
confirming that a conditional is not attached to the
latter objective. The business sees loyalty itself as a
valuable commodity. It is its own end.
Efficiency, similarly, is not being used as a synonym
for cost savings. While more efficient, more
streamlined operations will typically result in
cost reduction, organizations are not working to
improve efficiency for the sole purpose of driving
down costs. Factors like improving the customer
and agent experiences, which can dovetail from a
more efficient contact center, are also relevant.
That notion carries special relevance for contact
center technology. Whereas efficiency is commonly
touted as a selling point for technological solutions,
such solutions do require an upfront investment.
An organization that sees efficiency as a direct
synonym or instrument for cost reduction would
potentially dwell on the initial price rather than on
the long-term impact.
An organization that sees efficiency as its own
end would theoretically approach a technology
purchase with a clearer cognizance of the overall
return on investment.
callcenter-iq.com 38
Q3
To what extent does your organization manage
against these contact center objectives?
Not at all Significant
0 1 2 3 4 5

Revenue Generation
(Sales Conversions)

Revenue Generation
(Through Customer
Loyalty/Repeat Business)

Increasing Customer
Satisfaction

Increasing Customer
Loyalty

Reducing Cost-per-call

Reducing Total Customer

Experience Costs

Gaining Customer
Insights

Increasing Operational
Efficiency

Increasing Agent/
Employee Satisfaction

Reducing/Optimizing
Call Volume

0 1 2 3 4 5

Not at all Significant

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

callcenter-iq.com 39
Interacting in the Modern Contact Center
No matter the specific construct, objective or focus,
the contact center will ultimately play host to
customer interactions.
And insofar as driving customer satisfaction
and loyalty are paramount business objectives,
interaction quality naturally represents a significant,
high-stakes focus for businesses.
The way a business defines the optimal
interaction—and then goes about delivering it—
will greatly impact its ability to achieve its contact
center goals.
When striving to create the best possible
interaction, businesses most notably focus on
accuracy. Given a rating of 4.10/5, assurance that
the customer gets the right information is the
cornerstone of the engagement process.
Accuracy is not, however, the only item of
significance. With a score of 4.09/5, the ability
to provide a customer’s desired resolution also
represents a pivotal interaction component.
Other key focuses include reliability of the support
process and systems (3.97/5), friendliness of the
agent (3.94/5) and consistency (3.93/5).
To the Cloud
The investigation into the state of the contact
center provides context for strategic decision
making. It defines the ecosystem in which those
decisions are being made and the benchmarks
against which outcomes will be measured.
It does not, however, identify the actual mechanism
through which an organization devises and
implements its strategy. It might reveal what a
business wants to achieve, but it does not reveal
how a business ultimately decides what it will do in
pursuit of that achievement.
When it comes to the topic of cloud contact center
technology, the latter inquiry is a very relevant one.
The people and cultural elements of the contact
center experience can never be ignored. If the staff
does not possess the desire, training and backing
needed to excel, the interaction will doubtfully
possess any of the aforementioned qualities.
Effective technology, however, plays an
instrumental role in three of the five (and an
indirect one in all five). Successful systems facilitate
accurate, consistent and reliable experiences.
Unsuccessful ones cripple the ability to deliver on
those tenets of the interaction.
Insofar as none was scored below a 3.00/5, all
interaction elements possess value. Businesses
view some components as more valuable than
others, but they do not revere anything as a secret
sauce or shortcut. Getting a few things—even very
important ones—right does not entitle a business
to get the remainder wrong.
The interaction elements identified as least
important—maintaining a connection with
the customer as he spans channels (3.02/5),
customization (3.56/5) and customer effort level
(3.61/5)—still matter.
Technology solutions represent possible options for
achieving objectives. The solutions that establish
themselves as the surest ticket to the desired
outcome are the ones that command investment.
Knowing how a business assesses the value and
relevance of tools is therefore the key to knowing
how the business evaluates, implements and
measures cloud solutions.
callcenter-iq.com 40
Q4
How important are the following to the support
experience?
Not at all Extremely important

0 1 2 3 4 5

Consistency (same
caliber of support
regardless of specific
agent and when/
where the interaction
takes place)

Reliability (the support

process/system
functions correctly)

Accessibility(when and
where the customer
wants)

Accuracy (customer
gets the right
information)

Resolve (customer
gets the information/
outcome he wants)

Efficiency (hold
times, agent provides
resolution quickly)

Effort (burden
customer faces when
contacting customer
support)

Friendliness
(demeanor of agent/
communication)

Customization (is the

support experience
tailored to the
customer?)

Connectivity
(organization allows
customer to span
channels; remembers
him on future calls)

0 1 2 3 4 5
Not at all Extremely important

callcenter-iq.com 41
Who Makes the Call? Who Assesses the Decision?
Certain to involve an accompanying financial
impact, decisions to invest in cloud contact center
solutions commonly pass through the executive
rank. A whopping 79% of organizations say the
C-suite plays a role in making decisions related to
cloud technology.
As the name itself suggests, cloud contact
center technology naturally has relevance from a
contact center standpoint and from a technology
standpoint. Predictably, those functions play the
next-most notable roles in the decision-making
process.
The technology side actually wins out. 65% of
respondents say that the IT department is involved
in their cloud investment strategy, while 59% say
the same of the contact center team.
Fundamentally connected to the contact center,
the customer support/experience unit also plays a
notable role in the process. 52% of organizations
run their cloud investment decisions through the
customer support group.
The human resources (4%), marketing (21%), sales
(23%) and operations (43%) departments are less
commonly involved in the process.
Once the cloud solution is implemented, the
perspectives of IT and contact center leaders
take center stage. IT leaders help to evaluate the
technology in 76% of organizations, while contact
center leaders play the assessment role in 72%.
What Matters at the Time of Purchase?
Whether making their first foray into the cloud
or expanding their reliance on the technology,
businesses—and particularly C-level executives,
IT leaders, contact center leaders and customer
support leaders—will naturally evaluate potential
solutions.
When they conduct those evaluations, their
attention first goes to the functionality of the
solution. Asked to rate product elements on a
scale of 0-5, respondents assess the importance of
functionality at a 4.22. No other element carries as
much weight.
The most widespread influencer when it comes to
the upfront investment decision, C-level executives
play a lesser—but still noteworthy—role in the
actual evaluation process. 63% of organizations
say the voice of the C-level matters when
evaluating a cloud implementation.
While IT personnel (40%), contact center agents
(32%) and current customers (32%) represent the
next-most influential groups, their perspective is
irrelevant in the majority of organizations. That
reality exists despite the fact that the three groups
will almost certainly interact with the technology on
a more direct, regular basis than senior leadership.
It also exists despite the fact that customer and
agent satisfaction represent top contact center
objectives.
For many organizations, technology evaluation
evidently remains a game of big picture results
rather than an inquiry into the day-to-day
experience.
Journalists and bloggers (6%), marketing
representatives (9%) and sales representatives (9%)
do not commonly contribute to the evaluation of
cloud technology.
Many, however, carry very substantial weight.
Organizations also believe the impact on the
customer experience (4.16), ease of use (4.07),
financial impact (4.04) and impact on the agent
experience (3.99) represent significant points
of differentiation.
The hierarchy for evaluation demonstrates a rough
alignment with the hierarchy of contact center
objectives. A solution’s functionality and ease of
use will directly impact the efficiency of contact
center operations. Its impact on the customer
and agent experiences, meanwhile, will serve to
accordingly increase or decrease satisfaction and
loyalty.
callcenter-iq.com 42
Q5
Which departments are involved in making
cloud contact center decisions?
C-level/executive team
79.30%

Marketing 20.70%

Sales/Business
development 23.20%

Customer support/ 52.40%

customer experience

Contact center 58.50%

Operations
42.70%

Marketing 8.50%

IT 64.60%

Human resources 4.90%

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Q6
Whose perspectives matter when evaluating
cloud investments?
C-level/financial
63.40%
stakeholders
IT personnel 40.20%

IT leaders 75.60%
Contact center agents 31.70%
Contact center leaders
72%
Marketing
8.50%
representatives
Marketing leaders 15.90%

Sales representatives 8.50%

Sales leaders 22%

Current customers 31.70%

Former customers 12.20%

Prospective customers 14.60%

Journalists/Bloggers
6.10%

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
callcenter-iq.com 43
 Expert Perspective: What Should You Consider When Sourcing a
Cloud Solution?
Tom Lewis, SmartAction
In addition to the right price and functionality,
most valuable cloud solutions offer four promises:
Vendor collaboration: Cloud solutions require
vendors to work collaboratively more often and it
is important that vendors are not pointing fingers
at other vendors when issues arise.
Vendor responsiveness: Having control over the
system on premise is a warm feeling. Having that
same responsiveness from a cloud vendor gives
you the best of all worlds.
Can the system be quickly expanded, removed
or consolidated in order to meet the demands of
the company’s constantly moving landscape and
requirements?
Customization: The system needs to be
configurable to meet company processes and do so
in a continuously supportable and upgradable way.
Joseph Gagnon, Aspect
Find a trusted partner with expertise in both
managing a large scale cloud network AND
contact center. Look for a partner who will tailor
your contact center solution to your customer
journey, ensuring you’re delivering the right
What Matters at the Time of Purchase? continued
While the significant value ascribed to financial
impact might superficially conflict with the minimal
value ascribed to the cost reduction objective, it
is important to recognize that financial impact is
connected to efficiency. Technology that saves
money by virtue of removing inefficiencies presents
more value to a contact center than that conveyed
by numbers and dollar signs.
That reconciliation notwithstanding, numbers and
dollar signs absolutely do matter to businesses.
Neither is a top five concern, but upfront price
(3.81) and maintenance and subscription costs
(3.97) definitely factor into the decision-making
process.
In carrying clear value, the factors confirm that
while cost might not seem pivotal from a big
picture perspective, it continues to impact specific
initiatives. When sourcing and implementing
technology, businesses consider price.
Intuitive given the extent to which the customer
and agent experiences are tied to satisfaction and
loyalty objectives, their significant relevance in the
sourcing process conflicts with the limited role
customer experience on the right channels, with
pricing that’s competitive. Once you have an
understanding of the features that you require,
do a side-by-side comparison and be sure
you understand where there are charges for
advanced services. Finally, make sure the pricing
you are looking at includes a strong Service
Level Agreement for high availability.
Scott Kolman, Genesys
IT is giving up some control. Thus, IT needs to be
assured that its core requirements for reliability
and security are being met. Reporting is also
key, when choosing a cloud solution. Instead
of just giving statistics, cloud solutions should
come with a true dashboard that reports on
metrics that matter to the business. It needs to
focus on customers and whether they are best
being served. Scalability is essential, as well.
With on-premises, you have to buy for peak
capacity. With cloud, you are able to buy based
on the ebbs and flows of the business.
The other thing to remember is that the contact
center does not operate in a vacuum. In pretty
much every company, cloud technology will
need to integrate with other systems housed in
different departments.
agents and customers play in evaluating technology
performance. Today’s businesses evidently care
greatly about how technology impacts agents and
customers, but only one-third of them actually
listen to agents and customers when evaluating the
impact.
And while limitations on customer interfacing may
necessitate a more passive approach to garnering
their input, businesses have day-to-day access to
the perspectives of their agents. Failing to consider
the agent perspective is not a logistic consequence
but a conscious decision.
Items of lesser importance when sourcing include
the level of implementation assistance and training
provided by the vendor (3.61), access to technical
support from the vendor (3.70), integration with
other contact center platforms (in general) (3.75)
and integration with the organization’s existing
contact center platform (3.80).
Given the magnitude of the scores, lesser definitely
functions as a relative term when it comes to the
cloud sourcing process. All potential points of
differentiation play a valuable role.
callcenter-iq.com 44
Q7
How important are the following when evaluating
a prospective contact center solution?
Not at all Extremely important
0 1 2 3 4 5

Cost - Price of solution

(initial/time of purchase cost)

Cost - Maintenance/
recurring fees

Cost - Financial impact on

business’ efficiency and need
for future investment

Functionality (will
measurably optimize a
certain task/process)

Scalability (and costs/

challenges associated)

Versatility (can adapt to

cover more functions/tasks)

Integration with other

contact center platforms

Integration with existing

platforms

Ease of implementation

Ease of use

Implementation/training
assistance from provider

Access to support from

cloud provider (24/7 vs.
business hours, etc)

Quality of support from

cloud provider

Impact on the customer

experience

Impact on the agent

experience

0 1 2 3 4 5
Not at all Extremely important

callcenter-iq.com 45

0 1 2 3 4 5
Measuring Return on Investment
Once a business actually implements its cloud
solution, its evaluation process is no longer
restricted to signals and projections. It can assess
the manner in which the technology is actually
impacting its contact center and overall business.
From there, it can make a clear determination as
to whether the investment is achieving its purpose
and delivering the desired return.
To make that determination, businesses most
notably look to the impact on customer
satisfaction. Adhering to the same 0-5 scale,
respondents rate the value of a customer
satisfaction increase at a 4.06.
Improvement in operational efficiency (3.92),
improvement in agent performance (3.86),
improvement in agent satisfaction (3.84) and
improvement in operational uptime and reliability
(3.84) also represent valuable outcomes.
Similar to the sourcing process, performance
evaluation aligns closely with contact center
objectives but raises questions about the role
agents and customers play in the evaluation.
From the Cloud
Used in the majority of contact centers and on
the docket for half the existing holdouts, cloud
technology is not a theoretical notion.
While the slowest adopters might still be
consuming themselves with abstract, philosophical
debates related to security and autonomy, the
marketplace has generally moved past those
discussions. Related concerns might linger, but
they no longer serve to stunt the proliferation of
cloud.
Current debates—whether supportive or
oppositional to cloud technology—can draw
from actual experiences. Because businesses are
actually using cloud technology in their contact
center, they are producing data related to actual
results.
Evaluating agent performance independently
of the agent is one thing, but when it comes
to measuring agent satisfaction, the 68% of
businesses that neglect the voice of the agent are
clearly crippling the integrity of their assessments.
The sweeping value ascribed to all forms of ROI
also mirrors the breadth of factors considered
when sourcing. With respective scores of 3.55,
3.70, 3.71, 3.73 and 3.78, factors like cost-
per-contact reduction, increased customer
loyalty, overall cost reduction, simplification of
processes and improved support accuracy might
be comparatively less relevant, but they are still
important forms of ROI.
That notion makes it easier to reconcile the fact
that increasing loyalty and improving accuracy—
two fundamental contact center objectives—
represent comparatively less valuable forms of ROI.
Neither is considered as valuable as improving
the customer experience or improving system
reliability, but both matter when evaluating
contact center technology.
Anecdotal and empirical evidence exists
regarding the true costs of cloud technology,
the true challenges associated with cloud
technology and the true opportunities and
rewards awaiting organizations that overcome
the challenges.
When deciding whether to enter or expand an
existing cloud presence, today’s contact centers
can do so with knowledge of what the cloud is
rather than of how it seems.
callcenter-iq.com 46
Q8
How important are the following when assessing
the ROI of a contact center solution?
Not at all Extremely important
0 1 2 3 4 5

Cost Reduction (Overall)

Reduced Technology
Maintenance/
Replacement Costs

Reduced Technology
Management Costs

Cost-per-call Reduction

Improved Usability Of
System

Improved Operational
Uptime/Reliability

Improved Support
Accuracy

Improvement In
Operational Efficiency

Elimination/Simplification
Of Complex Processes

Agent Performance
Increase

Customer Satisfaction
Increase

Customer Loyalty
Increase

Agent Satisfaction
Increase

0 1 2 3 4 5
Not at all Extremely important

0 1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 47
Impact of the Cloud: Driving Value
By placing significant value on all forms of return
on investment, today’s organizations clearly
possess high, wide-ranging expectations for cloud
technology. They are not necessarily looking for
trivial tweaks and upticks but for something that
can positively impact the totality of the contact
center operation.
From a breadth standpoint, the impact businesses
are currently reporting aligns with organizational
expectations. It is consistent across the board.
Asked to rate the impact on current outcomes
from 0-5, with 0 representing none at all, 1.25
representing slightly, 2.5 representing somewhat,
3.75 representing significantly and 5 representing
very significantly, businesses issued scores ranging
from 2.54 to 3.19.
While that means cloud technology has not yet
significantly impacted a contact center outcome,
it has produced somewhat of an impact for all
possible areas.
Existing results carry a slight skew in favor of
reducing technology management costs (3.19),
reducing technology maintenance costs (3.13),
improving operational reliability (3.09), improving
operational efficiency (3.02) and overall cost
reduction (2.99). They do not, however, reflect
especially poorly on the cloud’s ability to drive other
outcomes.
While increased customer loyalty (2.53), elimination
of complexity (2.64), increased customer
satisfaction (2.71), increased agent satisfaction
(2.74) and improved usability (2.84) have been the
least notable cloud outcomes, they have emerged
nonetheless.
Tempered by the general consistency of results,
the disparity between the impact hierarchy and
the value hierarchy is surely not being ignored by
businesses.
When evaluating the ROI of cloud solutions,
businesses ascribe comparatively significant value
to the impact on customer satisfaction, operational
efficiency, agent performance, agent satisfaction
and uptime and reliability.
Thus far, impact of cloud solutions on customer
and agent satisfaction, while still existent, is
comparatively weak. Both represent coveted
investment returns and fundamental contact center
objectives, which means enthusiasm over existing
results is naturally curbed.
On the other hand, by making comparatively
significant impacts on efficiency and reliability,
cloud solutions are absolutely demonstrating value
in the status quo.
Not a fundamental contact center objective, cost
reduction is certainly of immense relevance when
sourcing technology. The clear impact on contact
center spend provides another source of excitement
about cloud technology.
Because the contact center is a valuable business
component and because organizations possess lofty
expectations for cloud technology, existing results
should not be celebrated as anything more than
a sign of a promising start. Over time, the impact
cloud technology is making will need to grow,
particularly with respect to improving customer and
agent satisfaction.
But in a business realm notorious for sluggish
results and overflowing with aggressively marketed
technological and strategic “revolutions,” clear,
consistent, sweeping results matter.
Cloud contact center technology matters.
callcenter-iq.com 48
Q9
To what extent have your cloud solutions
impacted the following?
Not at all Significantly
0 1 2 3 4 5

Cost reduction (overall)

Reduced technology
maintenance/
replacement costs

Reduced technology
management costs

Cost-per-call reduction

Improved usability of
system

Improved operational
uptime/reliability

Improved support
accuracy

Improvement in
operational efficiency

Elimination/simplification
of complex processes

Agent performance
increase

Customer satisfaction
increase

Customer loyalty increase

Agent satisfaction
increase

0 1 2 3 4 5
Not at all Significantly

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 callcenter-iq.com 49

Impact of the Cloud: Improving Performance
Accompanying the revelation that cloud
investments are producing a myriad of valuable
outcomes is the finding that such investments
are also improving all forms of contact center
performance.
Asked to assess the extent to which performance
against key metric categories has increased or
decreased following the implementation of
cloud technology, businesses report performance
increases for all such categories.
Modest enough to assure focus remains on further
optimizing cloud technology implementations, the
results are consistent—and promising—enough to
establish cloud as a legitimate difference maker.
If an organization is looking to improve any or all
facets of its contact center performance, cloud
technology represents a viable pathway.
Thus far, cloud solutions are producing their
most notable impact on resolution metrics. Since
implementing cloud solutions, organizations say
their performance against metrics like first contact
resolution and callback rate has improved by a
score of 1.71 (on a scale ranging from -5 to 5).
Organizations are receiving similar levels of
increases when it comes to customer-oriented
metrics (CSAT, NetPromoterScore, retention rate)
(1.68) and quality metrics (accuracy, adherence to
procedure) (1.56). While the change has not been
as pronounced, performance against efficiency
metrics (average handle time, average speed of
answer) (1.04) and accessibility metrics (blockage,
uptime, abandon rate) (0.76) has definitely
improved.
Notable about the performance impact is the fact
to which it contradicts the ROI impact. While
businesses feel the return on cloud investment
most notably manifests as increased cost
efficiency, operational efficiency and uptime, the
performance impact most notably manifests as
benefits to customer-oriented metrics.
Numerous factors help to clarify the misalignment.
For starters, it is not necessarily true that
improvement in customer- and resolution-oriented
metrics has been unequivocally stronger than
that related to efficiency and accessibility metrics.
Because the aforementioned scores are mean
values on a scale of -5 to 5, they are weighed
down by instances of performance declines and
inflated by instances of performance increases.
Their median improvement levels are more
comparable, but because efficiency and
accessibility scores have declined in a slightly
greater number of organizations and increased
significantly in fewer organizations, their mean
scores appear substantially weaker.
Also relevant is the distinction between how
an organization defines value and how an
organization measures performance. If, when
taking an overview, a respondent sees smoother,
more streamlined, more productive organization,
he may declare that the introduction of cloud
technology has improved efficiency. That does
not, however, mean that performance against
metrics like average handle time and average
speed of answer, which speak to particular
elements of the contact center operation, has
enjoyed a comparable degree of improvement.
Similarly, a business that sees rising CSAT scores
and reduced callback rates will not necessarily
sense a significantly elevated level of customer
satisfaction or loyalty.
The elevated value—and thus higher standard—
organizations ascribe to customer satisfaction and
loyalty also contributes to the disparity.
Since increasing satisfaction represents such
a prominent priority for businesses, many are
seeking significant improvements in the related
metrics. For less prominent business objectives,
marginal improvements in the corresponding
metrics may constitute a desired level of success.
Consequently, the fact that customer-oriented
metrics have improved to a greater extent than
efficiency-oriented ones does not mean businesses
will be more content with cloud technology’s
impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty than
on efficiency.
callcenter-iq.com 50
Q10
Since implementing cloud solutions, how has
performance against the following changed?

Not at all Significantly improved

0 1 2 3 4 5

Accessibility metrics
(blockage, uptime,
hours of operation,
self-service availability,
abandon rate)

Efficiency metrics
(average handle time,
service level, average
speed of answer, etc)

Quality metrics
(accuracy, adherence to
procedure, error/rework
rate, etc)

Resolution metrics (first

call resolution, call back
rate, transfer rate, etc)

Customer metrics
(customer satisfaction,
NetPromoterScore,
customer loyalty, repeat
rate, etc)

0 1 2 3 4 5

Not at all Significantly improved

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0

callcenter-iq.com 51
Impact of the Cloud: Challenges
While the majority of businesses are no longer
dwelling on philosophical and hypothetical
objections to the cloud, they are not necessarily
without any sense of reservation.
Moreover, they are not wrong to possess a degree
of hesitation.
Existing users confirm that cloud contact center
technology is measurably improving performance
and delivering a multi-faceted return on
investment.
They do not, however, claim that the
implementation of cloud technology came without
any costs or challenges.
Asked to identify challenges they faced when
implementing cloud solutions, narrow majorities
(51%) of respondents confirmed issues integrating
the technology with their existing systems and
difficulty “installing” and initiating the solution(s).
46% of organizations noted that the solutions
proved to be more costly than expected. An
equivalent percentage faced issues integrating the
cloud technology with their existing processes.
34% felt that outages and downtime represented
challenges.
In proving that organizations who implement cloud
solutions will not automatically produce a perfect
contact center, the aforementioned challenges
produce a sense of disillusionment.
By the same token, they do not necessarily portray
cloud technology in a negative light. They simply
place a ceiling on the positivity.
The majority of businesses see cost and reliability
as challenges, but they also site cost reduction
and improved uptime as notable sources of ROI.
Businesses, consequently, confirm that costs are
fewer and uptime is greater with cloud technology
than without it.
Organizations may be seeking greater levels of
cost reduction and more system reliability, but
that does not mean they have not already endured
benefits in both regards.
The challenges, therefore, serve to identify the
ways in which cloud solutions can improve and
evolve. They do not dismiss the present value of
such solutions.
In a testament to that reality, no respondents
confirm plans to exit the cloud in response to the
aforementioned challenges. Only 6% say they
will cease or reduce future investment into cloud
technology.
For the remaining 94% of cloud users, the
challenges present no sense of discouragement.
They are simply inevitable roadblocks on the
journey to contact center excellence. They are calls
to become more strategic and innovative when
developing and implementing cloud technology.
Helpful is the fact that the significance of each
challenge is decreasing over time. As the
technology and the businesses implementing the
technology mature, the bottlenecks continue to
disappear and the benefits continue to grow.
While agent frustration and dissatisfaction was
never a major challenge (14%), it is becoming
considerably less of one over time. Asked to assess
the rate at which the challenge is increasing or
decreasing on a scale of -5 to 5, businesses rate
the change to agent frustration levels at a -3.25.
Issues during installation, which did resonate as a
top challenge, are also lessening. Businesses rate
that decline at a -2.95.
Challenges related to systems training (-2.50),
systems execution and functionality (-2.50),
downtime (-2.14) and integration with existing
processes (-2.14) have also decreased over time.
The lessening of challenges should not be mistaken
for proof that all early struggles fade over time.
It should not be mistaken for proof that cloud
technology cannot be better designed, better
sourced, better implemented and better managed.
Strategies related to those focuses are essential –
and the keys to reaping the truest rewards of cloud
technology.
They should, however, help to dissuade concern
over the fact that implementing cloud technology
will come with hurdles and imperfections. They
should help to eliminate fear that the growing
pains and shortcomings that have affected
organizations will continue to affect them in the
long run.
callcenter-iq.com 52
Q11
a) What challenges did you face while implementing
cloud solutions?
More Costly Than 45.70%
Anticipated/Advertised
Issues Integrating With 51.40%
Current Systems
Issues Integrating With 45.70%
Current Processes
Downtime/Outages 34.30%

Issues During Implementation

(not as easy as expected to “install”) 51.40%

Issues During Training

(not as easy to get team up to speed) 14.30%

Issues During Execution (not functioning as

22.90%
anticipated for agents or customers)
Issues Receiving Support 25.70%
(provider is not as helpful as desired)
Issues Accessing Support 20.00%
(provider is not as accessible as desired)
Agent Frustration/Dissatisfaction 14.30%

0 10 20 30 40 50 60
b) How have those challenges changed over time?
Significantly decreased Not at all Significantly increased
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5

More Costly Than

Anticipated/Advertised

Issues Integrating With

Current Systems

Issues Integrating With

Current Processes

Downtime/Outages

Issues During Implementation

(not as easy as expected to “install”)

Issues During Training

(not as easy to get team up to speed)

Issues During Execution

(not functioning as anticipated for agents or customers)

Issues Receiving Support

(provider is not as helpful as desired)

Issues Accessing Support

(provider is not as accessible as desired)

Agent Frustration/Dissatisfaction

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
Significantly decreased Not at all Significantly increased

-3.5 -3.0 -2.5 -2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 callcenter-iq.com 53

Q11
c) How will those challenges affect future
contact center investment?

No effect 41.70%

Will eliminate cloud solutions

from contact center 0%

Will cease or reduce future

investment into cloud 5.60%
solutions

Will work with different

provider(s) for the technology 27.80%

Will work with different

provider(s) for installation/ 5.60%
support

Will change training to

accommodate for future 0.00%
cloud solutions

Will change processes to

accommodate for future 19.40%
cloud solutions

0 10 20 30 40 50

callcenter-iq.com 54
Impact of the Cloud: Reactions
Businesses have made it clear that they are not
departing the cloud in response to the challenges
they have encountered and continued to encounter.
Since all forms of challenges have lessened over
time, the decision to stay the course has been a
logical—and fruitful—one.
A consensus refusal to eliminate cloud technology
does not, however, imply a consensus sense of
stagnation. It does not mean businesses are absent
any reaction to the challenges they are facing,
and it does not mean businesses are not actively
pursuing means to overcome the challenges in the
short-term and evade them in the long-run.
It does not mean businesses will refrain from
modifying the way they evaluate and initiate future
cloud investments.
Granted, many businesses are opting not to
respond. In a testament to the fact that the
challenges, while present, are not seen as crippling,
42% of cloud technology users say the presence of
challenges has had absolutely no effect on cloud
investment.
Expert Perspective: How do you maximize the vendor relationship?
Scott Kolman, Genesys
Cloud vendors generally allow you to define the
general parameters and capabilities, but they do
not necessarily offer personalized functionality.
When working with a vendor, make sure you are
clear in their ability to deliver the customizations
and configurations you require.
Since you will be losing some ownership of
the technology, make sure the vendor is an
expert in the technology and in the needs of a
contact center. They need to stay up-to-date
with new technology and updates, and offer
transparent access to both reporting and strategic
management. The technology needs to support
your workflow strategies.
Joseph Gagnon, Aspect
Without dwelling on the day-to-day
administration, the IT team—and the business
at large—can function more like an advisor than
an implementer. The vendor is handling the
technology, so compromises no longer need to be
made based on systemic capabilities. Measures
change from tactical to strategic – and all design
starts with a customer-centric perspective.
For those which are responding, the most common
action is to source a new provider. 28% of
organizations confirm that challenges with existing
cloud investments will prompt them to work with
different vendors in the future.
19%, meanwhile, say they will revamp processes
to account for cloud technology. Insofar as
integration with existing processes represents one
of the top five challenges, this course of action
reflects the stickiness of cloud technology. Instead
of declaring that cloud technology does not fit their
particular contact center operations, nearly 20% of
businesses are opting to transform their operations
to fit cloud technology.
Willing to separate issues with support from
the product itself, 6% will pursue new technical
assistance vendors. They will not necessarily
abandon their existing technology, but they will
rethink whom they use for product guidance.
Tom Lewis, SmartAction
While the solution should definitely be
customized to the business, the organization
should also tap into the vendor’s expertise
when it comes to implementation. The
vendor has very likely performed similar
implementations with success using their
own methods. Forcing the vendor to conform
to the client’s culture or processes actually
often puts the implementation at more risk
as the vendor does not have the resources or
experience to heavily tailor their approach.
The roles of the client also need to change
from one of project management to vendor
management. This takes time and often a
different skillset, which also puts stress on
the relationship and ends up contributing to
missed expectations.
callcenter-iq.com 55
Leveraging the Cloud
Cloud technology clearly represents a new normal
for the majority of contact centers. It clearly
presents a host of benefits for organizations. It
does produce costs and challenges, but those
factors are not thwarting the technology’s
proliferation.
As friendly as those notions might seem to the
cloud cause, they actually serve to demean the
technology’s value. They understate its potential.
Cloud technology is not simply a binary alternative
to on-premises contact center architecture. While
cloud solutions might all adhere to a central
conception – they exist in shared, web-connected
resources and are accessed by individual, physical
devices – they do not all look alike and certainly
do not all share the same functions and benefits.
They are not simply one type of contact center
technology but a myriad of multi-faceted, nuanced
solutions that cater to specific operational needs.
Challenges to Conquer
When it comes to the contemporary contact center
environment, no function is universally broken.
All functions, however, represent challenges for at
least a handful of organizations.
According to respondents, self-service represents
the most common functional shortcoming.
45% identify self-service as an issue for their
organizations, which should naturally serve to
thrust self-service technology to the top of the
investment hierarchy.
Challenges for 38% of organizations, customer
insights, interaction analytics and agent
dashboards also necessitate action. Given that
customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction
represent paramount contact center objectives,
organizational concern over their ability to learn
A business that is investing or intending to invest
in the cloud is demonstrating its acceptance of the
cloud philosophy and realization of the potential
benefits, but it is not necessarily optimizing that
investment. It is not necessarily tailoring its cloud
initiative to its specific contact center challenges
and objectives and thus not necessarily reaping the
greatest possible reward.
When considering new contact center technology,
the relevant question is not simply whether a cloud
solution is appropriate. It is which cloud solution is
appropriate.
about customers, understand what transpires
in customer interactions and provide actionable
insight to employees is intuitive.
37% say omni-channel communication represents
a functional shortcoming.
Integral—especially given the value organizations
ascribe to uptime—network connectivity is not
something businesses ignore. The majority of
businesses are, however, content with current
connectivity. 10% identify it as a shortcoming,
which makes it the most satisfactory of the various
contact functions.
Other less common shortcomings include call
routing (13%), call volume (13%), at-home
workforces (16%) and inbound engagement
(17%).
callcenter-iq.com 56
Conquering the Challenges: The Consideration
Process
Conceptually accepted by the majority of
organizations and capable of improving agility,
scalability and robustness, cloud solutions will be
top of mind during all strategic contact center
conversations.
That does not mean businesses will immediately
implement cloud solutions for every possible
contact center challenge. Despite their positive,
long-term financial impact, cloud solutions do cost
money, and cost produces limitations.
Facing inevitable budgetary concerns, businesses
will “make decisions based on the most immediate
needs,” notes Kolman (Genesys).
A lack of familiarity will similarly prompt hesitation
about going “all in” on cloud contact center
solutions. Empirical evidence of value is not the
same as experiential evidence, and businesses will
naturally approach the cloud methodically.
In accordance with that approach, many businesses
will be selective with their cloud spending. They
will target specific functions and set specific
objectives for their near-term cloud investments.
Logic would suggest that the investment would
be targeted in the direction of the most pressing
challenges. Functions identified as shortcomings
represent clear taxes on the contact center
operation. Addressing such shortcomings will,
therefore, produce a clear benefit.
Reality generally supports logic.
Asked to identify the functions they plan to address
with new or upgraded technology, businesses most
Conquering those Challenges: The Decision Process
Desire does not, however, make the reality
of limitations go away. While the majority of
organizations will contemplate investing in
technology that can address every possible
shortcoming, they will not necessarily commit to all
such investments.
Asked to identify the areas into which they will
definitely make new technology investments,
organizations identify CRM (29%), IVR (24%),
customer insights (24%), at-home agents (23%)
and interaction monitoring (22%) as their greatest
focuses.
Of the five, only customer insights registers as a top
five shortcoming. At-home agents, meanwhile,
ranks as a bottom five shortcoming.
commonly identify customer insights, interaction
analytics and self-service. Investment related to
those areas is at least on the table for 80%, 74%
and 70% of organizations, respectively.
While the hierarchy is slightly different, those three
target investment areas also represent the three
most notable functional shortcomings.
CRM integration (69%), omni-channel (69%)
and agent dashboards (68%) also represent key
investment focuses. The latter two of those three
are top five challenges for businesses.
A general alignment between challenge and
investment also occurs at the other end of the
spectrum. ACD (50%), network connectivity
(51%), notifications (52%), WebRTC (55%) and call
routing (55%) are the least common investment
focuses.
Outside of ACD, the other focuses represent
relatively uncommon sources of organizational
strife. Network connectivity, notifications, WebRTC
and call routing all rank among the ten least
widespread shortcomings. Network connectivity is
the least widespread one, and call routing is in the
bottom five.
The alignment notwithstanding, the fact that the
majority of organizations are considering investing
in all areas but ACD (for which focus is 50%)
speaks volumes about organizations’ commitment
to contact center excellence. They want to improve
all areas – even those which are not crippling
existing operations.
While they are not top five budget items, focuses
like ACD (#8) and call routing (#10) also rank highly
(more highly than areas like omni-channel/#11,
interaction analytics/#12 and dashboard/#22) on
the investment docket despite not representing
notable organizational shortcomings.
Businesses are not, therefore, prioritizing “problem
areas” when developing cloud contact center
investment strategy. Such areas are certainly on the
radar, but businesses will commit no further than
evaluation when it comes to actually initiating an
investment.
callcenter-iq.com 57
 Optimizing the Cloud
“One client recently told us that it would take 10
years to match all the capabilities that his cloud
vendor developed and deployed in two months,”
trumpets SmartAction’s Lewis.
Given the existence of such comments, the
presence of shortcomings that can benefit from
cloud technology, the downfall of philosophical
objections to the cloud and the rise of empirical
data confirming cloud’s value, why would an
organization possibly hesitate to invest in cloud
solutions?
On the one hand, organizational inertia, executive
reluctance and IT involvement can combine to
produce undesirable hesitation. As they do in
many realms of business, the three factors combine
to thwart progress.
On the other hand, a methodical approach is
not necessarily a bad one. Cloud contact center
technology provides a host of rewards, but it also
induces legitimate organizational change. When
The right kind of delay
While organizations are built to pursue greater
levels of productivity, performance and profitability,
they are not built to move recklessly. On the whole,
organizations tend to progress slowly, and they
require proof of performance at every possible turn.
“Corporations are risk averse on all levels today
and the big-bang or forklift replacement approach
is often too scary,” explains SmartAction’s Lewis.
“Introducing new approaches requires proof points
and small successes before expanding the scope.”
The early, documented success associated with
cloud technology explains why more organizations
plan to move to the cloud. It explains why those in
the cloud will expand their investment.
While Lewis is confident organizations will continue
to see more success as they continue to progress
further into the cloud, he is also cognizant that
growing pains will emerge.
“Given the number of problematic implementations
of all types, the expectations are high but the
caution is also very high,” says SmartAction’s Lewis.
“This is one of the chief reasons we advocate for
a steady measured approach that demonstrates
success before moving to the next phase.”
not managed correctly, change—as evidenced by
the empirically confirmed challenges—can manifest
as cost.
As long as it comes in the form of strategic
calculation rather than aimless hesitation, delay can
be acceptable and even advisable.
With the value clear and the needs pressing,
businesses have nothing to gain—and everything
to lose--by fearing the cloud or passing on its
clear opportunities. Businesses that foray into the
cloud correctly and in accordance with both best
practices and the nuances of their contact centers
will put themselves in position to seize all such
opportunities.
“Land and expand. Don’t bite it off all at once,”
adds Lewis.
Perhaps surprised by the fact that businesses are
not aggressively working to address their functional
shortcomings, Lewis does not necessarily condemn
that notion. Even the most urgent efforts should
be handled with care, he advises.
“The timing and order of execution [might be] more
influenced by functional need than any strategic
prioritization of all applications,” explains Lewis.
“If an application is in desperate need or replacing,
that is likely to be the Guinea pig.
“Even in that context, however, that implementation
[should be] phased in.”
Similarly cognizant of the factors that cause or even
necessitate a methodical pace, Aspect’s Gagnon
emphasizes the importance of proceeding.
“We do see some companies go all in, but many
‘pivot’ to the cloud…as the company figures out
how to evolve in a cloud centric world,” explains
Gagnon. “[But] the [biggest] challenge is deciding
to move forward.
callcenter-iq.com 58
“Inertia can be the impediment to change, but the
competitive landscape will before long become so
different that you will need to change or become
irrelevant.”
Businesses should not move recklessly or without
emphasis on results, but Gagnon definitely believes
they should move forward.
“The mindset should be ‘test and learn,’” adds
Gagnon. “To the degree possible leveraging the
cloud to put up new solutions quickly and getting
feedback is critical to the success of any of these
initiatives.”
Beyond the roles it plays in establishing proof of
performance and flattening the learning curve, a
methodical approach also provides the business
with an opportunity to manage the big picture
changes that accompany a shift to the cloud.
Method for excellence
Stressing the clear benefits of cloud technology,
Lewis, Gagnon and Kolman all stress the value of
implementing cloud technology.
Businesses do not, however, need to be convinced
of that reality. They are already investing in the
cloud, and they confirm plans to continue that
investment.
There is no need for advocacy. There is, however,
room for guidance.
In an ideal world, businesses would flip a switch
and completely transform their contact centers
into cloud-based engagement systems. They
would reap all the benefits of scalable, externally
supported technology and face none of the
challenges and costs.
In the real world, businesses need to make each
technology investment with a keen strategic eye
and then support each investment with requisite
shifts in processes.
Given that reality, there are advisable courses of
action businesses should take as they initiate—and
continue—a move into the cloud.
“The answer to the transition depends on the
size of the organization and the maturity of its
contact center,” notes Kolman (Genesys). “Not
all companies are going to support every single
channel or be able to do that right away.
“There are core channels they need to support, and
knowledge about which ones will stem from a
conversation with customers.”
“It typically starts with voice,” adds Kolman. “The
cloud transition often involves implementing a
cloud-based IVR, because it is a form of technology
that can be virtualized easily and seamlessly
integrated with the on-premises ACD.”
Transitioning to the cloud involves adapting existing
processes to new systems (and integrating old
systems with new systems) and redefining the role
of the IT and customer care functions. It involves
establishing new expectations for agent and
operational performance.
“Clearly, cloud gives you a lot of benefits,
particularly when it comes to minimizing challenges
associated with technology,” explains Kolman
(Genesys). “But you’re not off the hook from
a functional standpoint. As you transition to
the cloud, you need to adapt your strategies for
routing, workforce planning and how you’re
going to handle your agents and other knowledge
workers and IT employees.”
Not simply the easiest entry point, the voice
channel—and particularly self-service within that
channel—is one in which the cloud can make an
enormous impact.
“Voice self-service still acts as the front door to most
organizations, and the cloud allows businesses
to create a more modern, agile, reliable service
experience,” offers Kolman. “Using cloud to
power the IVR, therefore, allows an organization
to put its best forward when interacting with
customers.”
Aspect’s Gagnon agrees that bringing self-service
into the cloud will produce considerable value.
Once there, Gagnon explains, self-service—voice
and otherwise—can be enhanced to create more
active engagement with customers.
“Self-service gets the quickest and most immediate
benefits as it engages the customer actively,
increases the number of interactions, supports
them 24/7 and creates a new sense of the brand
in the minds and hearts,” says Gagnon. “It
empowers the customer and makes him feel
valued.”
“Providing self-service channels, 24/7 availability,
and the ability to call customers back all help with
reduced queue times and improve efficiency,” adds
SmartAction’s Lewis.
From there, organizations can leverage cloud
solutions to create a legitimately proactive
approach to the customer experience.
“Many call centers do not have the resources to
proactively reach out to clients and therefore
the communication never happens,” explains
SmartAction’s Lewis. “Using outbound automation
to communicate with these clients reduces inbound
volume while improving business process efficiency
and providing convenience to customers.”
callcenter-iq.com 59
 Valuable due to ease and potential for impact, self-
service is not the only function appropriate for an
early stage cloud implementation.
“Many companies start by installing an omni-
channel agent desktop. This allows them to
connect to the customer in more than one way,”
says Aspect’s Gagnon.
In the spirit of omni-channel, Kolman (Genesys)
makes the case for social media analytics.
“The need to monitor, assess and vet external
dialogue is immensely relevant to the business,”
confirms Kolman. “By its very nature, this
conversation is all happening in the open and in
real-time. That makes social analytics an ideal
candidate for the cloud.”
“Even businesses with predominantly on-premises
environments look toward cloud-based social
engagement.”
Empowering the business to empower the customer
As businesses continue to gain familiarity with
cloud technology, they will continue to adapt
processes, functions and systems for this new
technological normal. This will allow them to
achieve a cascading series of benefits, which will in
turn drive more momentum behind the transition
into the cloud.
When doing so, however, businesses are advised to
remain fixated on their fundamental contact center
objectives.
For many contact centers, customer satisfaction
represents the most fundamental objective.
Luckily, that objective is not something that must
be imposed on cloud solutions but an outcome
that businesses will derive organically from cloud
solutions.
“Cloud-based analytics solutions enable a business
to gain a better, more real-time understanding
of customers,” says Kolman (Genesys). “Cloud-
based self-service solutions will benefit from readily
available, immediate upgrades and improvements
that will help with customer service.
The result will be a more valuable, more seamless
experience for customers.”
“With modern technologies, companies can
create happier customer outcomes,” adds Aspect’s
Gagnon. “For example, they can offer omni-
channel experiences where the contact center
has a complete view of a customer’s information
and transaction history. Interactions can then
be personalized and connected across all touch
Per Kolman, analytics, in general, represents a
perfect application for cloud technology.
“And since it involves aggregate, statistical data
rather than confidential customer information, a
cloud-based analytics deployment will even appeal
to those with security concerns,” adds Kolman.
According to Gagnon, organizations will then look
to cloud-based CRM solutions.
Expanding on that, Lewis articulates the fact
that on-premises, in-house CRM solutions places
burdens on the organization without offering
corresponding benefits.
“I still run into companies that have built their own
CRM or ERP systems,” remarks Lewis. “There are
very few businesses that are so unique that that
approach would be appropriate in today’s world.
Deploying those solutions in the cloud requires
considerably less effort.”
points so that customers do not have to repeat
themselves when they change channels or pick up
an interrupted conversation.”
“The cloud also provides the ability to better scale
expertise, making the right agents available to
answer questions from anywhere,” continues
Gagnon.
Focused on killing two birds with one stone—
or two objectives with one type of technology
—SmartAction’s Lewis stresses, “The cloud solution
should be a best-of-breed solution, which will
improve functionality and efficiency. This will then
have a positive impact on the end user.”
Cloud solutions do not exist within the confines
of the physical contact center, and they naturally
require businesses to sacrifice some autonomy and
customization.
Those sacrifices do not, however, mean the
business will be unable to leverage cloud
technology for specific aims. The cloud’s inherent
agility and flexibility can, in fact, allow for a more
robust and valuable alignment with the ever-
changing needs of the business and its customers.
By breaking with the on-premises tradition and
embracing cloud technology, businesses recognize
that potential.
By approaching the cloud transition methodically,
by following an organic, phase-by-phase approach
to implementation and by assuring every initiative
is tied to one or more fundamental contact center
objectives, businesses will reap actual rewards.
callcenter-iq.com 60
THE EVOLUTION OF
CONTACT CENTER
PERFORMANCE
Long identified—and stigmatized—as a cost center,
the contact center has recently been escaping the
shackles of that term.
Partly due to its positive impact on financials and
partly due to the recognition of customer centricity
as a paramount business objective, the contact
center has begun cultivating a more favorable
reputation. It has also begun to command a more
prominent and valued role within the business.
This evolution has not, however, relaxed scrutiny
over contact center performance. If anything, it
has added more layers – and thus more challenges
– to the performance management process.
When approaching the contact center as a cost
center, operational efficiency was the primary
focus. As long as costs were low and output
was high, the contact center was likely fulfilling
expectations.
As businesses and customers begin to demand
multi-faceted value from the contact center, new
considerations enter the equation. The contact
center – and the processes, strategies, agents and
technologies of which it consists – must satisfy a
multitude of objectives and appease a multitude of
stakeholders.
Call Center IQ’s Executive Report on Contact Center
Performance and Operations analyzes the contact
center within this more rigorous context.
It begins by painting a portrait of the modern day
contact center. It leverages survey data to reveal
how they are constructed and where they sit within
the business.
With that framework established, the report will
then investigate the role today’s contact center is
designed to play within the greater business. What
are the contact center’s key objectives? How does
a business assess the contact center’s success in
achieving those objectives?
Upon shifting the emphasis to results, the report
uncovers the most valuable elements of contact
center operations, customer interactions, agent
performance and technological solutions.
After determining how well contemporary contact
centers are delivering those elements, the report
reveals how businesses are planning to improve.
Along the way, it consults an expert panel of
contributors in asserting what contact centers
should do to create optimal value for customers
and for their businesses.
callcenter-iq.com 61
Methodology and Demographics
To collect data for the 2015 Executive
Report on Contact Center Performance
and Operations, Call Center IQ issued an
extensive market research survey to customer
experience, contact center, operations,
information technology, marketing and business
development professionals. No demographic
restrictions were placed on participation.
fewer than 50 employees.
The skew in favor of large contact centers was
less pronounced. Only 12% of respondents
report a contact center head count in excess of
1,000. 44% of respondents say their contact
centers seat at least 100 agents, but a sizable
24% seat fewer than ten.

Participation did, however, skew in favor of large

organizations. 20% of respondents represent
organizations with workforces in excess of
5,000. 67% of respondents’ organizations
employ at least 250 individuals, while only 18%
of survey participants represent companies with

Portrait of a Contact
Center
All contact centers – regardless of their size, specific
function or channel capabilities – are united by a
simple reality: they represent a link between brand
and customer.
The nature of that link, however, can vary from
organization to organization.
Some contact centers exist under the auspices of
the customer experience team. Others, meanwhile,
report to marketing executives, operations
executives or even directly to the C-level.
from the physical site. Others, meanwhile, allow
personnel to connect from remote locations.
Some contact centers are entirely owned, operated
and managed by the brand. Others, meanwhile,
are overseen by outsourcers.
Before investigating the state of contact center
performance and operations, it is important to
understand how today’s businesses are constructing
their contact centers.

Some contact centers house all systems and

agents on premises. Others, meanwhile, situate all
relevant technology in the cloud.

Some contact centers require all agents to work

callcenter-iq.com 62
Ownership
As a direct link between brand and customer, the
contact center plays an instrumental role in the
customer experience.
Despite that reality, the contact center falls under
the auspices of customer experience departments
in fewer than 15% of businesses.
According to respondents, contact center
functions are most notably overseen by operations
departments. 41% say their operations team is
responsible for day-to-day oversight of the contact
center.
The C-Level/executive team directs contact center
operations in 19% of businesses. Customer
experience, meanwhile, takes the helm in 14% of
cases.
The management dynamic changes when it comes
to big picture contact center strategy.
Architecture
While cloud-based contact center technology is
commanding ample attention, the majority of
today’s organizations situate their technology on
premises.
60% confirm they adhere to a primarily on-
premises technology model. 19% of contact
centers rely on a cloud/on-premises hybrid, while
13% situate their systems primarily within the
cloud.
The tide is changing.
Personnel
Not simply comprised of technological systems,
contact centers are also powered by people. In the
status quo, the majority of those agents work from
within the walls of the physical center.
63% of businesses say their agents are primarily
situated on site. For 53% of businesses, that “site”
refers to a single contact center location. 37%
primarily situate agents within their multiple
domestic sites, while 10% position their workforce
across multiple international locations.
While the majority of contact centers rely on a
primarily on-premises workforce, a hybrid model
is not uncommon. A total of 33% of respondents
say they have compelling numbers of agents
working inside and outside of their physical call
centers.
Instead of situating that focus with the operations
team, the majority of businesses direct their contact
centers from the top. 56% of respondents say the
C-level/executive team directly manages big picture
contact center strategy.
The operations team performs that function in
15% of businesses, while customer experience
takes on the strategic leadership role in 10% of
organizations.
While an “other” category was offered to capture
input from those who may not explicitly possess
a “customer experience” function – but may, for
instance, have a department dedicated to customer
care or service – the responses offered do not
change the overall portrait. Today’s contact centers
are most commonly designed at the C-level and
managed by the operations department.
On-premises technology will not disappear from
the contact center environment, but its prevalence
as a preferred option will decline markedly over the
next year.
Only 40% of businesses are committed to on-
premises architecture in 2016.
By contrast, the percentages of contact centers
relying on hybrid or primarily cloud-based models
will both increase.
Relying primarily on remote workers is, however, a
decidedly less common approach. Only 4% say
their contact center staff primarily works outside
the auspices of the physical contact center.
In terms of contact center ownership, the majority
of respondents rely on in-house facilities. 65%
of respondents confirm that no contact center
operation is outsourced.
18% say they outsource some operations, while
6% confirm they rely on an external provider for
most contact center operations. 1% of businesses
completely outsource their contact center functions.
callcenter-iq.com 63
Q1
Which departments oversee your contact
center when it comes to...
Day to Day Operations
Day to Day Operations

19.4% C-level/executive

14.0% Customer
experience

41.0% Operations

5.38% IT

9.68% Sales/business
development

3.23% Marketing

7.31% Other

Big Picture
Big Picture Strategy Strategy

55.91% C-level/executive

10.75% Customer
experience

15.05% Operations

6.45% IT

3.23% Sales/business
development

2.15% Marketing

6.46% Other

callcenter-iq.com 64
Purpose of a Contact
Center
The contact center fundamentally serves to create a
link between brand and customer.
A business’ motivation for forging that connection
will inform the type of link it needs to create.
Insofar as every element of performance and
operations strategy - from the metrics employed, to
the agents hired, to the technology used – affects
Fundamental objectives
Today’s businesses believe that the contact
center’s most important role is to drive customer
satisfaction.
Asked to rank the importance of numerous
potential contact center objectives, respondents
awarded “increase customer satisfaction” a
mean score of 8.29/10. Clearly the highest-rated
objective, satisfaction will logically represent the
most notable focus when businesses construct their
performance and operations strategies.
Viewed as a natural, linear consequence of
routinely satisfying experiences, customer loyalty
represents the second-most important focus for
contact centers. Respondents assigned a score of
7.40/10 to the “increasing customer loyalty.”
Other comparatively highly regarded contact center
objectives include improving brand reputation
(6.67), improving customer advocacy (6.23) and
decreasing costs (6.03).
Comparatively unimportant objectives include
gaining product insights (4.27), growing market
share (4.65), increasing profit (5.24), increasing
revenue (5.54) and reducing complaints (5.71).
Respondent Perspectives
·· Assure systems accommodate customer needs.
·· Increase profitability.
·· Establish a customer-minded business culture.
·· Reduce costs while improving efficiency.
·· Drive customer satisfaction and agent
satisfaction while remaining profitable.
·· Improve customer satisfaction.
·· Improve customer focus and employee
engagement.
·· Move from an operational focus to a sales and
customer-oriented approach.
the center’s pursuit of its key objectives, every
element of performance and operations strategy
should be devised, implemented and optimized
with the key objectives in mind.
Identifying and understanding those objectives
is thus a prerequisite to assessing how and why
contact centers are performing the way they are
performing.
In situating satisfaction and loyalty at the top
of the hierarchy and profit and revenue at the
bottom, today’s businesses are declaring the former
objectives to be ends in and of themselves.
Whereas customer satisfaction and loyalty are
viewed as intuitive gateways to business growth,
businesses do not require that growth to consider
their contact centers successful. If the centers are
creating satisfactory outcomes for customers, they
are making a desirable contribution to the overall
business strategy.
A consequence of that approach is freedom
to operate in accordance with the voice of the
customer. Concepts like up-selling and cross-
selling are not irrelevant or unwelcome in the
contemporary contact center environment, but
their emergence must be tied to a legitimate
customer need or want.
Up-selling to improve the customer’s overall
experience aligns very nicely with the contemporary
contact center hierarchy. Up-selling for the specific
purpose of increasing revenue does not.
·· Put the customer first.
·· Appropriately handle 80% of calls.
·· Improve client relationships.
·· Reduce call volume.
·· Increase revenue and productivity.
·· Increase market share.
·· Increase CSAT and retention rate.
·· Increase engagement levels.
·· Increase NPS.
·· Improve uptime.
callcenter-iq.com 65
Q2
Rate the importance of the following contact
center objectives

0 2 4 6 8 10

Improve customer
satisfaction

Improve customer
loyalty

Improve brand
reputation

Improve customer
advocacy

Decrease costs

Gain customer
insights

Reduce
complaints

Increase revenue

Increase profit

Grow market
share

Gain product
insights

0 2 4 6 8 10

0 2 4 6 8 10

callcenter-iq.com 66
 Expert Perspectives
Today’s contact center is all-encompassing. It’s
a sales center. It’s a support center. It services
customers and assures there is a level of
satisfaction. – Stefan Captijn [Genesys]
If you were to talk to a business leader, he will
always tell you the top contact center objective
is the customer experience. Many, however,
are simply paying lip service to that notion and
instead focus primarily on efficiency.
– Ric Kosiba [Interactive Intelligence]
There is a shift. Instead of evaluating the contact
center based on activity, today’s
businesses are evaluating it based on outcomes.
Insight into Performance
Objectives like ‘increased customer satisfaction’
and ‘increased brand advocacy’ establish a
purpose of the contact center. They also establish
a means of understanding the contact center’s
impact on the overall business.
Actual contact center performance occurs at
a much more granular level. To capture that
performance – and assure it is in alignment with
the high level objectives – contact centers will rely
on a myriad of performance metrics.
Contact center community debate often attempts
to create a war between different types of metrics.
Per the annual Call Center IQ survey, today’s
organizations do not view metrics in opposition.
They do not place limitations on the ones they use
to assess performance.
In terms of absolute scores, each of the five major
forms of metrics plays a valuable role in assessing
– and consequently driving – performance.
Some categories are, nonetheless, more valuable
than others.
For today’s contact centers, metrics that assess
quality are most valuable.
Expert Perspectives: Powerful Metrics
Powerful metrics include capture rate (it offers a
view of whether your calls are going where they
need to go), abandon rate (it speaks to efficacy
of systems and processes), agent attrition (it
identifies dysfunction within the organization)
and volume (it assesses the impact of seasonality).
– Ric Kosiba [Interactive Intelligence]
Revenue per agent is a valuable metric. Instead
of assessing performance call-by-call, it focuses
How did it affect the business? – Matt Matsui
[Calabrio]
We have visibility into hundreds of different
contact centers. It truly does vary across
organizations – there are people who think of it
as an engagement center as a whole. There are
some that really are treated as pure cost centers
and necessary evils. There is broad progress in
terms of moving toward an engagement center.
– Erik Strand [CallMiner]
The business is looking at the contact center,
more than ever, to improve service delivery and
reduce costs. - Kyle Antcliff [Intradiem]
Inclusive of measures related to accuracy, error/
rework rate and adherence to procedure, the
quality category earns an average importance
score of 4.25/5. Before taking into account
factors like efficiency, affability, resolve and
accessibility, businesses want to assure they are
consistently communicating the best possible
information to their customers.
Insofar as customer satisfaction and loyalty
represent the most important contact center
objectives, metrics related to the customer
naturally rank highly on the importance
scale. Given an average score of 4.13/5, the
customer-oriented category, exemplified by
CSAT, Net Promoter Score and repeat rate, is the
second-most important form of performance
measurement.
Inclusive of average handle time and average
speed of answer, the efficiency category is next-
most important (4.11). The resolution metrics
classification (first call resolution, call back
rate, transfer rate) follows with a 4.09, while
accessibility metrics (blockage, uptime, self-service
availability rate) (3.95) are comparatively least-
important.
on the impact of the relationships the agent
is developing with customers. – Matt Matsui
[Calabrio]
Metrics truly depend on the nature of the
business and nature of the contact center. For
a sales center, conversion rate is most relevant.
For a customer service center with an emphasis
on the experience, relevant metrics include Net
Promoter Score and Customer Effort Score.
- Stefan Captijn [Genesys]
callcenter-iq.com 67
Q3
How would you assess the importance of the
following metric categories?

1 2 3 4 5

Accessibility metrics
(blockage, uptime,
hours of operation,
self-service availability,
abandon rate, etc)

Efficiency metrics
(average handle time,
service level, average
speed of answer, etc)

Quality metrics
(accuracy, adherence
to procedure, error/
rework rate, etc)

Resolution metrics
(first call resolution,
call back rate, transfer
rate, etc)

Customer metrics
(customer satisfaction,
NetPromoterScore,
customer loyalty,
repeat rate, etc)

1 2 3 4 5

0 1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 68
Insight into Quality
For today’s contact centers, no metrics matter
more than those related to quality. The efficacy
of a business’ approach to quality measurement,
therefore, will play an enormous role in driving—
and in bottlenecking-contact center performance.
To assess quality, a sizable 72% of businesses
turn to customer feedback. Since quality metrics
are the most valuable indicator of contact center
performance and contact center performance
is predicated on achieving customer loyalty and
satisfaction, using customer insights to assess
quality is a natural course.
Agent feedback plays the next-most notable role
in quality measurement. 53% of businesses draw
quality insights from agent feedback.
Other popular wells for quality information
include side-by-side agent comparisons (50%),
call recording evaluations (by hand) (47%) and call
recording evaluations (using commercial software)
(28%).
Insight into the Customer
Today’s businesses identify customer satisfaction
and loyalty as the most paramount objectives for
contact center performance. They pay significant
attention to customer-oriented metrics.
In attempting to capture the relevant customer
sentiment, businesses have the option of listening
to the voice of the customer.
The extent to which they are doing so varies across
businesses and across departments.
Asked to identify the extent to which key business
stakeholders rely on the voice of the customer,
respondents identify senior contact center
leadership as most reliant.
By only scoring that reliance at a 3.9/5, however,
respondents reveal that even senior contact center
leaders can make a greater effort to align with
customer demand.
The next-most reliant segment is the contact
center supervisor rank; its emphasis on the voice
of the customer is scored at a 3.77/5. The reliance
levels of executive leadership (3.4/5), contact
center agents (3.3/5), sales (3.0/5) and marketing
(3.0/5) follow.
Challenging as an abstract concept, measuring
quality has become a greater burden thanks to the
rise of omni-channel communication. In addition
to evaluating telephone interactions, businesses
must determine whether—and how—to monitor
and measure the quality of engagement in a myriad
of alternative channels.
The rise of those alternative channels has not
knocked telephony from its perch. Respondents
confirm that telephone communication warrants
the highest standard of interaction quality.
In-person communication possesses the second-
highest standard for quality, while e-mail and web
self-service receive the third- and fourth-greatest
levels of scrutiny. No other channel possesses an
“elevated” standard.
Channels with particularly low standards include
video, virtual agents, SMS, mobile applications and
social media.
Considering their roles are inherently customer-
oriented, the modest reliance scores for contact
center, sales and marketing personnel are certainly
unintuitive. The executive leadership score is
arguably a greater point of concern.
The majority of respondents confirm that the
C-level is responsible for overseeing big picture
contact center strategy. If the division responsible
for big picture contact center strategy is not relying
as significantly as possible on the voice of the
customer, contact center strategy is consequently
being designed without the greatest possible
influence from the voice of the customer.
Organizations that do pay mind to voice of the
customer insights most commonly acquire that
information from agents. While respondents rate
agent reliance on the voice of the customer at
3.3/5, they say 64% of businesses turn to agent
feedback when attempting to uncover the voice of
the customer.
Other popular sources of the voice of the customer
include call recordings (58%), customer feedback
surveys (56%), post-call assessments (53%) and
inbound, unsolicited customer feedback (50%).
callcenter-iq.com 69
Q4
To what extent do the following units/
departments use the voice of the customer?

1 2 3 4 5
Executive leadership
Senior contact center
leadership
Contact center
management/supervisors
Contact center agents
Product development

Marketing
Sales/Business
Development
Human Resources
IT

Accounting/Finance

1 2 3 4 5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

Q5
To what extent do these channels carry an elevated or
reduced standard for quality in your contact center?
-1 0 1
(Reduced Standard) (Normal Standard) (Elevated Standard)

Telephone

Website/self-service

Mobile app/Mobile
self-service

SMS/Text

Social media

E-mail

Live chat

In-Person

Video

Virtual agents

-1 0 1
(Reduced Standard) (Normal Standard) (Elevated Standard)

-0.30
-0.25
-0.20
-0.15
-0.10
-0.050.000.050.100.150.200.250.300.350.40
callcenter-iq.com 70
Vision of Excellence
Identifying the core objectives – and core
metrics – against which a contact center will be
measured is a core component of the performance
management process.
It is not the only component.
Upon identifying the desired outcomes, businesses
must identify the mechanisms through which they
will achieve those outcomes.
Vision of Excellence: Elements of Successful
Contact Centers
Today’s age is one of customer centricity. One of
today’s most notable competitive differentiators
involves the customer experience.
Virtually no facet of the contact center, as a result,
is unimportant. Some elements, however, are
more important than others.
Agent knowledge is the most notable example of
those elements.
Asked to rate the importance of numerous contact
center elements on a 0-5 scale, respondents
awarded knowledgeable agents a score of 4.52/5.
Significant in absolute terms, the score also
resonates from a relative standpoint. It establishes
agent knowledge as most pivotal to the success of
contact center operations.
Indicative of the role agents play in driving contact
center excellence, the next two most important
factors also concern contact center personnel. An
agent’s ability to access systems without a delay
is second-most important with a score of 4.42/5,
while a strong agent training program follows on
the strength of a 4.32/5 rating.
Today’s contact centers function – and
communicate – using a myriad of different tools
and systems, but none carry as much importance
as agents.
The use of customer-oriented metrics represents
the fourth-most important operational element.
Given that today’s most notable contact center
objectives are customer satisfaction and customer
loyalty, businesses naturally value a performance
management approach that keeps the customer
in mind.
In the spirit of agent empowerment, an agent’s
ability to reach supervisors and internal support
teams without delays represents the fifth-most
important contact center element (4.08/5).
Not all contact center elements—or elements
involving agents--possess strong scores. Allowing
agents to connect remotely, for instance, ranks
at a mere 2.49/5. In ranking the element as the
least important driver of success, businesses are
What operational elements are required to
drive customer satisfaction and customer
loyalty? What do high-quality, customer-centric
interactions entail?
What is an accurate vision of contact center
excellence?
declaring that excellence is not predicated on the
existence of an at-home agent program.
In another sign that workforce flexibility is not
significantly associated with agent empowerment,
the existence of a dynamic or flexible agent
scheduling program ranks as the second-least
important contact center element. While its
absolute score of 3.19/5 is not particularly poor,
its score ranks near the bottom of the comparative
hierarchy.
Respondents believe the accessibility of supervisors
plays a significant role in driving contact center
success. They do not believe a remote agent
program is a notable ticket to excellence. They do
not, however, strongly believe that supervisors or
agents must be on site.
In a sign that the aforementioned remote agent
score is more about indifference than opposition
to an at-home workforce and that access to
supervisors does not necessarily have to occur in
the physical contact center, respondents say an on-
site workforce is the third-least important success
factor. They score the element at a 3.30/5.
Seemingly inevitable given today’s pro-customer
landscape, reliance on customer-oriented metrics
ranks very highly on the importance hierarchy.
Compensating agents based on those metrics is
decidedly less important.
The same respondents who call the use of
customer-oriented performance metrics the
fourth-most important determinant of contact
center success say tying those metrics to
compensation is the fourth-least important.
As it stands, executive teams manage day-to-
day operations in 19% of businesses and overall
contact center strategy in 56% of cases. The
C-suite, along with the operations department,
plays a pivotal role in managing the contact center.
Respondents do not believe that level of
management is necessary.
Given a score of 3.36/5, C-level involvement in the
contact center is the fifth-least important element.
callcenter-iq.com 71
Q6
Rate the importance of the following to
contact center operations
1 2 3 4 5

360 degree customer view

Access to real-time analytics

Knowledgeable agents

Extensive, accessible knowledgebase

Agent can access systems without delay

Agents can access supervisors/internal

support without delay
Strong agent training program

Strong agent recruiting program

Unified desktop

Agent-friendly technology

Customer-friendly technology

Systems integrated

Contact center technology testing

Interaction quality monitoring

Contact volume management

Risk management/disaster protocol

Remote agents

Dynamic/flexible agent scheduling

Metrics that focus on

internal efficiency
Metrics that focus on customer
Compensation tied to
customer-oriented performance
Compensation tied to efficiency/productivity

Process improvement/Lean
management
Involvement of C-level
Collaboration with other
departments
Agents/managers
primarily on-site

1 2 3 4 5

0 1 2 3 4 5
callcenter-iq.com 72
Vision of Excellence: Elements of Successful
Interactions
At its core a bridge between brand and customer,
a contact center cannot be defined entirely by
what happens inside its walls. What happens
within customer interactions is also of immense
importance.
Just as businesses ascribe particularly great value
to certain operational elements, they also adhere
to a hierarchy when evaluating interactions. No
interactional element is unimportant in absolute
terms, but several play a particularly pivotal role
in fostering successful engagement, which in turn
helps a business achieve its fundamental contact
center objectives.
When it comes to today’s interactions, knowledge
is power. Scored 4.43/5, agent knowledge
represents the most important determinant of
contact quality. Contact accuracy, which received
a score of 4.39/5 from respondents, represents the
second-most significant driver.
Per an old adage, one can train the skill but not
the smile. If true, today’s contact center leaders
are unable to train the third-most important drive
of contact quality. Agent friendliness, that driver,
claims an importance score of 4.30/5.
In positioning agent knowledge, call accuracy
and agent friendliness at the top of the pyramid,
respondents affirm that what one says and how
one says it are both of significance. A call cannot
succeed if the agent does not get the information
right, but simply sharing the correct information is
not necessarily enough. The agent must be cordial
when doing so.
Other key factors are the agent’s ability to offer a
resolution without delay (4.13/5) and first contact
resolution (4.10/5).
Expert Perspectives: The Keys to a Successful Interaction
Customers expect choice regarding the way they
can communicate with an organization. They
also want the experience to be personalized.
The CRM effort has brought organizations
tons of information about their customers, but
businesses must be strategic about how they
use that information when communicating with
customers. Customers want that information to
drive the interaction.
– Stefan Captijn [Genesys]
The customer carse more about getting his issue
resolved – quickly and appropriately – than a lot
of the other, softer things. The primary driver of
satisfaction is efficient resolution. – Erik Strand
[CallMiner]
They want what they want the way they want
it when they want it. They don’t want to dwell
Insofar as no interaction element received a
score of less than 3.17, no interaction element is
unimportant in absolute terms. As is the case with
any importance, some must carry less value than
others.
Positioned at the bottom of the hierarchy – with
the 3.17/5 score – is the agent’s ability to access
information about the customer’s buying habits
and feedback. While agent knowledge and
empowerment are of clear importance to today’s
contact centers, the agent’s ability to personalize
based on the customer’s historical data is evidently
not as pivotal.
The omni-channel revolution may occupy
a significant portion of contact center
communication, but omni-channel elements do
not play comparatively important roles in driving
successful interactions. Respondents rate the
customer’s ability to span channels – without
repeating information – as second-least important
(3.23/5). With a score of 3.36, honoring the
customer’s channel preference is third-least
important.
While organizations still ascribe importance to
efficiency metrics, they do not believe speed, itself,
is a paramount determinant of call quality. Scored
3.45/5, speed ranks as fourth-least important.
Assuring few or no transfers (3.65/5) plays the fifth-
least important role in driving interaction quality.
In declaring accuracy and first contact resolution
as more important than speed and transfer rate,
businesses are declaring a willingness to sacrifice
superficial efficiency in the name of a high-quality
overall interaction. Fast, transfer-free service is still
valuable – the absolute scores confirm that speed
and transfer rate matter – but businesses do not
want it to come at the expense of accuracy.
on things like channel; they want to be able to
have a discussion that results in an effectively
instant resolution. – Matt Matsui [Calabrio]
Customers care about getting their problem
handled without much hassle, but they also
want a good experience talking with an agent.
The agent’s ability to establish a personal
connection with the customer plays into that
goal. – Ric Kosiba [Interactive Intelligence]
Great customer experience interactions are the
result of a solid internal operation. Today’s
contact center interactions are burdened
with complexity; businesses that can simplify
that complexity will yield interactions that are
more satisfying and productive for agents and
customers alike. - Kyle Antcliff [Intradiem]
callcenter-iq.com 73
Q7
To what extent do the following impact the
quality of an interaction?

1 2 3 4 5

Speed

Accuracy

Honors Customer’s
Channel Preference

Customer can span channel

during call (without
repeating information in
the new channel)
Customer does not need to
repeat information when
transferring

Few or no transfers

Agent friendliness

Agent knowledge

Agent can access details

from customer’s previous
interactions
Agent can access details
about customer’s buying
habits/feedback

Experience is personalized

Agent forms a personal

connection with
the customer

First contact resolution

High-value resolution

Resolution consistent with

customer’s first demand

Low customer effort

Agent empowered to give

solution (without additional
approval or delay)

1 2 3 4 5

0 1 2 3 4 5
callcenter-iq.com 74
Power of People
When evaluating internal operations, contact
center professionals place immense importance on
agent empowerment. When evaluating customer
interactions, contact center professionals place
immense importance on agent performance.
People, clearly, represent the key to contact center
success.
The Right Kind of Agent
Every customer is different, and all customers are
important. To succeed, a contact center agent,
consequently, must excel in a variety of areas.
But just as there are factors that matter particularly
greatly to operational efficacy and interaction
quality, there are certain elements of agent
performance that carry particular weight. Agents
who excel in such areas are the agents who
contribute most notably in the contact center’s
pursuit of its key objectives.
Those agents are the ones who demonstrate
consistency when offering support and
information (4.30/5), possess product and process
knowledge (4.13), offer accurate information
(4.11), communicate with friendliness (4.06) and
personalize calls (3.95).
Consistency, agent knowledge and accuracy tie
into the central theme of communicating the
right information or resolution on every call.
Before worrying about the manner or forum in
which they engage customers, businesses most
notably care about what they are saying within
those interactions. In accordance with that
focus, agents must possess knowledge and be
able to consistently communicate that accurate
information.
Once they establish that framework, agents’ next
directive is to integrate a friendly, personalized
demeanor into the call. They do not necessarily
need to know everything about the customer’s
past, but they must be able to engage customers
on a human level.
A resonant contact center strategy will therefore
work to monitor, measure, analyze and improve
the impact of agents. It will assure agents have
the tools and training they need. It will then
assure agents are using those tools and training to
forge meaningful bonds with customers.
Comparatively unimportant to agent performance
are cross-channel competency (2.85), the ability
to turn calls into revenue opportunities (2.87), the
ability to minimize resolution costs (2.91), success
in analyzing customer data (3.04) and the number
of calls handled per day (3.06).
None is ranked at a surprising or contradictory
position on the hierarchy.
Businesses do not identify channel capability as a
top driver of contact center success. Moreover,
the organizations that do highly value omni-
channel communication do not necessarily believe
individual agents need to support customers
across channels. Cross-channel competency aligns
with the omni-channel revolution and thus has
relevance in the contemporary contact center
environment, but it is not necessarily a pivotal
driver of agent performance.
Since businesses value objectives like customer
satisfaction and loyalty more greatly than they do
cost reduction and revenue creation, it naturally
opts not to ascribe paramount importance to an
agent’s cost-cutting or revenue-driving abilities.
Personalization matters, but businesses do not
believe historical data plays a critical role in the
success of an interaction. Contact centers do not
place speed or volume management at the top of
the totem pole; placing an agent’s call count at
the top of a performance assessment would be
contradictory.
callcenter-iq.com 75
Q8
How important are the following agent attributes?

1 2 3 4 5

Friendliness

Understands
company culture
Understands company
performance metrics
Understands company
contact center objective
Ability to
personalize a call
Adherence
to script/procedure
Ability to minimize
handle time
Ability to achieve
resolution quickly
Ability to minimize
costs of resolution

Product/process knowledge

Can analyze existing

customer data successfully
Flexibility with issues/customer
demographics
Flexibility with channels (can
provide cross-channel support)
Handles large number
of calls per day
Acquires great
feedback from customer

Offers great feedback

to management
Can assist other agents

Contributes to team meetings/

training sessions
Can steer calls towards
revenue opportunities
Offers accurate
support/information
Offers consistent
support/information

Presents creative solutions

1 2 3 4 5

0 1 2 3 4 5
callcenter-iq.com 76
Metrics as a Guide
In addition to looking at outcomes and qualitative
indicators, a substantial number of today’s contact
centers also leverage metrics to assess, coach and
incentivize their agents.
According to respondents, 55% of today’s contact
centers rely on efficiency metrics to measure
agent performance. 54% render an assessment
using quality metrics, while 41% draw conclusions
about agent performance using customer-oriented
metrics.
Resolution and accessibility metrics represent
agent performance assessment tools in 38% and
28% of cases, respectively.
The Right Kind of Manager
While agents possess inherent strengths and
weaknesses, their success is also a byproduct of
their environment. The systems on which they rely
and the culture in which they operate can serve to
empower or undercut agents’ ability to perform.
Supervisor quality also plays an instrumental role.
Managing agent performance, therefore, involves
managing the performance of their supervisors.
Granted, insofar as supervisors are not simply
responsible for establishing their own competency
but for instilling competency in others, measuring
supervisor performance often involves assessing
the performance of the overall centers – and
agents – they manage.
Call quality, for instance, represents the most
important supervisor measurement metric
(3.78/5). Supervisors will personally participate in
few, if any, calls, but the training they offer and
oversight they provide will impact every interaction
within that contact center. If the quality is high,
the supervisor deserves credit for leading his team
to success.
Each given a score of 3.72, interaction accuracy
and efficiency metrics represent the second-most
important indicators of supervisor performance. A
relevant success indicator for seemingly every facet
of the contact center, accuracy speaks directly
to a supervisors’ success in training agents and
managing systems. While today’s businesses take
a relaxed approach to efficiency within the context
of individual interactions, they consider it an
important holistic focus for supervisors. Resource
limitations do not disappear simply because today’s
contact centers allow for ‘strategic calls,’ and it
is the job of supervisors to assure the accuracy,
resolve and personalization demonstrated on each
individual interaction does not undermine overall
operational efficiency.
More than one-third of contact centers (35%)
coach agents in accordance with customer-
oriented metrics. 32% do so with quality metrics,
while 30% of contact centers incorporate
resolution metrics and efficiency metrics into their
coaching strategies.
Most affected by systems and thus least
manageable by agents, accessibility metrics
nonetheless factor into agent training for 20% of
organizations.
Deemed the most important metric category by
contact centers, the quality metrics class plays
a role in determining agent compensation for
37% of contact centers and promotions and shift
assignments for 29% of centers.
With scores of 3.52 and 3.47, customer feedback
and performance against customer-oriented
metrics also impact the business’ assessment of
its supervisors. Both criteria hold supervisors
accountable for customer sentiment.
Comparatively unimportant criteria include contact
center profitability (2.56), agent retention rate
(2.69), contact center cost (2.87), scheduling
efficacy (2.96) and manager product knowledge
(3.20).
To the extent that profitability and cost are not
as important as customer-oriented objectives,
businesses will not definitively define supervisors
by those criteria. Scheduling is one of the least
important determinants of operational success;
it, therefore, does not rank as a comparatively
significant determinant of supervisor performance.
Supervisors play an obvious role in agent retention,
but businesses evidently do not believe they should
be defined by their success in that area. Rationale
may stem from the perceived inevitability of agent
attrition. It may also be attributable to the fact
that supervisors, while responsible for overseeing
day-to-day agent operations, play a less definitive
role in shaping compensation and overall business
imperatives.
While supervisors are held accountable for
agent knowledge, their own knowledge does
not play a particularly important role from
a performance standpoint. In this case, the
comparatively low score may stem from its limited
role in differentiation. Since most supervisors
will presumably possess core product and process
knowledge, it is not an effective means of
separating good supervisors from bad ones.
callcenter-iq.com 77
Q9
How do you measure manager/supervisor
performance?

1 2 3 4 5

Agent retention rate

Agent performance
improvement

Customer-oriented metrics

Efficiency/internal metrics

Customer feedback

Agent feedback

Call quality

Accuracy of interactions

Cost of contact
center operations

Profit of contact
center operations

Scheduling Efficacy

Manager product/
process knowledge

Quality of coaching/
training sessions

Quality of insights/feedback
presented to senior executives

1 2 3 4 5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

callcenter-iq.com 78
Power of Technology
When attempting to execute a contact center
strategy and realize an ultimate vision, the people
factor cannot be ignored.
It is not, however, the only entity to which
attention must be paid.
The instrument with which businesses – and
agents – will turn contact center ideas into contact
center actions, technology plays an instrumental
role in the realization of a contact center vision.
Sourcing for Success
Successfully leveraging technology begins with a
successful sourcing process. Cognizant of internal
limitations and challenges, decision makers must
analyze their needs, sift through biased marketing
copy and sales pitches and ultimately identify the
technology that will most notably empower their
contact centers.
That technology, above all else, must integrate
with existing systems.
Asked to rank the most important factors
when sourcing technology, respondents scored
integration at a 7.8/10. No other sourcing
consideration is as important.
In order to empower—and not cripple—
agents and contact centers in their pursuit of
key objectives, technology should intuitively
demonstrate immense usability. Ease of use/
accessibility for agents, consequently, ranks as the
second-most important sourcing criteria (6.8/10).
Other relevant factors include upfront price
(6.5), scalability and upgrade potential (6.4) and
maintenance costs (6.2). In positioning cost-
Systemic Performance
Once businesses identify, purchase and implement
the right solutions, they must engage in a different
type of evaluation. They must assess how the
technology is performing.
No matter how comprehensive the sourcing
process, one can never truly know the value of
a solution until it is actually implemented. Only
when a business fully understands how it impacts
the myriad of contact center elements and
stakeholders can it determine the solution’s true
worth.
Of universal relevance to the contemporary contact
center, technology does not, however, assure
uniformity of value.
When sourced and used correctly, it represents a
powerful gateway to contact center excellence.
When leveraged incorrectly, it not only presents its
own problems but risks undermining the efficacy
of the contact center’s people and processes.
oriented considerations so highly on the totem
pole, respondents confirm the impact of budgetary
constraints. Technology’s fundamental value
in the contact center equation does not erase
financial realities.
The lowest-ranked concerns include the level of
support offered by vendors (4.7), alignment with
existing processes (4.8), uptime and reliability
(5.3), integration with future systems (5.8) and
depth of performance analytics (5.8).
While not necessarily unimportant concerns, the
five factors play the least significant role in the
actual sourcing process. Some, such as integration
with future systems and depth of analytics, may be
seen as luxury items and thus in a state of conflict
with higher-priority cost concerns.
Others, like vendor support and uptime, may be
taken for granted during the sourcing process.
Optimistic that most relevant solutions will provide
sufficient uptime and partner support, businesses
can look more notably to other differentiators
when making their decisions.
When it comes time to assess that worth, contact
centers most commonly turn their focus to agent
feedback. The leading source of insights related
to contact quality and the voice of the customer,
agent feedback informs technology performance
in 65% of contact centers.
Financial return on investment provides that
insight nearly as frequently. 63% of respondents
confirm that their business makes its technology
performance assessment based on financial
impact.
callcenter-iq.com 79
The top two sources of performance insight
notably align with the top sourcing considerations.
Agent usability is the paramount concern when
purchasing technology, and agent feedback is a
pivotal factor when evaluating the impact of that
technology. Factors related to cost also rank as
top sourcing considerations, and financial impact
is the second-most important way a technological
solution can demonstrate its worth.
Expert Perspectives
Using technology to optimize agent time and
automate intraday processes can produce
significant boosts in agent engagement and
productivity. This in turn drives increased
performance at the customer interaction level,
which results in better customer satisfaction.
– Kyle Antcliff [Intradiem]
Confronting Reality
In articulating their objectives and performance
goals and establishing ideals for operational
elements, interaction quality, agent engagement
and technology utilization, businesses have crafted
general roadmaps for their contact centers. They
know where they want to go, and they have a
sense of which undertakings will help them get
there.
The Big Picture
The contact center consists of an effectively infinite
number of moving parts. Any one of those parts
can be altered, and any one of those alterations
can have an impact on performance.
In order to truly improve, a contact center will
need to examine—and address—as many of those
parts as possible.
Before doing so, however, it is important to
understand the totality of those parts. To what
extent are the different puzzle pieces aligning to
create an overall contact center portrait? To what
extent does that portrait align with the business’
core contact center objectives?
Other top sources of technology performance
insight include efficiency metrics (59%), customer
feedback (52%) and customer-oriented metrics
(48%).
Comparatively unpopular evaluation sources
include external testing (26%), self-service
abandon rate (26%), maintenance costs (37%),
error reports (37%) and internal testing (39%).
The best technology is predicated on the
concept of empowerment. Commentary like
the ‘system is slow today’ or ‘do I have to
go to a knowledgebase that is tricky’ speak
to technology that fails to empower. Let us
instead give the agent the tools they need to
do their jobs swiftly and in a proactively guided
fashion. Let people do what people are good
at and let machines do what machines are good
at. - Erik Strand [CallMiner]
In the business world, not everything goes
according to plan. Strategic visions are imperfect.
Organizations resist change. Processes fall victim to
bottlenecks.
In order to account for those changes – and truly
reach their desired destinations – businesses need
to account for where they are now. Moreover, they
need to understand why they are where they are.
For today’s businesses, the answer generally
ranges between “somewhat” and “fairly well.”
Contact centers are not failing, but they are also
not yet perfect.
When asked to rate how well they are achieving
their current contact center objectives,
respondents provided a mean score of 3.37/5.
While only 6% said they have experienced
absolutely no success, a similarly unremarkable
13% declared their contact centers “extremely
successful.” The remaining 81% of respondents
fall in between the two poles.
callcenter-iq.com 80
 Performance against Metrics
In assessing a contact center’s ultimate objective,
no criterion is more important than the extent to
which the center has achieved its fundamental
objectives.
In order to understand what prompted that
success or failure – and what effort is still required
– a more granular approach is necessary.
One such granular approach involves assessing
performance against key metrics.
Those metrics, after all, serve to guide contact
center strategies and behavior in a more regular,
more tangible manner. A contact center team
cannot immediately assess microscopic changes in
customer loyalty, but it can determine whether its
“scores” are changing.
Over the long-term, it can then assess how
changes in those scores signal success or failure in
achieving fundamental objectives.
Given that businesses consider quality metrics to
be the most important, the greatest percentage
of respondents (54%) confirm that they spent
the past year increasing their emphasis on quality
metrics. Of those businesses, 85% enjoyed
increased performance, 12% saw no changes and
the remaining 3% saw reduced performance.
While today’s businesses may declare customer-
oriented objectives more important than ones
related to internal operations, the majority of
businesses still increased their focus on efficiency
metrics. The category was an increased priority
for the same 54% of businesses as the quality
category. Their success ratio was not as strong.
Of the 54% that increased focus on efficiency
metrics, 65% enjoyed increased performance,
12% experienced no change and 23% suffered
setbacks.
Customer metrics commanded the next-greatest
level of attention; the category garnered
heightened focus from 47% of businesses. Of
those 47%, 70% say they enjoyed increased
performance, 23% saw no change and 7%
suffered a decrease.
Channel Quality
They may exist in an omni-channel revolution, but
today’s businesses do not treat all channels equally.
While no channel is completely shunned in today’s
contact center environment, only the telephony,
in-person, email and web self-service channels
command a heightened standard for quality.
Those channels, predictably, are the ones for
which existing quality is best.
Presently the highest-quality channel, telephony
earns a score of 3.6/5. While not a sign that all
work is complete, the comparatively high score
suggests that contact centers best deliver for
customers when they function as call centers.
Of the 43% that increased their focus on
resolution metrics, 63% enjoyed increased
performance, 33% saw no change and 4%
suffered reduced performance.
Only 26% of businesses paid heightened attention
to accessibility metrics. 82% of them enjoyed
increased marks, while 6% faced no changes and
12% delivered reduced scores.
While the data confirms a generally positive
correlation between effort and success, it is not
a perfect one. A handful of organizations that
attempted to improve saw either stagnant or
weakened results.
Even if the correlation were perfect, it would
not cover the entire business universe. Only two
metric categories elicited increased focus from
a majority of businesses, and the majority was
a narrow one in both cases. The other three
categories commanded increased focus from fewer
than half of businesses.
Naturally, that means that performance stagnation
and reduction was commonplace.
If a business did not increase its focus on a given
metric category, the improvement rate was only
21% for accessibility metrics, 17% for efficiency
metrics, 31% for quality metrics, 22% for
resolution metrics and 33% for customer metrics.
Those success rates neither reflect optimism
regarding a natural rate of improvement nor the
default level of performance management focus.
If a business does not commit to increasing its
year-over-year focus on a given metric, it will, on
average, not improve its performance against that
metric.
Since all metrics carry importance on an absolute
scale, all metrics should receive increased focus
moving forward.
Third on the standard hierarchy, email is presently
the second-highest quality channel. It boasts a
score of 3.3/5.
Web self-service follows with a 2.9/5, while quality
in the in-person environment is rated at a 2.8/5.
Comparatively less prominent priorities for
businesses, the video (1.5) and virtual agent (1.6)
channels are not routinely producing high-quality
interactions in the status quo. With a score
of 1.9/5, the SMS arena also ranks poorly (in
comparative and absolute terms) when it comes to
interaction quality.
callcenter-iq.com 81
Q10
Rate the current quality within each channel

1 2 3 4 5

Telephone

Website/self-service

Mobile app/Mobile self-service

SMS/Text

Social media

E-mail

Live chat

In-Person

Video

Virtual agents

1 2 3 4 5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

callcenter-iq.com 82
Vision of Excellence: Elements of Today’s Contact
Centers
According to their visions of excellence, businesses
believe a knowledgeable workforce is the most
important ingredient of a successful contact center.
In the status quo, businesses believe agent
knowledge is the second-most valuable component
of their contact centers.
Asked to rate existing contact center elements on
a 0-5 scale, respondents score ‘knowledgeable
agents’ at 3.70/5. Only on-site availability of
agents and supervisors (3.72/5) scores more
favorably.
That element, interestingly, is considered one of the
least important drivers of contact center success.
Fortunately for today’s contact centers, that is the
only major conflict in the top five.
The next-most successful elements (access to
supervisors without delay, 3.53 | strong agent
Vision of Excellence: Elements of Today’s
Interactions
It may not operate solely in telephony or focus Comparatively unsuccessful elements include the
solely on customer service, but the contact center
is ultimately predicated on facilitating customer
interactions.
Since interactions are central to the contact center
function, the quality of those interactions is central
to the contact center’s performance. Fostering
powerful interactions is an inevitably important
priority.
Businesses are clear on which interaction elements
are most important, but are those the elements
they are best delivering in practice?
While businesses score some comparatively
unimportant elements higher than some of the
most important ones, the three most important
elements are the three they best deliver.
Businesses rate existing agent friendliness (3.95),
agent knowledge (3.92) and accuracy (3.91) as the
three strongest elements of status quo interactions.
Relatively satisfied with the quality of their
resolutions, businesses score the offering of high-
value resolutions as fourth-most successful (3.62).
They score alignment between resolution and
customer demand as fifth-most successful (3.59).
training, 3.40) are also among the five most
important drivers of success. Collaboration
with other departments (3.34/5), the fifth-most
successful element, is not one of the top five
success factors, but it is perceived as a reasonably
important driver (3.95/5).
Considered an unimportant success driver,
compensation based on customer-oriented metrics
is not a source of arrogance in the status quo.
Organizations rate their current success with that
element at a mere 2.46/5. It is the weakest existing
contact center element.
Other comparatively poor performers include
remote agents (2.47), unified desktops (2.53),
systems integration (2.65) and dynamic scheduling
(2.71). None ranks as one of the most important
success factors, and remote agents and dynamic
scheduling are among the least important.
ability to access details about a customer’s buying
habits and feedback (2.48), the customer’s ability
to span channels without repeating information
(2.55), the customer’s ability to transfer without
repeating information (2.89), honoring the
customer’s channel preference (2.94) and low
customer effort (3.11).
Not all of the five least successful elements are
considered comparatively unimportant, but none is
one of the five most comparatively important. That
rough alignment offers a favorable commentary
regarding today’s contact centers.
The numbers simultaneously provide a roadmap
for improvement. When it comes to the five most
important interaction elements, none boasts a
performance score equal to or greater than the
importance score. Insofar as the majority of today’s
businesses do not view their existing performance
levels as optimal, they will need to focus on areas
like agent knowledge, accuracy and first contact
resolution to improve the efficacy of interactions –
and thus the value of their contact centers.
callcenter-iq.com 83
Q11
How would you assess the current quality of
the following in your contact center?
Quality of operations 1 2 3 4 5
right now:

360 degree customer view

Access to
real-time analytics

Knowledgeable agents

Extensive, accessible
knowledgebase
Agent can access systems
without delay

Agents can access supervisors/

internal support without delay
Strong agent
training program

Strong agent
recruiting program

Unified desktop

Agent-friendly technology

Customer-friendly technology

Systems integrated

Contact center
technology testing

Interaction quality monitoring

Contact volume management

Risk management/
disaster protocol

Remote agents

Dynamic/flexible
agent scheduling
Metrics that focus on
internal efficiency
Metrics that
focus on customer

Compensation tied to
customer-oriented performance
Compensation tied to
efficiency/productivity

Process improvement/
Lean management

Involvement of C-level

Collaboration with other

departments
Agents/managers
primarily on-site

1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 84
Q12
To what extent does your contact center
achieve the following in its interactions?
1 2 3 4 5

Speed

Accuracy

Honors Customer’s
Channel Preference
Customer can span channel
during call (without repeating
information in the new channel)
Customer does not need to repeat
information when transferring

Few or no transfers

Agent friendliness

Agent knowledge

Agent can access details from

customer’s previous interactions

Agent can access details about

customer’s buying habits/feedback

Experience is personalized

Agent forms a personal

connection with the customer

First contact resolution

High-value resolution

Resolution consistent with

customer’s first demand

Low customer effort

Agent empowered to give

solution (without additional
approval or delay)

1 2 3 4 5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

callcenter-iq.com 85
Q13
How well are your agents currently performing?
1 2 3 4 5

Friendliness

Understands company culture

Understands company
performance metrics

Understands company contact

center objective

Ability to personalize a call

Adherence to script/procedure

Ability to minimize handle time

Ability to achieve
resolution quickly

Ability to minimize
costs of resolution

Product/process knowledge

Can analyze existing customer

data successfully

Flexibility with issues/customer

demographics
Flexibility with channels (can
provide cross-channel support)

Handles large number of

calls per day
Acquires great feedback
from customer
Offers great feedback to
management

Can assist other agents

Contributes to team meetings/

training sessions
Can steer calls towards
revenue opportunities

Offers accurate
support/information

Offers consistent
support/information

Presents creative solutions

1 2 3 4 5

0 1 2 3 4 5
callcenter-iq.com 86
Analyzing Agents
Agents that best serve customers – and thus best
perform for their contact centers – demonstrate
consistency of service, ample, accurate product
knowledge, friendliness and an ability to connect
on a personal level.
Agents that serve today’s customers – and perform
for today’s contact centers – most commonly
demonstrate friendliness.
Content with how the affability of their agents,
respondents rate existing agent friendliness at
a 4.04/5. It is the strongest trait espoused by
today’s community of contact center agents.
Other comparatively strong attributes include
product and process knowledge (3.72/5), an
understanding of company culture (3.67),
consistency in offering support information (3.67)
and accuracy in offering support information
(3.62).
Four of the top five attributes also rank within
the top five on the importance hierarchy. The
agent’s understanding of company culture, which
does not, still fares respectably on said hierarchy
(3.52/5).
The ability to personalize calls, which is the fifth-
most valuable agent characteristic, is a source of
decent success in the status quo. Respondents
score agents’ personalization ability at 3.54/5.
Today’s agents are not successful in all regards.
Technology: The Solution or the Problem?
Whether designed to simplify an existing task
or add a previously unavailable capability to
the contact center, a contact center technology
solution carries standards for value and
importance. Technology that serves as a net
financial or operational tax on the contact center is
categorically poor.
Good technology – the kind that yields positive
value for the contact center – will possess
numerous attributes. Per respondents, those
attributes include integration with existing systems,
usability for agents, low upfront costs, scalability
and low maintenance costs.
The technology the respondents are actually using,
unfortunately, does not demonstrate absolute
excellence in any regard.
In relative terms, its greatest value comes in
the form of integration with existing processes
(3.44/5).
That attribute, interestingly, is one of business’
least important considerations when sourcing
Comparatively weak attributes include the ability
to steer calls toward revenue opportunities (2.56),
the ability to minimize resolution costs (2.63),
cross-channel competency (2.80), adeptness in
analyzing customer data (2.98) and competency in
preventing feedback to management (3.00).
Since four of the five skills fall within the bottom
five on the importance hierarchy, the comparatively
weak performance is not alarming. If today’s
contact center agents are going to demonstrate
imperfection, this is nearly the most desirable form
of imperfection they can demonstrate.
On the other hand, the comparatively weak
attributes of today’s contact center professionals
still play a role in the overall contact center
function. Improving them, consequently, can
add value to a center that must “compete on the
customer experience.”
It may not be viewed as a top contact center
objective, but businesses do care about revenue.
Continued emphasis on efficiency metrics proves
they do care about cost containment. The
continued rise of omni-channel will necessitate
greater cross-channel competency. If businesses
identify personalization as a valuable agent
attribute, the ability to analyze customer data
should naturally warrant more importance. And
insofar as agent feedback represents a top source
of information about the state of the contact
center, competency in communicating with
management is a very relevant skill.
technology. According to respondents, only the
quality of the technology vendor’s support matters
less.
The disparity is not limited to the top of the
performance pyramid. In giving it a score of
3.26/5, respondents say uptime is the second-
strongest attribute of existing technology.
When sourcing technology, uptime represents the
third-least important point of consideration.
The fact that integration with existing processes
and uptime are unimportant during the sourcing
process does not mean they are fundamentally
unimportant attributes. In practice, business
success may hinge on the extent to which
technology can support existing processes.
Uptime, meanwhile, is a prerequisite for satisfying
customers.
The fact that they are unimportant during the
sourcing process does, however, mean that they
do not represent sources of differentiation. If not
outright unimportant to businesses, attributes
callcenter-iq.com 87
like process integration and uptime are taken for
granted and thus not uniquely valuable. Today’s
contact centers, therefore, are not generating
optimal value from their technology investments.
Improvement is irrefutably necessary.
While not ideal, the existing performance
landscape is not completely misaligned with the
value hierarchy. Usability for agents (3.09), low
maintenance costs (3.06) and low upfront costs
(2.93), the next-strongest attributes of existing
technology, are comparatively important during
the sourcing process.
Why Contact Centers aren’t Delivering Better
Asked to rate how well they are achieving their
current contact center objectives, respondents
provided a mean score of 3.37/5. Only 13%
declared their contact centers “extremely
successful.”
Moreover, their current success in delivering key
contact center elements pales in comparison
to the importance of those elements. Contact
centers, for instance, rate the importance of
‘knowledgeable agents’ at 4.52 but score current
success at 3.70. Contact centers assess their
success in achieving first contact resolution at 3.53
despite its importance rating of 4.10.
Contact centers may not be failing, but they are
not optimally succeeding. Numerous bottlenecks
factor into that struggle.
When it comes to internal operations, technology
quality is the biggest bottleneck. Respondents
assess its impact at a 3.13/5.
Other notable bottlenecks include budget
limitations (3.06), availability of personnel (3.01),
lack of technology integration (2.99) and inability
to handle all issues in all channels (2.54).
Insofar as two key forms of technology and
systems integration represent three of the worst-
performing elements of the contact center, the
fact that technology quality and integration
represent significant bottlenecks is unsurprising.
Existing systems are not offering the desired level
of empowerment.
Resource limitations – such as budget and
personnel – are common bottlenecks inherent
to most business units. Overcoming them is a
perpetual challenge in the business world.
The fact that “contact center” continues to gain
credibility as the business function’s preferred
term speaks to the importance of communicating
in multiple channels. If businesses are unable to
Comparatively weak elements of today’s
technology systems include the ability to integrate
with future systems (2.54), usability for customers
(2.57) and level of support provided by the vendor
(2.83).
None is concerned a paramount priority during
sourcing; future integration and support level are
particularly unimportant concerns.
make good on that multi-channel expectation,
success will naturally be bottlenecked. The
comparatively high ranking for “inability to handle
all issues in all channels” speaks to the reality of
that concern.
When it comes to interaction quality, respondents
define the customer’s ability to access systems
(3.17/5) as the greatest bottleneck. Of
consequence to everything from the quality of
information a customer receives when seeking
self-service to the availability of agents to address
customers without delay, systems accessibility
plays an immense role in enabling – or preventing
– successful interactions.
Agent knowledge is important to successful
interactions. Believing agents do not always have
the necessary knowledge, respondents also score
‘agent knowledge’ as a chief bottleneck. With a
score of 3.13/5, it represents the second-biggest
obstacle.
The agents, themselves, are not always to blame
for knowledge lapses.
Agents’ ability to access the systems that
provide relevant knowledge also represents a
comparatively significant bottleneck. In assessing
its impact at 3.10/5, respondents label it the third-
biggest inhibitor to quality interactions.
Other notable bottlenecks include agent training
(3.06/5) and resource limitations (3.05/5).
The fourth-most significant bottleneck on
interaction quality, agent training, interestingly,
is one of the least significant bottlenecks on
operational success (2.38/5). The disparity
suggests that existing training is sufficient when
it comes to internal processes and systems but
insufficient when it comes to actually interacting
with customers.
callcenter-iq.com 88
Q14
To what extent do the following service as
bottlenecks in your contact center?
1 2 3 4 5

C-level/executive buy-in - lack of

support from the top

Resources - availability of staff

Resources - budget

Technology - overall quality

Technology - lack of integration

Technology - poor
uptime/reliability

Metrics - wrong things

being measured

Metrics - agents conditioned to

focus on wrong metrics

Agents - quality of people hired

Agents - quality of
training/coaching

Issues - too complex

Analytics - Lack of detail on

customers/issues

Analytics - Lack of in-call analytics

Culture - culture does not keep

agents engaged

Culture - culture does not

promote customer centricity

Channels - not prepared to handle

issues in all channels

Quality - quality monitoring/

assurance not optimal

1 2 3 4 5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

callcenter-iq.com 89
Q15
To what extent do the following bottleneck
interaction quality?
1 2 3 4 5

Agent knowledge

Agent training

Procedural rigidity
(too scripted, impersonal)

Lack of procedural rigidity

(not scripted, formalized enough)

Resources
(agents stretched too thin, etc)

Systems
(accessibility for customer)

Systems
(accessibility for agent)

Technology reliability
(suboptimal uptime)

Metrics
(wrong metrics being used)

Management strategy (wrong

objectives/directives being set)

Monitoring frequency (not

monitoring enough)

Monitoring efficacy (monitoring

the wrong things)

Feedback quality (not receiving

enough quality feedback)

Feedback application
(not using feedback)

1 2 3 4 5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

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Realizing the Vision
By assessing existing performance, businesses
know where their contact centers are in the status
quo.
By assessing key objectives and establishing value
hierarchies, businesses know where they want to
take their contact centers.
The result is a clear blueprint for success.
The inevitable existence of that blueprint does not,
however, necessarily mean businesses will follow
its instructions to the letter.
For a myriad of reasons, not all businesses will
philosophically agree to commit the appropriate
time, attention and resources into gap areas.
By not bridging those gaps, businesses render
themselves unable to reach their desired
destination.
Metrics of the Future
In absolute terms, all forms of contact center carry
importance within today’s contact centers. In
comparative terms, quality metrics command the
greatest degree of focus.
Moving forward, that level of focus will only
increase. A whopping 70% of businesses say they
will increase focus on quality metrics over the next
year. 31% will significantly increase focus.
The plan to significantly increase focus on quality
metrics is tantamount to confirmation that
businesses still seek considerable improvement in
contact center quality.
They, however, seek even more improvement in
performance against customer-oriented metrics.
80% of businesses plan to increase their attention
on customer-oriented metrics over the next year.
40% of businesses will pay significantly greater
mind to the metric category.
A desire for improvement also applies to the other
key metric categories.
Moreover, businesses that adopt the right
philosophical approach to contact center
improvement will not necessarily achieve that
improvement. The distinction between talking
and walking is one of the business world’s cruelest
realities, and it is one that consistently plagues the
contact center function.
Knowing what they need to do – and committing
to what they need to do – is not the same as doing
what they need to do.
At the end of the day, the undeniable difficulty of
walking the talk does not temper the importance
of business objectives. It does not temper
the need for results. Businesses will need to
successfully bridge the gap between their current
state and their desired state.
That process begins with identifying—and
enacting—the right overarching game plan.
According to respondents, 68% of businesses
will increase focus on resolution metrics (22%
will significantly do so). 67% will place elevated
attention on efficiency metrics (19% will do so
significantly), while 52% will pay greater mind to
accessibility metrics (16% will do so significantly).
While metrics are technically indicators of overall
performance, they also represent ends in and
of themselves. The activities and investments a
contact center undertakes serve to positively or
negatively impact scores.
By declaring their intentions to improve
performance against every key metric area,
businesses are requisitely declaring their intentions
to improve the activities within their contact
centers. If businesses do not fundamentally
improve elements related to areas like interaction
efficacy, agent performance and technology value,
they will not achieve the desired success against
key metrics.
And if their scores against the key metrics are not
improving, they are not closing the gap between
the status quo and their key objectives.
callcenter-iq.com 91
How Will You Hear Me Then?
Today’s contact center interactions skew the way
businesses want them to skew. Businesses believe
the most valuable interactions are friendly, feature
knowledgeable agents and convey information
accurately, and those are the three strongest
tenets of status quo interactions.
None of those tenets – or any tenet – is being
achieved at an optimal level. Interactions may be
generally friendly – and friendlier than they are low
effort – but they are not as friendly (or as low in
effort) as they should or could be.
Since today’s businesses not only recognize a
gap between the quality of existing interaction
elements and the importance of those elements
but desire improvement in all five major metric
categories, they must work to foster better
interactions.
When it comes to their forward strategies, today’s
businesses possess a generally solid desire to
improve most key interaction areas.
Indicative of the extent to which they prioritize
a select few interaction elements, their greatest
desire to improve concerns the areas for which
they are already achieving the greatest success.
Businesses, for instance, rate their desire to
improve agent knowledge, which is the second-
strongest aspect of today’s interactions, at a
comparatively (and absolutely) strong 4.41/5.
They espouse a similarly strong commitment to
improving already successful elements like agent
friendliness 4.17/5 and accuracy 4.08/5.
Quality in an Operational Context
Quality has broader ramifications than interactions
themselves. To improve quality, businesses will
therefore need to extend their line of focus beyond
interactions themselves.
That broader focus will most notably encompass
agents. In their quests to improve quality over the
next year, 78% say they will focus on increasing
agent knowledge. 78% are also committed to
improving agent training.
While they do represent comparatively significant
bottlenecks on existing quality, they are not
significant inhibitors in absolute terms. Agent
knowledge is a quality roadblock for 30% of
businesses, while agent training bottlenecks
quality for 29% of organizations. The majority of
businesses that plan to improve agent knowledge
and training, therefore, are doing so to achieve
additional success rather than to escape failure.
Each on the radar for 67% of organizations,
resource levels and system accessibility for
customers also represent popular focus areas
for the next year. While they are slightly greater
bottlenecks than the aforementioned agent
In attempting to make the rich elements richer,
businesses reveal that they are content with the
current contact center value mechanism. Any
status quo dissatisfaction is related to the level of
success rather than the framework for defining
success.
First contact resolution (3.98/5) and high value
resolutions (3.97/5) will also come under a
comparatively intense spotlight over the next year.
Comparatively low priority areas include the
customer’s ability to span channels during the
interaction (2.89/5), allowing the agent to
access information about the customer’s buying
habits (2.92/5), honoring the customer’s channel
preference (3.03/5), minimizing the customer’s
need to repeat information as he transfers (3.30/5)
and speed (3.49/5).
In absolute terms, all will still garner focus over
the next year. In attempting to create better
interactions, businesses are leaving no stone
unturned.
By the same token, it is clear that businesses do
not see these facets – which are either considered
low-value, sources of low status quo performance
or both – as gaining significant importance in
the next year. The comparative lack of interest in
channel capability, in particular, confirms that the
so-called omni-channel revolution is not prompting
businesses to dramatically transform their contact
center frameworks.
issues (30%), they, too, are not serious sources
of low quality in the majority of contact centers.
Businesses simply believe extending resources and
improve accessibility to systems will result in a
better quality contact center function.
65% of organizations plan to increase accessibility
for agents.
No potential quality driver is on the radar for fewer
than 40% of businesses; all areas, therefore, will
receive fairly substantial attention over the next
year.
The areas that will receive the least attention
include recalibrating the management strategy
(42%), reducing scripting and relaxing policies
(47%) or increasing scripting and strengthening
policies (47%). None is viewed as a bottleneck
for more than 16% of organizations; even the
comparatively low levels of commitment, therefore,
involve many companies that do not necessarily
need to make those improvement commitments.
callcenter-iq.com 92
Q16
To what extent are you committed to improving the
following interaction elements?
1 2 3 4 5

Speed

Accuracy

Honors Customer’s
Channel Preference
Customer can span channel
during call (without repeating
information in the new channel)

Customer does not need to repeat

information when transferring

Few or no transfers

Agent friendliness

Agent knowledge

Agent can access details from

customer’s previous interactions

Agent can access details about

customer’s buying habits/feedback

Experience is personalized

Agent forms a personal

connection with the customer

First contact resolution

High-value resolution

Resolution consistent with

customer’s first demand

Low customer effort

Agent empowered to give

solution (without additional
approval or delay)

1 2 3 4 5

0 1 2 3 4 5

callcenter-iq.com 93
Aiming for Better Agents
Agents play an integral role in all facets of contact
center performance. They directly interact with
the customers the business intends to satisfy. They
represent a key source of insights about the voice
of the customer and contact center quality. Their
knowledge and courteousness factors greatly into
the success of interactions.
Naturally, an effort to improve contact center
performance will involve a corresponding effort to
improve agent performance.
Recognizing the debilitating role internal systems
can play on agent performance, contact centers will
most commonly focus on improving the systems
used to support customers. A sizable 65% of
businesses say they will improve technology like
CRM systems and agent dashboards.
Since agent knowledge is a pivotal driver of
interaction quality, businesses will focus greatly on
improving knowledge management technology.
63% of businesses plan to incorporate such an
approach in their plans to improve agent efficacy.
Aiming to give agents the necessary competency,
56% will spend the next year improving agent
training.
Not simply focused on addressing problems
with existing agents, 52% recognize the need
to populate their contact centers with inherently
better, more suitable employees. They are
committed to improving the quality of their agent
recruitment programs.
Aspiring for New Systems
Not simply a crucial component of the contact
center, technology plays a pivotal role in businesses’
plans to improve agent performance. The top two
agent performance initiatives involve an improved
use of technology.
A manifestation of the connection between agents
and technology, businesses’ road to improved
performance will most notably run through
the eLearning and training category. 57% of
businesses say they will initiate or increase their
investments into such products.
An initial or increased investment target for 54%
of businesses, automated task management
represents the next most popular solution category.
It will prove particularly popular as a focus of new
technology investment; 38% of businesses will
make their first investment into automated task
management solutions this year.
Even competent agents can fall victim to inefficient
operational practices. Accepting that reality, 46%
plan to invest in workforce optimization. An
equivalent 46% will heighten the extent to which
they use customer feedback when managing
agents
Agent improvement strategies encompass a myriad
of investment and operational initiatives. A handful
of approaches are decidedly less popular with
today’s contact center leaders.
The concept of scripting – whether eliminating
scripts or strengthening the quality of scripts agents
are forced to follow – is not seen as a common
pathway to improvement. Only 17% will improve
agent performance by enhancing existing scripts.
Only 19% will reduce scripting in the name of
agent empowerment.
Attrition is historically identified as a weakness, but
the majority of businesses have no plans to change
that reality. Only 35% will focus on the abstract
concept of agent retention, while only 17% will
attempt to boost performance and retention
by better aligning compensation with agent
experience and seniority.
Since at-home agent programs are not
considered performance difference makers, the
majority of businesses will not turn to remote
workforce initiatives in their effort to boost agent
performance. Only 20% will allow for at-home
work.
Investment focuses for 52% of businesses, mobile
applications and cloud contact center solutions
are also firmly on the radar. Ease the subject of
increased investment from 48% of businesses, web
and mobile self-service applications tie for fifth-
most popular.
Beyond automated task management, other
technology categories slated to command new
investment from a substantial portion of businesses
include eLearning (29%), cloud solutions (29%),
customer analytics solutions (28%), journey
mapping (27%), mobile self-service (27%),
gamification (27%) and knowledge management
(27%). Technology categories expected to
command heightened investment include CRM
systems (35%), quality monitoring (33%), web
self-service (31%), eLearning (27%), call center
headsets and hardware (27%) and help desk
solutions (27%).
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Optimizing the Outcome
Today’s contact center leaders know what
matters to their customers and to their business
stakeholders. They know the extent to which
they are realizing that vision. They understand the
changes they must make in order to bridge the gap
between the real and the ideal.
Getting there, however, requires more than
knowledge of needs and shortcomings. It requires
an attunement to the factors that create gaps and
prevent progress. It also requires a recognition of
Customer Centricity is Not Efficiency Blindness
Still business units, contact centers are still bound
by the laws of business reality. Their value may be
better understood and their impact on customers
may be considered the priority, but their level of
operational efficiency cannot be ignored.
Important from an internal business standpoint,
contact center efficiency is also relevant to
customers. Customers, CCIQ’s panel of
contributing experts say, place great value on quick,
accurate, effortless resolutions. Customers may
Expert Perspectives
By using data from existing systems to trigger
real-time workforce adjustments throughout the
day, a contact center can reduce costs, improve
service delivery and impact agent engagement.
On top of driving greater efficiency, integrating
and making real-time use of this data makes
investments in WFM, performance management
and learning management much more valuable.
– Kyle Antcliff [Intradiem]
Noting the importance of soft skills, a lot of
businesses try to measure the politeness of
a representative. What we’ve found is that
measures around politeness can be vague,
inconsistent and don’t really end up mattering.
the mentalities and angles that can serve to amplify
or minimize the results of its tangible efforts and
practices.
When approaching changes to internal operations,
quality management, voice of the customer
acquisition, interaction optimization, agent
performance and technology utility, businesses will
need to demonstrate an adeptness for identifying
and actualizing these complementary factors.
value experiential elements like personalization and
courteousness, but they not necessarily believe the
value they ascribe to those factors should come at
the expense of efficiency.
When thinking about metrics, operational offerings,
interaction scoring, agent coaching and technology
sourcing, businesses are advised to appreciate the
importance of operational efficiency.
More troublingly, they don’t really consider
resolving the issue. At the end of the day, what
customers really want is efficient resolution.
Agent enablement is integral to that efficient
resolution – if you can enable your agents and
have processes that give you enabled agents,
that’s where you can get to this swift issue
resolution that suits all parties. – Erik Strand
[CallMiner]
Technology drives automation, and that’s really
where it can benefit the contact center. How
do we reduce the numbers of steps to complete
a certain task so that the agent can really focus
on the customer conversation and not be
bogged down by technology?
- Stefan Captijn [Genesys]
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Think in terms of the customer
Efficiency still matters. That does not mean all
elements of the “cost center” era still matter.
Since customer satisfaction and loyalty are the
paramount contact center objectives, contact center
performance must be designed with the customer
in mind. More specifically, the importance and
value of outcomes should be defined based on their
importance and value to customers.
Expert Perspectives
We’re seeing a shift from performance being
evaluated as an activity, as is the case with
measures like average handle time. Instead,
businesses are focusing on outcomes. - Matt
Matsui [Calabrio]
While efficiency is important to the customer
and essential for managing the business, it
does not impact customers as linearly as an
average handle time or average speed of
answer proponent may argue. There is no
data to suggest maximizing performance
against those types of metrics creates optimal
customer satisfaction. As long as the phone
Understand identity
Since today’s businesses are competing on the
customer experience, recognition of cross-industry
success – and the iconic brands responsible – is
essential. The goal of the contact center is
increased customer satisfaction; the brands that
best satisfy their customers possess clear insight
into how one can achieve a better contact center.
When modeling people, processes and technology
based on those brands, however, one must be
careful to do so with an appreciation for context
and identity. Iconic brands do not succeed
specifically because of who they hire, what they do
and how they do it. They hire because who they
hire, what they do and how they do it is tailored
perfectly to the identities of their brands and to
the demands of their customers.
Expert Perspectives
Success depends on why people are calling and
on what the contact center wants to achieve.
In addition to varying based on industry and
customer profile, performance goals should
also vary based on function within the contact
center. A tech support team should adhere to a
different approach than a sales team.
– Ric Kosiba [Interactive Intelligence]
The contact center – and performance
management – must tie into the brand promise.
A hotel chain for which the main draw is its
Why a customer is calling – and what the
customer hopes to achieve – plays an instrumental
role in determining how the contact center and
its people, processes and technology should
serve that customer. The answer to the why
also provides a framework on which to assess
performance.
was answered in an okay amount of time, the
things that matter most are the quality of the
representative and whether it resulted in the
right resolution. – Ric Kosiba [Interactive
Intelligence]
A good interaction is contextual. It occurs when
the organization knows what the customer
is trying to achieve, has this view of who the
customer is and how he has been interacting.
It involves catering to that specific customer
and to his specific inquiry. – Stefan Captijn
[Genesys]
The exciting things happening in a retail or
digital contact center may not be appropriate
for a contact center that supports a business-to-
business supply company. The customer-centric
and identity-conscious motivations for the
exciting things in the former centers is absolutely
appropriate for the business-to-business supply
company.
Contact center leaders should listen to experts.
They should learn from the customer service
community’s standout performers. They simply
need to make sure that the resulting knowledge
is organically and contextually applied rather than
forcibly imposed.
cheap rates, for instance, does not need to
focus on frills. As long as it delivers the simple
rooms the target audience wants at a price the
target audience finds satisfying, it is performing
successfully. Customers will develop loyalty;
some will become advocates. - Stefan Captijn
[Genesys]
One approach to assessing contact center
performance: “Did it do what the company feels
is important to its calls and culture?”
- Erik Strand [CallMiner]
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Improve Agents’ Competency – And Their
Environment
The renewed emphasis on customer satisfaction
has armed customers with ample power. That
power, consequently, is resulting in changing – and
heightening – expectations for performance.
Since agent performance plays a particularly vital
role within the contact center, efforts to improve
contact center performance must focus heavily on
agent performance.
Driving improved agent performance is neither an
easy nor one dimensional process.
In addition to creating better agents, an
organization must work to create a better scenario
for those agents. From the systems they access to
help customers to the manner in which their work
is scheduled and positioned with the company,
a successful contact center assures agents are in
position to optimally apply their talents.
Expert Perspectives
Beyond the tools, let’s immediately detect when
an agent is having trouble with a certain type
of call – and train on that right away. To best
coach agents, direct data to them as soon as
possible so they can reflect—ideally right after
the shift--and figure out what they might have
done wrong. Supervisors, meanwhile, should
get the data in real time so they can manage
based on it. They need to know which agents
and groups are performing better in order
to progress with coaching. – Erik Strand
[CallMiner]
Training and coaching are the most important
components for arming agents to effectively
serve customers and are also directly related
to retention. Appreciated and developed
agents perform better and stay longer.
Unfortunately, many existing contact center
training methods are outdated and not agent
specific. New technology solves these problems
by dynamically delivering training and coaching
during periods of lower than expected customer
volume. Instead of idle waiting, this time is
converted into blocks of usable time for a
subset of agents, and training tailored to the
individual is dynamically delivered to the agent’s
desktop. – Kyle Antcliff [Intradiem]
When it comes to agent training, we believe
in profiling and modeling success. When you
get to the right outcome, you can profile the
interaction and understand what good looks
like. You can understand what factors created
In addition to optimizing recruiting, onboarding
and training, one means of addressing the former
challenge is a formal agent competency program.
Designed in conjunction with the specific skills that
drive contact center performance, formal agent
competency programs presently exist in 43%
of contact centers. Of those without one, 52%
say they are considering implementing an agent
competency program. 25% say they definitely will
within the next year.
Businesses possess even greater excitement for
manager competency programs. 57% already
possess one; of the 43% who do not, 75% are
committed to implementing one.
When it comes to the environmental focus,
improvements tend to include technology and
workforce optimization. Automating rote tasks and
minimizing system delays boosts agent morale and
improves agent productivity. Rethinking scheduling
can do the same.
those outcomes. It may not be first call. It may
not be quickest call. It may, however, be the
optimal call and thus the right one to use when
training agents. – Matt Matsui [Calabrio]
There is always a risk of a mistranslation
between what leadership says it wants and how
the agent is actually measured. That scenario is
not optimal for performance. When it comes to
agent empowerment, they must put together
longer term plans to put their money where
their mouth is. That applies to agent training
and technology purchasing. It also applies to
compensation and incentivization. One idea
may involve allowing an agent to work from
home, on occasion, if he meets his performance
goals. – Ric Kosiba [Interactive Intelligence]
When your organization needs to make
progress, it needs a well-serviced coaching
model. It also needs an agent or employee
competency framework. There must be
clear expectations about performance, clear
definitions of the role and clear KPIs tied to
that role. There should be clear scorecards,
evaluation moments and clear levels of seniority
and of compensation that are all tied to that
employee competency framework. This results
in a performance culture. The focus can
no longer be just assuring we use the right
technology to get the right interaction to the
right agent – it comes down to assuring the
agent has the tools to lead the call to the right
resolution. - Stefan Captijn [Genesys]
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Embrace change and the systems that drive it
For the most part, those who participated in Call
Center IQ’s annual performance survey do not see
their contact centers in a wholly negative light. On
the whole, their self-scoring is respectable. It is
strong for some individual elements of the contact
center.
Considering the important role the contact center
plays within the business, respectable, mildly
positive scores should not be cause for endless
celebration. They should instead be reminders that
more work is needed.
Expert Perspectives
Contact center success, first and foremost,
requires change. People are, unfortunately,
resistant to change. It’s so much easier in these
kinds of situations just to do what you’ve been
doing. Rethinking the issue and identifying a
better way to do a lot of things is harder, but
it is a necessary and valuable process. - Matt
Matsui [Calabrio]
The key to success is creating long term plans
for your focuses and objectives. Want good
training? Good technology? Good agents?
You have to put together a series plan to
achieve them – and then invest in that plan.
Even if your only goal is keeping cost as low as
possible, you still need a plan to achieve that
goal. – Ric Kosiba [Interactive Intelligence]
The contact center – and what happens inside
– affects all facets of the business. When
purchasing technology and assessing data,
The success of that work hinges on the business’
ability to embrace change. If it cannot sincerely
acknowledge the need to revamp all facets of its
contact center, it will hinder its ability to achieve
improvement.
Contact center success is not always about quick,
painless initiatives. It can involve expansive changes
that adhere to a long-term vision.
make sure you are analyzing the impact and
utility to all relevant business units. – Erik
Strand [CallMiner]
Some contact centers confuse the result with
the root action required to achieve it. They
cannot make that mistake; if they care about
the former, they must focus on the latter.
Innovation helps with that. It is the only way to
overcome contact center challenges, including
those related to cost and complexity.
– Kyle Antcliff [Intradiem]
Individual victories are nice, but contact center
success is about the composite of everything.
From looking at your own data sources, to
agent feedback, to customer feedback, you can
establish a scorecard that accounts for all facets
of performance. From there, you can identify
the holistic and individualized changes you need
to make. - Stefan Captijn [Genesys]
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2015 CALL CENTER IQ
EXECUTIVE REPORT ON
THE OMNI-CHANNEL
CONTACT CENTER
Customer Experience
When it comes to the omni-channel revolution, the
game has changed.
Today’s businesses are no longer debating the
importance of the omni-channel customer
experience; they recognize it as paramount.
Today’s businesses are no longer debating the
need for an omni-channel contact center; they
recognize it as necessary.
In widely embracing the omni-channel revolution,
today’s marketplace has effectively ended the
philosophical debate.
But as one conversation ends, another naturally
begins. Simply acknowledging the importance
of the omni-channel customer experience and
the need for an omni-channel contact center is
merely the beginning of the journey. It does not
automatically ready a business to successfully make
the omni-channel transition.
It, similarly, does not automatically prepare a
business to account for the changes associated
with this new contact center normal.
In addition to tackling questions related to the
channels a business must offer, the staff and
performance strategies it must deploy within those
channels, the results it must demand and the
customer relationships it must cultivate, today’s
omni-channel believer must also address the
evolving role of the contact center. As it interacts
with customers in new ways – and across new
channels – how does that change its role within
the business? How should it?
The 2015 Executive Report on the Omni-
Channel Contact Center works to answer these
questions. Upon confirming the aforementioned
reality – that businesses do fundamentally accept
the omni-channel revolution – it focuses on the
inevitable change and associated action. To what
extent have today’s contact centers begun the
omni-channel transition? How will they accelerate
the transition – and realization of the related
results? How will this effort impact the business?
Fueled by a combination of market research and
commentary, this report does not attempt to sell
omni-channel to contact center professionals. It is
mindful of the fact that they are already bought in.
It instead works to make sense of the transition –
and provide a blueprint for achieving the promised
results.
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Key Findings
n The top objectives for today’s
contact centers: increase customer
satisfaction, reduce service costs, and
drive customer loyalty.
n While the contemporary contact center
possesses an array of functions, it most
notably represents a business’ tool for
inbound customer service. 66% of
businesses use it in that capacity.
n “Full service in all channels” is one of
the most commonly accepted criteria
of an omni-channel contact center.
Other comparatively widely accepted
requirements include channel integration
and the development of a 360-degree
customer view.
n “Omni-channel” does not fairly describe
today’s customer management reality,
but it does accurately convey a prominent
priority. Only 10% of businesses believe
their contact centers are omni-channel; a
whopping 76%, however, plan to make a
more-than-slight effort toward becoming
omni-channel.
n Today’s businesses are not excelling
at any individual capability associated
with omni-channel or multi-channel
contact centers.
• “Offering some form of engagement
in multiple channels,” their highest-
scoring capability, holds a performance
rating of only 2.79/5.
• Scores are particularly weak for
capabilities often seen as pivotal to the
omni-channel environment: channel
integration, honoring the customer’s
preference, and channel spanning. All
possess performance scores beneath
2/5.
• While contact centers have professed
a broad commitment to becoming
omni-channel, they have not made
significant commitments to increasing
any specific capabilities or functions.
n “Contact center” may be supplanting the
term “call center,” but today’s businesses
still possess reverence for the telephone.
Live agent telephony is seen as the most
important channel; web-self-service and
e-mail are next-most important.
• The company website is the most
commonly offered channel, but
telephony is the preferred channel for
high-touch, full-service interactions.
• Telephony is also one of the most
commonly measured channels for
all forms of metrics.
n Unsurprisingly, live agent telephony
enjoyed the greatest level of performance
improvement over the past year. Popular
channels like e-mail and IVR also became
stronger performers.
n When it comes to performance within
specific channels, organizations are most
committed to improving telephony, e-mail,
self-service and live chat.
n Today’s contact centers are beginning
to take channel experience – and omni-
channel experience – into account when
hiring agents.
n Contact centers are also beginning to
provide agents with seamless access to
omni-channel customer data; significant
progress is still required on this front.
n To acquire customer intelligence, businesses
rely heavily on direct communication.
Customer feedback surveys, for instance,
represent voice of the customer sources
in 74% of businesses. Businesses rely far
less heavily on external communication and
behavioral patterns.
n While the voice of the customer plays
a role in many organizations, its degree
of impact on both overall contact center
strategy and channel strategy is moderate.
The question most commonly answered
by customer intelligence is that concerning
which channels to measure, but the voice
of the customer plays only a 3.16/5 role in
that decision.
n Today’s consumers are decently happy with
the core experiences they are receiving.
While far from perfect, today’s support is
decently resolute, valuable and accurate.
n Consumers are comparatively less satisfied
with the channel-oriented elements of
today’s customer experience. Businesses
believe customers are particularly
dissatisfied with channel spanning
capabilities.
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 Methodology & Demographics
To collect data for the 2015 Executive Report
on the Omni-Channel Contact Center, Call
Center IQ issued an extensive market research
survey to customer experience, contact center,
operations, information technology, marketing
and business development professionals. The
survey was active in July and August 2015; no
restrictions were placed on participation.
The respondent sample accounts for a diverse
array of company sizes. While 23% of
respondents represent organizations with over
5,000 employees and 48% work for companies
with at least 500 names on their payrolls, 33%
say their businesses employ fewer than 100
staff members.
The Contact Center in
an Omni-Channel World
“Omni-channel” is not a simply solution one
tacks onto a business. It is not simply a singular
strategy one implements within its business. It
is a mindset that serves as the framework for an
organization’s customer experience.
All strategies – and all customer experience
touch points – may be influenced and impacted
by a transition to omni-channel.
The contact center is particularly subject to
that impact. It represents a primary means
through which companies engage their
customers; as the expectations and parameters
of those engagements change, so too must the
conception of the contact center.
The very term “contact center,” in fact, is a
testament to the impact of the multi-channel –
and now omni-channel – revolutions. Because
customer conversations are not restricted to the
telephone, the term “call center” is no longer
sufficient. Customers and businesses do not
always call to make contact.
The same variance exists for contact center size.
43% of respondents say their contact centers
seat at least 100 agents; 17% identify the seat
count at over 1,000. 46%, however, say their
contact centers employ fewer than 50 team
members.
Example respondent job titles include “head
of US contact centers,” “eServices manager,”
“Vice President, Product Management,” “Vice
President, Customer Experience,” “head of
channel support,” “director of customer care,”
“customer care manager,” “vice president of
business development,” “operations manager,”
“director of marketing,” “senior director of
contact center solutions,” “CEO,” “Vice
President, Global Omni-channel Operations,”
“SVP, Client Service,” “customer services
manager,” and “COO.”
The contact center, consequently, represents a
perfect focal point for an investigation into the
state of the omni-channel revolution.
To begin that investigation, it is important to
first establish the appropriate context. In order
to understand the impact of the omni-channel
revolution on the contact center, we need to
understand the roles the contact center plays
within the business.
How do organizations use the contact center to
engage customers? How do organizations use
the contact center to drive business outcomes?
What distinguishes an effective contact center
from an ineffective one?
The answers to those questions provide
grounds for evaluating how the omni-channel
revolution has transformed, should transform
and will transform the contact center.
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 Function
The contact center facilitates many forms of
engagement – both of the passive and active
variety – between businesses and customers.
Its most widespread function is inbound
customer service.
Per data from Call Center IQ’s annual survey,
66% of businesses use their “contact centers”
in such a manner. In addition to ranking as the
most popular contact center function, “inbound
customer service” is the only duty performed by
a majority of contact centers.
Several other duties are, however, performed by
substantial percentages of contact centers.
46% of businesses, for instance, use their
contact centers to share information with
customers and managing customer feedback.
44%, meanwhile, use it for outbound/
proactive customer service and customer insight
management.
Even the least popular functions – marketing
and outbound sales – are still performed by
healthy numbers of contact centers. 15% of
businesses say they use their contact centers for
marketing; 22% rely on the contact center for
outbound sales.
Purpose
At its core, the contemporary contact
center represents a vehicle for delivering
customer satisfaction.
Q1 Which roles does the contact center play/own
in your organization?
Inbound/reactive customer service
Information sharing
(to customers)
Customer feedback management
Outbound/proactive customer service
Customer insight management
Customer relationship management
Inbound sales
It is the entirety of
the experience
Outbound sales 22.0%
Marketing
Mirroring data found in the past several Call
Center IQ studies, respondents overwhelmingly
declared customer satisfaction the most
important contact center objective.
The emphasis on satisfaction is not,
however, tantamount to a blank check.
Businesses undoubtedly want to drive
satisfaction, but they expect to do so in a cost-
efficient, streamlined manner. They identify
reducing service costs as the second-most
important contact center objective.
Businesses also expect the customer satisfaction
increases to lead somewhere. Customer loyalty,
which progresses from customer satisfaction, is
seen as the third-most-important objective.
In recent years, contact center professionals
have fought vociferously against the “cost
center” label. In 2015, businesses expect such
professionals to put their money where their
mouths are. Not content with cost containment,
businesses also see revenue creation as a crucial
contact center focus. It represents the #4
objective.
Reducing customer effort, which can potentially
impact the aforementioned four objectives,
represents the fifth-most-important contact
center focus.
Comparatively less important contact center
objectives include acquiring insights for
marketing, acquiring insights for product
development, acquiring feedback about the
brand, building customer advocacy, and
acquiring feedback.
46.3%
65.9%
46.3%
43.9%
43.9%
41.5%
36.6%
24.4%
14.6%
callcenter-iq.com 102
Q2
Rank the following contact center objectives in
terms of importance.
Least Important Most Important

Increase customer satisfaction

Increase revenue
Reduce service/delivery costs

Acquire customer feedback (products)

Acquire customer feedback (branding)
Acquire customer feedback (service/delivery)
Acquire marketplace insights (for product
development)
Acquire marketplace insights (for marketing)
Increase customer loyalty

Reduce customer effort

Build customer advocacy

Four of the five “unimportant” objectives active engagement in a customer-centric and

concern customer intelligence. While
businesses are not necessarily declaring
intelligence unimportant (feedback and insight
management are, after all, common contact
center functions), they believe the contact
center’s primary purpose involves fostering
business-centric manner.
By declaring customer advocacy a comparatively
unimportant objective, businesses reveal a
contentedness with satisfaction and loyalty. A
contact center need not drive advocacy to prove
its worth.

Expert Perspectives
Michael Mills, CGS
A successful contact center’s ultimate objective
is to provide a consistent quality of service to
its customers, coupled with the ability to drive
increased efficiency and productivity within the
support environment (i.e., agents, processes,
tools). By achieving both of these objectives,
the contact center will realize a high level of
customer satisfaction and renewable business,
coupled with the ability to carry the “bottom
line” for its company.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
Ultimately, every business has to make a
profit. No organization should concentrate on
customer satisfaction at any cost. Available
evidence suggests that exceptional customer
service typically results in no increase in loyalty
or spend from customers and sets businesses
up for a fall later down the line. The focus
instead should be on providing affordable,
consistently good customer service day in, day
out, across all channels, creating happy, loyal
customers that continue to spend with the
business over time.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
We are seeing a shift from the cost center
mindset. Today’s contact centers now have a
laser-like focus in providing a superior level of
service, which will retain customers, provide
upsell and cross-sell opportunities and provide
longer relationships.
Erich Dietz, InMoment
There are a number of objectives depending
on your role and position within the company.
From a brand level, it’s to continue and be a
positive extension of the brand experience.
From a philosophical level, every employee
needs to understand that they are part of the
product. From a tactical perspective, it’s to pick
up the pieces when the customer experience
breaks down. In a sales environment, it’s to
match the right product with the right role at
the right time. For outbound sales, it’s matching
the right people with the right product.

callcenter-iq.com 103
 Measurement
Numerous factors affect a business’ success
in driving customer satisfaction, reducing cost,
increase revenue, and growing customer loyalty.
To optimize such factors – and assure a successful
pursuit of its goals – a business must adhere to
a nuanced performance management strategy.
That nuanced performance management strategy
begins with the selection of the most appropriate,
most informative metrics.
Today’s businesses believe the most important
metrics are those that assess efficiency and quality.
Asked to rate different metric categories on
a scale of 0-5, respondents awarded a mean
score of 4.02 to both efficiency metrics (such
as average handle time and average speed of
answer) and quality metrics (such as accuracy
and error/rework rate).
Given a score of 3.88, customer metrics (such
as CSAT score and Net Promoter Score) rank
as third-most-important. Resolution metrics
(such as first call resolution and call back
rate), business metrics (such as revenue and
market share) and accessibility metrics (such as
blockage and uptime) follow with respective
scores of 3.82, 3.62, and 3.55.
Q3
How important are the following metric
categories to your contact center? (0-5 scale)
0 1 2 3 4 5
 ccessibility metrics (blockage,
A
uptime, etc)
Efficiency metrics (average
handle time, average speed of
answer, etc)
Quality metrics (accuracy, error/
rework rate, etc)
 ustomer metrics (CSAT, Net
C
Promoter Score, etc)
 esolution metrics (first call
R
resolution, callback rate, etc)
 usiness metrics (revenue,
B
market share, etc)
On the surface, the scores may seem unintuitive.
If the paramount contact center objectives are
customer satisfaction, cost reduction, customer
loyalty generation and revenue growth, why are
customer metrics and business metrics not the
most important categories?
The answer stems from the role metrics play
in performance management. While it is true
that metrics like CSAT and profit speak directly
to a contact center’s success in achieving
its objectives, they carry limited value from
an explanatory standpoint. They reflect the
outcome of a totality of factors rather than the
success of each individual, intermediary factor.
Metrics like average handle time and accuracy
rate, on the other hand, speak more directly
to those individual factors (granted, they,
themselves, are still products of numerous
components). They help to explain why
satisfaction rates and costs are the way they are
– slow, inaccurate calls are taxing to businesses
and frustrating to customers – and thus provide
businesses with a de facto plan for improvement.
Organizations do not view customer-oriented
and business-oriented metrics as unimportant
in absolute terms; they simply see the granular,
intermediate categories as more relevant to
performance management.
3.55
4.02
4.02
3.88
3.82
3.62
callcenter-iq.com 104
Organizational Relevance
What happens in the contact center does not
stay in the contact center.
Respondents confirm that contact center data is
used throughout the organization.
90% of businesses, for instance, say their
operations departments draw from contact
center data. 88% say the same of “other
customer service/experience divisions,” while
87% witness contact center intelligence fueling
marketing decisions. Contact center data is
also used by 85% of C-level, sales, and product
development teams.
Finance, human resources, and purchasing
departments are comparatively less likely to
rely on contact center data, but they still do
so in many organizations. 70% of finance
and accounting departments use contact
The Omni-Channel
Transition
Only 10% of businesses identify themselves as
omni-channel. Do the remaining businesses
even desire the identification?
The question is not without merit.
Over the past year, just 32% of businesses
made more than a slight effort to become
omni-channel. 35% made absolutely no effort.
If judged based on historical behavior, the
majority of businesses do not come across
as ardent supporters of the omni-channel
revolution.
If judged based on their future plans, however,
the majority of businesses most certainly do
aspire to become omni-channel.
center data; the use percentages for HR and
purchasing are 62% and 59%, respectively.
The widespread use should not, however, imply
significant reliance. News of what happens in
the contact center may not stay in the contact
center, but it is not necessarily amplified.
While 90% of operations departments use contact
center data, respondents scored the extent to
which they use the data at a moderate 3.08/5.
The also-modest reliance scores for customer
service/experience departments and marketing
departments are 2.93/5 and 2.85/5, respectively.
Departments like purchasing, human resources and
finance barely use the information. Respondent
utilization ratings for the three departments are
1.12/5, 1.31/5, and 1.66/5, respectively.
Over the next year, a substantial 76% of
businesses will make more than a slight effort
to achieve omni-channel capabilities. 51% will
take solid or significant action in support of an
omni-channel transition.
In so clearly stating their intention to take
action, businesses are demonstrating
undeniable acceptance of the omni-channel
revolution.
They are not there yet. They have not
necessarily exerted much effort to get there.
But they absolutely want to be there.
callcenter-iq.com 105
 Defining Omni-Channel
For today’s businesses, the omni-channel
label is a badge of exclusivity. While 68%
of businesses confidently declare themselves
multi-channel, only 10% believe they
are omni-channel.
Omni-channel is also an aspirational
concept. A whopping 76% of businesses will
meaningfully attempt to become omni-channel
over the next year. It is not, however, a clearly
defined concept.

Q4
Which other departments use contact center
data/insights? To what extent? (0-5 scale)
% That Use Contact Center Data Extent

C-Level/Executive Team 85.37% C-Level/Executive Team 2.56

Other customer service/ 87.80% Other customer service/ 2.927

experience divisions experience divisions

Operations 89.74% Operations 3.08

Marketing 87.18% Marketing 2.85

Sales 84.62% Sales 2.72

Human Resources 61.54% Human Resources 1.31

Finance/Accounting 70.00% Finance/Accounting 1.66

Product Development 84.62% Product Development 2.37

Purchasing 58.97% Purchasing 1.12

Q5
How would you describe your current contact
center?

68% Multi-channel
10% Omni-channel
22% Neither

callcenter-iq.com 106
Q6
Have you attempted to become omni-channel
over the past year?
Q7
What kind of attempt will you make over the next
year?
Presented with a list of potential “requirements”
of an omni-channel contact center, survey
respondents failed to reach a universal
consensus on any.
Only three received support from a majority
of respondents.
Considered a necessity by 61% of respondents,
“channel integration” represents the closest
thing to a universally accepted fixture of the
omni-channel environment. Advocacy for the
channel integration concept is consistent with
that expressed in the previous two iterations
of Call Center IQ’s annual report. When it
comes to connecting with today’s omni-channel
customers, businesses generally believe that
channels must be integrated.
24% No attempt, no success
11% No attempt, some success
0% No attempt, success
4% Slight attempt, no success
21% Slight attempt, some success
8% Slight attempt, success
0% Solid attempt, no success
12% Solid attempt, some success
7% Solid attempt, success
0% Priority focus, no success
8% Priority focus, some success
5% Priority focus, success
15% None
9% Slight
25% Some
26% Solid
25% Priority
Like last year’s respondents and report
contributors, this year’s businesses also ascribe
significant importance to the concept of a
360-degree customer view. 56% of businesses,
in fact, declare it a mandatory component of an
omni-channel contact center.
Omni-channel speaks not simply to what a
business is offering but to how the offering is
being experienced by customers. A 360-degree
customer view plays an integral role in
understanding and optimizing that experience.
In previous reports, businesses downplayed
the importance of offering engagement
opportunities in all possible contact channels.
That attitude is changing.
callcenter-iq.com 107
 For 54% of businesses, the omni-channel
contact center is one that offers “full service in
all channels.”
Recognition of that requirement reflects a
support for legitimately being where one’s
customers are. Instead of restricting customers
to specific channels – or restricting the type of
service customers can receive within a given
channel – the business must be able to provide
a complete engagement experience in all
possible channels.
By accepting that as a requirement, businesses
place an additional burden on those
constructing an omni-channel engagement
strategy. They do not simply have to optimize
connectivity within their existing channels;
they must expand into previously unchartered
territory. They must be everywhere.
Particularly telling about support for “full
service in all channels” is that respondents were
given the opportunity to select less definitive
requirements. They opted not to do so.
Q8
What are the requirements of an omni-channel
contact center?
% of Businesses That Consider It Required
61%
54%
43%
41%
37% 38%
34% 33%
22%
15%
Capability
Full service in all channels
Full service in multiple channels
Some form of service/engagement in all
channels
Some form of service/engagement in
multiple channels
Channels are integrated
Business has dedicated staff for multiple
channels
Business has dedicated quality/performance
management for multiple channels
Business has universal metrics that apply to
performance in multiple channels
Agents handle multiple channels
Agents can seamlessly communicate with
agents from another channel
Agents can access customer/transactional
data from another channel
Only 15%, for instance, identified “some
engagement in multiple channels” as an omni-
channel requirement. Full service, in the minds
of today’s businesses, is a factor that separates
the omni-channel contact center from the
balance of the pack.
The ability to sometimes honor the customer’s
channel preference, similarly, represents
an omni-channel component in the eyes of
only 18% of respondents. Being where the
customer is on occasion is not enough; the
business must always be there. The only way to
make good on that requirement is to provide a
full engagement experience in all channels.
While they do not possess majority support,
the next-most important requirements include
allowing the customer to span channels across
separate interactions (48%) and allowing the
agent to access customer and transactional data
from other channels (45%).
Both are, essentially, data initiatives. No
matter where and when a customer previously
interacted with the business, data from that
previous touchpoint must be instantly available
to agents and systems in all touchpoints.
56%
48%
45% 43%
36%
32%
23% 24%
18%
Business has a 360 degree view of customer
Business can honor customer’s channel
preference at all times
Business can sometimes honor customer’s
channel preference
Customers can seamlessly span channels
within single interaction
Customers can span channels across
separate interactions (and the business
always has access to the data)
Business proactively engages customers in
all channels
Business proactively engages customers in
multiple channels
All channels are managed by the same
department
callcenter-iq.com 108
Expert Perspectives
Michael Mills, CGS
Omni-channel ensures a consistent, high-
quality customer experience regardless of
how and where a customer chooses to
interact. It ensures that data and context
from initial contact carries over to subsequent
channels, reducing customer effort, improving
the customer interaction and enabling the
call center to improve the overall customer
experience.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
Integration is critically important in this context.
After all, if a customer starts an interaction in
one channel and then switches to another, they
expect the contextual information available
in the first to be passed seamlessly into the
second. Organizations need high-quality
integration between channels in order to deliver
this. Otherwise, they will inevitably have to
ask customers to repeat information they have
provided in channel A when they switch to
channel B which is frustrating for customers
and expensive for the business.
Assessing Omni-Channel
The majority of businesses agree that omni-
channel contact centers offer full service across
all channels, integrate those channels and
possess a 360-degree view of the customer.
They do not, however, believe those are the
only requirements in the omni-channel world.
Survey respondents threw significant support –
albeit not majority support – behind a host of
other options.
It is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that
businesses will attempt to incorporate many
functionalities, strategies and capabilities into
their omni-channel contact centers. Some
businesses will supplement “full service in all
channels” with proactive care. Others will pair
channel integration with the ability to honor
the customer’s preference at all times. Others,
still, will look to establish a 360-degree view
of the customer while situating dedicated staff
members within each channel.
That is the real takeaway when it comes to
the business’ community’s current stance on
omni-channel. Omni-channel is an imperative
to evolve the customer engagement experience.
It is a call to consider how the channels a
business offers and the service it offers when
those channels impact the overall customer
experience.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
We are seeing a growing desire with our
customers to expand into other channels like
social, mobility, SMS/Text and portal self-service.
Bringing each channel into CRM “Global
Case Management” allows for streamlined
integration. Universal reporting and key
performance indicators can also be generated,
which allows businesses to make informed
channel decisions based on the “voice of the
customer.”
Erich Dietz, InMoment
The new requirement will be omni-resolution.
What this means is there are multiple
departments at a high enough level that can
resolve, not just identify, issues in a concise and
effective manner.
Only 10% of businesses currently identify
themselves as omni-channel. The
overwhelming majority of businesses, however,
want to begin transforming their contact
centers into omni-channel ones.
Understanding the extent to which businesses
are successfully or unsuccessfully offering
certain capabilities will play an invaluable role
in understanding why 90% of businesses
do not yet believe they are omni-channel. It,
when juxtaposed with the business’ hierarchy
of priorities and values, provides a roadmap
for how the organization should go about
improving.
The simplest reality is that businesses need to
improve all omni-channel capabilities. Asked to
score the aforementioned capabilities on a scale
of 0-5, businesses did not afford a score of
greater than 2.79 to any specific option. Many
received scores beneath 2.00.
Businesses awarded the 2.79 score to “offering
some form of engagement in multiple
channels.” Other comparatively high-scoring
(but objectively modest-scoring) capabilities
include dedicated staff in multiple channels
(2.72), agents that handle multiple channels
(2.49), dedicated performance management
for multiple channels (2.48), and the ability
to sometimes honor a customer’s channel
preference (2.32).
callcenter-iq.com 109
All five options are united by a central theme:
multi-channel. While their efforts have not
been stellar in absolute terms, businesses feel
they have at least enjoyed some success in
terms of establishing capabilities in multiple
channels. They offer engagement in multiple
channels. They staff in multiple channels. They
can occasionally honor customer preferences in
multiple channels.
Businesses, to at least a moderately successful
degree, do not simply engage customers in
their call centers. They have begun to establish
multi-channel contact centers.
Improving the Elements
Businesses know they are not omni-channel.
They know they are not excelling at any key
element of the omni-channel experience.
They, consequently, are resounding in their
commitment to becoming more omni-channel.
They are less clear and intense, however,
regarding the specific functionalities and
offerings they intend to improve.
Using a scale of 0-5, respondents rated their
intention to improve a variety of channel
capabilities. Only one option received a score in
excess of 3.00.
Developing a 360-degree view of the customer,
that option, received a score of 3.03.
Other comparatively high-ranking improvement
focuses include offering some form of
engagement in multiple channels (2.98),
allowing agents to access data from other
channels (2.89), offering full service in multiple
channels (2.88), and offering some form of
engagement in all channels (2.77).
Given that the majority of respondents (57%)
believe a 360-degree customer view is a
requirement of an omni-channel organization,
its comparatively high score is unsurprising.
Since a business cannot label itself omni-
channel if it does not have a complete window
into its customers, achieving one is naturally
important.
By the same token, the 3.03 score signifies a
fairly modest commitment to improvement.
Businesses are even less committed to
improving other similarly essential capabilities.
54% say full service in all channels is an
absolute requirement of the omni-channel
environment, but the mean commitment to
improvement is a mere 2.33.
Comparatively weaker or less successful
capabilities include allowing a customer to
seamlessly span channels within a single
interaction (1.41), proactively engaging
customers in all channels (1.55), honoring the
customer’s channel preference at all times
(1.67), integrating channels (1.74), and allowing
customers to span channels across separate
interactions (1.78).
The commonality among those lower-scoring
capabilities is omni-channel. All are directly
related to a business’ ability to not simply
offer engagement in all channels but create a
cohesive, unified, customer-centric experience
across those channels.
The modest scores – at least for some
capabilities – would make sense if businesses
were universally excelling. The earlier data,
however, confirms that they are not.
No existing capability possesses a mean score in
excess of 2.79
While it is conceivable that businesses
would tolerate mediocrity when it comes
to unimportant capabilities, their limited
commitment to improve spans all options –
including elements deemed pivotal to the omni-
channel experience.
Channel integration, for instance, represents
the most universally recognized requirement
of an omni-channel contact center.
Acknowledging their lack of status quo success,
businesses rate their current integration
capability at a mere 1.74.
Businesses know it is important, they know they
are not delivering it, but their commitment to
improving integration is a mere 2.70.
On the surface, the data exemplifies
the distinction between a philosophical
commitment and an action plan. Today’s
organizations are nearly unanimous in their
desire to become more omni-channel, but they
are far less committal regarding the specific
steps they will take to achieve that transition.
The data also speaks to the uncertainty
concerning the elements of an omni-channel
contact center. Insofar only three strategic
capabilities – integration, 360-degree customer
views and full-service in all channels – are
considered omni-channel requirements by
a majority of businesses, it is unsurprising
that businesses are indecisive regarding the
elements they need to improve. Without
knowing which omni-channel investments
will produce the greatest return, risk averse
businesses will logically dip their toes into
numerous ponds but dive into none.
callcenter-iq.com 110
Q9
How would you rate the following in your contact
center? (0-5 scale)
0 1 2 3 4 5

Full service in all channels

1.82

Full service in multiple channels

2.62

Some form of service/

engagement in all channels 2.13

Some form of service/

engagement in multiple 2.79
channels

Channels are integrated

1.75

Business has dedicated staff for

multiple channels 2.72

Business has dedicated quality/

performance management for 2.485
multiple channels
Business has universal metrics
that apply to performance in 2.13
multiple channels
Agents handle multiple channels
2.49

Agents can seamlessly

communicate with agents from
another channel 1.99

Agents can access customer/

transactional data from another 2.15
channel
Business has a 360 degree view
of customer 1.83

Business can honor customer’s

channel preference at all times
1.67
Business can sometimes honor
customer’s channel preference
2.32
Customers can seamlessly
span channels within single
interaction 1.41

Customers can span channels

across separate interactions (and
1.78
the business always has access
to the data)

Business proactively engages 1.55

customers in all channels

Business proactively engages 2.02

customers in multiple channels

All channels are managed by the 2.13

same department

callcenter-iq.com 111
Q10
To what extent will you work to improve the
following? (0-5 scale)
0 1 2 3 4 5

Full service in all channels

2.33

Full service in multiple channels 2.88

Some form of service/

2.77
engagement in all channels

Some form of service/

engagement in multiple 2.98
channels

Channels are integrated 2.70

Business has dedicated staff for

multiple channels 2.59

Business has dedicated quality/

performance management for
2.73
multiple channels

Business has universal metrics

2.73
that apply to performance in
multiple channels
Agents handle multiple channels 2.74

Agents can seamlessly

communicate with agents from
another channel 2.577

Agents can access customer/

transactional data from another 2.89
channel

Business has a 360 degree view 3.03

of customer

Business can honor customer’s

channel preference at all times 2.46

Business can sometimes honor

2.52
customer’s channel preference

Customers can seamlessly

span channels within single 2.18
interaction
Customers can span channels
2.60
across separate interactions (and
the business always has access
to the data)
2.37
Business proactively engages
customers in all channels

Business proactively engages 2.71

customers in multiple channels

All channels are managed by the 2.34

same department

callcenter-iq.com 112
Granted, uncertainty regarding which
elements are most important only explains
why businesses are not wholeheartedly diving
into a few select ponds. It does not explain
why the improvement scores are universally
lukewarm, especially given the fact that
existing performance scores are so low. For
most elements, the improvement commitment
manifests as a bell curve: some businesses
plan to make no improvement, the greatest
Investigating
the Channels
Per an emerging school of thought, evaluating
omni-channel strictly in terms of channel
presence is an exercise in reduction. Omni-
channel, this school of thought argues, refers
not simply to where a business interacts but
to the strategic mindset driving the experience
across all of those touch points.
The 2015 survey findings offer support for
this notion. By revealing widespread support
for concepts like channel integration and
360-degree customer views, the annual study
confirms the relevance of cohesion. In the
omni-channel era, businesses must possess a
unified, consistent view of customers across all
touch points. They must also be able to present
each customer with a unified, integrated
experience across those touch points.
Suppose, however, that a business lacked the
capacity to properly engage a customer at given
touch point. Perhaps the touch point lacked
the proper staff (or staff training). Perhaps the
touch point lacked the appropriate resources.
Channel Preference
Just as businesses will philosophically accept
that “every customer is the most important
customer,” they will theoretically recognize
every channel as the most important channel.
That attitude, after all, is essential to the omni-
channel experience. If the business undervalues
– let alone dismisses – a particular channel, the
percentage is somewhat or solidly committed to
improvement, and only a handful plan to make
improvement a priority.
That reality – the fact that businesses eagerly
want to become omni-channel but plan to only
moderately focus on the capabilities that help
create an omni-channel organization – is an
undeniable contradiction.
Perhaps the touch point lacked integration
with the CRM system.
Whether by limiting the business’ view into
its customers or preventing the business
from offering a singular, consistent, unified
experience across all channels, any such
shortcoming would damage the entire omni-
channel experience.
The omni-channel mindset may encourage a
broader, holistic approach to channel strategy,
but a single broken channel can absolutely
impact that overarching experience. It is for
that reason that 54% of businesses firmly
declare full service in all channels to be a
requirement of an omni-channel contact center.
It is also for that reason that an inquiry
into existing channel capabilities – and
the manners in which businesses intend
to extend and improve those capabilities –
represents a fundamental tenet of our omni-
channel investigation.
unified, cohesive, all-encompassing omni-
channel experience will falter.
But just as businesses, facing resource
constraints, will ultimately prioritize customers
with the most obviously high lifetime values,
they will ultimately prioritize channels with the
clearest relevance to the customer experience.
callcenter-iq.com 113
 Whether due to customer demand, marketplace
tradition or internal logistics, businesses will
indeed adhere to a hierarchy when assessing the
importance of each channel.
No matter how contradictory to their omni-
channel aspirations, businesses may ultimately
take cues from that hierarchy when devising
operational strategy and allotting investments.
An inquiry into the state of channel strategy,
therefore, requires an understanding of the
current channel hierarchy.
Live chat registers as fifth-most-important,
while mobile self-service follows as sixth-most.
Channels deemed comparatively unimportant
include in-product communication, virtual
agents, video, secondary social networks,
Twitter and LinkedIn.
Due to its limited applicability – only select
organizations can even conceivably incorporate
a “Mayday button” into their products – in-
product communication’s position at the
bottom of the totem pole is intuitive.

That current channel ladder positions live agent
telephony on the highest rung.
Asked to rank a variety of contact media in order
of importance, organizations deemed live agent
telephony to be undeniably most important.
They may no longer operate call centers, but they
absolutely see calls as more important than any
other form of communication.
That does not, however, mean channel priorities
are without change. Whereas e-mail and
IVR have historically ranked as the next-most
important channels, this year’s survey identifies a
new runner-up. To today’s businesses, web self-
service is slightly more important than e-mail and
IVR (which are third and fourth, respectively).
Potentially feeling they are sufficiently covered
by a combination of live agent support and
self-service engagement, organizations do not
view the hybrid model – virtual agents – as a
particularly pivotal contact center component.
Video represents an enhanced form of
engagement, and it is not one businesses yet
see as necessary to pursue.
Limited support for the social channels,
meanwhile, reflects a disparity between
hype and perceived importance. Twitter, for
instance, is often considered the embodiment
of social engagement, which is often a primary
component of multi-channel and omni-channel
conversations. Today’s organizations, however,
do not view it as a paramount priority. The
same goes for LinkedIn and many other notable
social networks.

Q11
Rank the importance of the following channels
Least Important Most Important

Telephone (live agent)

Telephone (IVR)

E-mail

Live chat

Web self-service

Facebook

LinkedIn

Twitter
Community/industry forums, niche social
networks
Other social networks (major networks)
Mobile self-service

SMS/text

Video

In-person

Virtual agents (via web or mobile)

Company website/FAQ

In-product communication (Amazon

Mayday)

callcenter-iq.com 114
Expert Perspectives
Michael Mills, CGS
The mindset is that in a voice-support model,
direct communication is the most productive
way to learn about the “person” who are
supporting. You can hear voice tone (such as
expressions of anger and frustration); with chat
and email, you cannot pick up on that emotion
with just words. With self-help, there is little-
to-no interaction between the customer and a
live agent.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
Around 80% of transactions are likely to pass
straight through the business without issue or
concern, enabling businesses to save time and
money. Savvy businesses are increasing those
savings by leveraging digital channels to address
these simple, transactional matters.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
Digital channels can prove very effective if
integrated into the global CRM and agent
desktops.
Erich Dietz, InMoment
Alternative channels allow us to match the
mode and articulate the data in different forms
and fashions. They also allow us to reach new
customer segments provide those customers
with different options for different types of
communication. Done well, a blend of new and
legacy channels can provide the best possible
experience for customers, while achieving the
efficiencies and financial gains necessary to run
a successful business.

Consumer Perspective
(via Microsoft’s 2015 US State of Multichannel Customer Service Report)
Do you expect a brand or organization to offer a web self-service portal or FAQ page?
US United Kingdom Brazil Japan
92% - YES 92% - YES 98% - YES 82% - YES

Do you have a more favorable view of a brand or organization that offers mobile self-
service?
US United Kingdom Brazil Japan
50% - YES 43% - YES 86% - YES 59% - YES

Do you have a more favorable view of a brand or organization that responds to customer
service questions, praise or complaints on social media?
US United Kingdom Brazil Japan
50% - YES 43% - YES 85% - YES 44% - YES

Channel Engagement
On the one hand, we know businesses possess
channel hierarchies. Certain channels – notably
those involving telephony, self-service, e-mail
and chat – represent the greatest priorities.
They, therefore, philosophically recognize that
certain channels are more worthy of investment
and attention than others.
On the other hand, we know many businesses
believe that full service in all channels is a
requirement of the omni-channel contact center.
We also know that today’s businesses aspire
to become omni-channel. They, therefore,
philosophically aspire to offer full service
in all channels.
The battle between those viewpoints will
determine the type of engagement businesses
offer within each channel. The outcome
will speak to the state of the omni-channel
revolution and the shortcomings businesses will
most notably need to address.

callcenter-iq.com 115
 Utilization
While the company website does not represent
the most important customer engagement
channel, it does represent the most commonly
used one. 91% of businesses rely on a
company website/FAQ page to communicate
with customers.
In today’s age of digital communication, the
heavy reliance is unsurprising. If anything, the
surprise is that 100% of businesses do not offer
at least outbound communication via a website.
Similarly unsurprising is the heavy utilization of
live agent telephony and email engagement.
Used by 90% of organizations, the two
represent the second-most commonly offered
contact channels.
In addition to representing two of the most
important channels, telephony and e-mail have
long been fixtures of the call center/contact
center framework.
Not simply a valuable channel, “web self-
service” is also a widely utilized one. 76% of
businesses provide customers with a web-based
self-service option.
IVR, which ranks alongside live agent telephony,
email, and web self-service as one of the most
important channels, is the fifth-most commonly
offered communication medium. 73% of
Consumer Perspective
(via Microsoft’s 2015 US State of Multichannel Customer Service Report)
Which of the following customer service channels do you use on a regular basis?
US United Kingdom
Telephone – 81% E-Mail – 82%
E-Mail – 78% Telephone – 72%
Live Chat – 64% Live Chat – 58%
Website/FAQ – 62% Website/FAQ – 56% Website/FAQ – 64%
Interactions and Resolutions
Offering a channel is not, however, tantamount
to offering engagement within that channel.
An inquiry into the type of utilization confirms
that while businesses may communicate –
in some form – across a myriad of channels,
actual engagement takes place across a smaller
palette of media.
Businesses have a particularly narrow
list of preferred channels for high-touch,
“strategic” matters.
businesses offer some sort of service through
IVR.
Comparatively unpopular channels include
in-product communication (22% utilization),
virtual agents (25%), video (40%), live chat
(42%), and LinkedIn (43%).
Given each channel’s perceived unimportance,
the low utilization rates for in-product
communication, virtual agents, video, and
LinkedIn are intuitive. A sense of surprise only
exists insofar as more than 20% and 40% of
businesses are using in-product communication
and video communication, respectively. Since
in-product communication is only relevant in
certain businesses and video communication
represents an enhanced, luxury form of
communication in nearly all businesses, the
non-trivial utilization levels paints an optimistic
picture about the omni-channel transition.
Businesses are beginning to offer engagement
in all channels – even those deemed particularly
unimportant.
The optimism created by the in-product, virtual
agent and video utilization rates, however, is
countered by the concern stemming from
the live chat utilization rate. Per the survey
respondents, live chat represents one of today’s
most important contact channels. Fewer than
half of businesses, however, actually offer that
form of communication.
Brazil Japan
E-Mail – 87% E-Mail – 69%
Telephone – 84% Telephone – 67%
Live Chat – 70% Website/FAQ – 50%
Live Chat – 4%
Live agent telephony tops that list. A healthy
62% of businesses say they commonly engage
customers in high-touch interactions over
the telephone.
While the nature of in-person communication
is only practical or relevant in a finite number of
cases, it still ranks as a popular destination for
high-touch interactions. 39% of businesses say
their business regularly engages customers in
high-touch, in-person interactions.
callcenter-iq.com 116
 37% say the same of their e-mail channel.
E-mail communication may not represent a truly
live conversation, but it indeed represents a
two-way interaction. For a healthy percentage
of businesses, those high-touch interactions can
be of the strategic, substantive variety.
Live chat is not one of the most commonly used
channels, but the businesses that do use it do
so to carry out high-touch interactions. 16% of
businesses say they use the live chat channel for
strategic customer conversations.
16% of businesses also consider their web
self-service and official website interactions to
be of the strategic, high-touch variety. While
neither channel allows for a conventional, two-
way conversation, both can evidently present
customers with a robust, high-level, highly
engaging form of service.
Indicative of the extent to which they are right-
channeling customers, the utilization rate differs
when it comes to low-touch interactions.
They may not commonly play host to high-
touch engagement, but mobile self-service
and IVR do allow customers to actually resolve
issues. 31% of businesses say they use mobile
self-service to handle transactional matters;
29% say their IVR systems play host to
transactional engagements.

Q12
Which channels do you use for high-touch,
deep interactions?
Channel % of Businesses

Telephone (live agent) 61.66%

Telephone (IVR) 6.77%

E-mail 36.67%

Live chat 16.36%

Web self-service 15.52%

Facebook 9.10%

LinkedIn 11.11%

Twitter 5.36%

Community/industry forums,
14.81%
niche social networks
Other social networks 7.41%
(major networks)
Mobile self-service 8.62%

SMS/text 8.77%

Video 9.10%

In-person 3.93%

Virtual agents
3.64%
(via web or mobile)
Company website/FAQ 15.79%

In-product communication 3.77%

(Amazon Mayday)

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Expert Perspectives
Michael Mills, CGS
Newer, startup companies are definitely
leveraging e-mail and chat more predominately
in their call center support requirements than
the older, more longstanding global companies.
Most of the large enterprise clients today
are still relying on traditional voice and email
channels and less on chat. However, there
continues to be a growing trend toward self-
help and self-service portals as a viable option
to traditional voice support. That being said, the
end-user base as a whole, notwithstanding the
millennials in the workplace, prefers a live agent
for its support.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
Customers increasingly expect to interact with
businesses at any time of day or night. They
acknowledge that they might not be able to
interact with a human after ‘office hours’ but
anticipate that they could e-mail businesses
during working day and receive a prompt
response. Equally, they would expect to have
access to self-help mechanisms like user forums
and customer FAQs, and they may even assume
Channel Performance: Measurement
If an omni-channel contact center is one that
offers a unified, integrated experience across
all channels, logic says that a business should
wholeheartedly value – and wholeheartedly
offer – each channel. It, consequently, should
hold each channel to the same fundamental
standard for performance.
In practice, businesses neither wholeheartedly
value nor wholeheartedly offer engagement
within each channel. It stands to reason,
therefore, that they do not actually subject each
channel to the same performance rubric.
The annual survey confirms that notion. Today’s
businesses are not equally committed to
measuring – let alone doing so with the same
performance metrics – in all channels.
Accessibility
Today’s businesses are generally lukewarm on
accessibility metrics. Respondents identified
the accessibility metrics category as the least
important – and least commonly used.
Those who do use accessibility metrics most
notably apply them to self-service.
IVR and mobile self-service are the channels
most commonly subject to accessibility
measurement. Live agent telephony follows in
third place, while web self-service and live chat
respectively rank as fourth and fifth.
that businesses would have people available
in different time zones, responding to chat
messages out of normal work time.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
Consumer behavior is driving organizations
to adopt multi-channel and omni-channel
approaches to support. Millennials are playing a
particularly important role; as they continue to
enter the job market, the evolving channels like
SMS/text, mobile and self-service will continue
to expand and mature.
Erich Dietz, InMoment
From a customer perspective, the expectation
is that agents can handle any query from the
channel of their choice at any time. Customers
want to be able to call or reach out at any time
and get the support they need and expect.
Some companies only use e-mail for after hours,
but people may want a more complete form of
instant gratification. In terms of another trend,
we have noticed that business-to-business firms
tend to rely more heavily on email; business-to-
consumer organizations embrace chat.
Efficiency
Efficiency metrics like average handle time and
average speed of answer are associated with the
traditional call center. Sure enough, they are most
commonly applied to live agent telephony.
Other channels commonly subject to efficiency
measurement include e-mail, live chat, web self-
service, and mobile self-service.
The five channels most commonly subject to
efficiency measurement are considered five of
the most important contact channels. Efficiency,
meanwhile, is considered one of the two most
important metric focuses.
Quality
Quality metrics, like efficiency metrics, represent
the most valuable indicators of contact center
performance.
Quality metrics, like efficiency metrics, are most
commonly applied to live agent telephony, e-mail,
and live chat.
Businesses also find them comparatively relevant
for assessing mobile self-service and in-person
engagement.
Customer
While not deemed as instrumental to performance
management, customer-oriented metrics do
ultimately speak to the most fundamental contact
center objective: customer satisfaction.
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Unsurprisingly, the customer metrics
category ranks as the most commonly applied
form of metrics.
Widely used in many channels, customer
metrics are most typically applied to
in-person engagement.
Live agent telephony follows. Mobile self-
service, online communities/forums and web
self-service are often commonly evaluated in
accordance with customer metrics.
Resolution
Insofar as live agent telephony is most
commonly used for high-touch interactions, it,
unsurprisingly, is the channel most commonly
measured with resolution metrics.
Resolution metrics, in fact, represent the form
of measurement most commonly applied to the
live agent channel.
E-mail, which is also commonly used in strategic
interactions, is also frequently assessed for its
impact on resolution metrics.
Expert Perspectives
Erich Dietz, InMoment
Performance standards as far as communication
and interaction are more similar than different.
Metrics change depending on function. Sales
requires different measurement than IT. Billing
measurement differs from that for marketing.
The financial services industry is assessed
differently than the healthcare sector.
Michael Mills, CGS
If you want to create a consistent and
transparent customer experience regardless
of the channel, then you will typically need to
standardize the service level metrics for email,
chat and voice support. Today, the standard
response time for emails is 24 hours, where a
voice and/or chat response time is in seconds
and minutes. There is, however, an exception
to this rule. If a client sets priorities for the type
of issues that will be initiated by email versus
Channel Performance: Achievement
To measure a channel is to confirm one
cares about that channel’s performance.
The act of measurement does not
necessarily confirm that a business cares
to improve that performance.
Live chat, in-person, and mobile self-service,
the former two of which represent high-
touch, interaction-oriented channels, are also
commonly expected to perform well against
resolution metrics.
Business
When it comes to the performance
management process, business metrics are
less valuable than those focused on efficiency,
quality, customer, and resolution.
They do still carry relevance.
Nowhere greater is that relevance than in the
context of live agent telephony.
Live agent telephony is the communication
form most commonly subject to assessment
against business metrics. Other channels for
which business metrics most often apply are
in-person, live chat, e-mail, and Twitter.
chat or voice, then there may not need to be
standardize service level metrics for all channels
in every situation.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
At a basic level, the answer is yes, all channels
need their own performance standards. At
a higher level, it may be no. If your ultimate,
overriding objective is happy, loyal customers
that would recommend you and continue to
buy from you, those kinds of metrics are likely
to be all encompassing.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
Each channel could have a different tactical
approach with different granular measurements.
At the high-level, however, all should be
measured the same way. All channels should
be committed to delivering a predictable,
repeatable, high-quality experience.
Perhaps the business is measuring a
channel strictly to understand its workflow
utilization and customer experience costs.
Perhaps the business is already content
with the performance it measured in that
specific channel.
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 In either case, the channel’s relevance to the
performance measurement process offers no
certain conclusion regarding the business’ future
plans for that channel.
In order to fully assess a business’ channel
commitment, it is therefore also necessary to
evaluate how performance has changed – and
how the business hopes performance will change
– within each channel.
Last Year’s Focus
At this point last year, live agent telephony and
e-mail were business’ most widespread and
established contact platforms.
Improving performance within both channels was
still a comparatively high-ranking priority.
Neither channel, however, represented one of the
two highest priorities.
Those honors instead belonged to web and
mobile self-service.
Over the past year, respondents say their
emphasis on web self-service performance
registered at a 1.79 on a -5 to 5 scale. For mobile
self-service, the emphasis weighed in at 1.56.
With respective scores of 1.39 and 1.33, e-mail
and live agent telephony received the next-
greatest increases in performance emphasis.
How has emphasis on performance changed for
Q13
each of the following channels? (-5 - 5 scale)
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
Telephone (live agent)
Telephone (IVR)
E-mail
Live chat
Web self-service
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Community/industry forums, niche
social networks
Other social networks (major networks)
Mobile self-service
SMS/text
Video
In-person
Virtual agents (via web or mobile)
Company website/FAQ
In-product communication
(Amazon Mayday)
With its increase in emphasis scored at
1.10, live chat represented the fifth-greatest
performance priority.
Low-ranking priorities included in-product
communication (0.32), virtual agents (0.46),
community forums (0.65), video (0.70), and
IVR (0.73).
These scores, it is worth noting, assess the
extent to which businesses increased their
emphasis on performance over the past year.
Consequently, there is nothing inherently
unintuitive or contradictory about a high-
priority channel like IVR scoring comparatively
poorly in this regard. Going into the year,
businesses may have already been content
with IVR performance scores or with the
initiatives they had already implemented to
improve those scores.
One can, however, take the low rankings as
further proof that businesses do not greatly
value channels like in-product communication,
virtual agents, and video. Whereas it is logical
to accept the possibility that emphasis on
performance may asymptote for high-priority,
widely established channels, it is unintuitive
to assume that in the case of low-priority,
unestablished ones.
1.33
0.73
1.39
1.10
1.79
1.04
0.83
1.06
0.65
0.76
1.56
1.04
0.70
0.88
0.46
0.76
0.32
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State of Improvement
While live agent telephony received the year’s
fourth-greatest increase in performance
emphasis, it received the year’s greatest
increase in actual performance. Using a -5
to 5 scale, businesses rate the performance
increase at 1.98.
E-mail, which received the third-greatest
increase in emphasis, enjoyed the
second-greatest increase in performance.
Respondents score the increase at 1.54.
In a testament to the aforementioned
distinction between increase in performance
emphasis and ability to actually improve
performance, IVR received the third-greatest
uptick in results. Despite not markedly
increasing their emphasis on IVR performance,
businesses realized an increase of 1.21.
Web self-service, the channel for which
performance received the greatest increase in
emphasis, enjoyed the fourth-greatest increase
in actual performance. Respondents rate that
increase at 1.16.
Facebook, for which performance increased by
0.98, enjoyed the fifth-greatest improvement.
Like IVR, it did not receive one of the greatest
increases in performance emphasis.
Channels that comparatively failed to enjoy
improvements in performance included in-
product communication (0.16), virtual agents
(0.30), video (0.38), company websites (0.40),
and secondary social networks (0.61).
All five channels – including the commonly
used “company website” – carry comparatively
low value within the business community.
Emphasis on improving performance within
each channel, similarly, ranked low compared
to that offered for the majority of other
contact channels.
The comparatively slight increases in
performance, consequently, are decidedly
unsurprising. Given the perceived
unimportance of each channel, those slight
increases are doubtfully upsetting.
Desire to Improve
Businesses know how much value they ascribe
to certain channels. They know how they
attempted to improve performance within each
of those channels over the past year. They
know the extent to which that effort paid off.
They, consequently, have a solid framework
for deciding how—and to what extent—they
intend to improve performance over the next
year.
They have decided to help the rich get richer.
Live agent telephony performance, which
enjoyed the greatest improvement over the past
year, will be the greatest priority over the next
year. 58% of businesses say improving live
agent phone performance is a priority for the
next 12 months.
Identified as a high-value channel and subject
to a comparatively great performance emphasis
last year, live chat did not enjoy a comparatively
significant increase in actual performance.
Businesses remain committed to securing
that increase; they identify it as the second-
highest-ranking priority for the next year. 50%
of businesses will make improving live chat
performance a paramount focus.
Other improvement priorities will include web
self-service (48%), e-mail (35%), and IVR
(35%).
The performance tide will not turn in favor of
in-product communication and video. They
rank as performance improvement priorities for
only 3% and 8% of businesses, respectively.
Other low-ranking improvement priorities
include secondary social networks (12%),
community forums (12%), Twitter (13%), and
in-person (13%).
callcenter-iq.com 121
Q14
Over the past year, how have performance
scores changed for each of the following channels?
(-5 - 5 scale)

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5

Telephone (live agent)

1.98

Telephone (IVR)
1.21

E-mail
1.54

Live chat 0.94

Web self-service 1.16

Facebook 0.98

LinkedIn
0.674

Twitter 0.95

Community/industry forums,
0.83
niche social networks

Other social networks 0.61

(major networks)

Mobile self-service 0.89

0.63
SMS/text

Video 0.38

0.78
In-person

Virtual agents 0.31

(via web or mobile)

0.40
Company website/FAQ

In-product communication 0.16

(Amazon Mayday)

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Q15
For which channels will performance improvement
be a priority over the next year?

Telephone (live agent)

58.30%

Telephone (IVR) 35%

E-mail 40%

Live chat 50%

Web self-service 48.30%

Facebook 21.70%

LinkedIn 15%

Twitter 13.30%

Community/industry forums,
11.70%
niche social networks

Other social networks 11.70%

(major networks)

Mobile self-service 31.70%

SMS/text 25%

Video 8.30%

In-person 13.30%

Virtual agents 18.30%

(via web or mobile)

Company website/FAQ 20%

In-product communication 3.30%

(Amazon Mayday)

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 The Agent Landscape
The most commonly accepted requirements
of omni-channel – channel integration,
360-degree customer views, and full service
in all channels – make clear the importance of
contact center agents.
As the individuals who most notably interface
with customers, they serve to demonstrate
a business’ progress – or lack thereof – in
realizing the omni-channel vision. Their ability
to seamlessly assist a customer who spans
channels reflects the extent to which the
business is integrated. Their ability to recognize
a customer and his history of sentiments,
behaviors and transactions reflects the extent
to which the business has established a
360-degree view. Their physical presence in all
channels – and ability to actually provide the
service a customer is demanding – reflects the
extent to which the business offers a complete
experience in all channels.
An inquiry into the agent landscape is thus an
important component of the larger inquiry into
the state of the omni-channel revolution.
Agent Prototype
Today’s businesses will assign dedicated agents
to certain channels. 80% of businesses, for
Q16
Do you hire agents based on channel
experience?
instance, leverage dedicated personnel to
provide live phone support. 71% assign a
dedicated team to the e-mail channel.
That does not, however, mean today’s
businesses believe the best agents are
specialized ones.
55% of businesses, in fact, believe the very
opposite. They feel today’s ideal agent
possesses multi-channel expertise. 27% say a
specialized agent is more effective, while 18%
do not believe there is a difference.
Are today’s businesses hiring the optimal agent?
Some are.
18% of business say they “typically” make
hiring decisions based on a candidate’s
experience in a multi-channel or omni-channel
environment.
33% occasionally hire candidates based on
relevant channel experience, while 23% only
take channel experience into account when
hiring for specialization.
8%, meanwhile, say channel rarely enters the
hiring equation. 17% say it never does.
18.30% Yes, we typically evaluate
potential hires based
on multi-channel/omni-
channel experience
23.30% Yes, but only if we are
hiring for a specific
channel(s)
33.30% Occasionally
8.30% Rarely
16.70% Never
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Expert Perspectives
Erich Dietz, InMoment
I wouldn’t recommend cross training for all
channels. Once you get past 3 or 4 channels,
it’s hard to achieve mastery. Most contact
centers that attempt this end up with
a “master of none” and not a “jack-of-all-
trades” environment. From an efficiency and
operational standpoint, it makes more sense to
diversify and have some specialists.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
We have seen all types of ways multi-channel
and omni-channel contact centers handle
agent distribution; some have dedicated
agents per channel, others have overflow for
certain channels, and others have their agents
trained for multiple channels and skills. The
key is to understand the unique components
for each channel and to ensure your people
are properly trained, the processes are clearly
defined, and the technology is properly
integrated to provide the superior level of
service regardless of channel.
Agent Capabilities
Hiring and staffing agents based on an
omni-channel mindset mean nothing if the
organization does not provide such agents
with omni-channel capabilities.
Possessing the ability to support multiple
channels is only one piece of the puzzle. The
agent must also possess a complete window
into the business’ customers and the ability to
provide a seamless, integrated experience as
those customers span channels.
Today’s businesses are not completely
failing to provide these capabilities. They,
unfortunately, are also not completely
succeeding in providing them.
15% of businesses say an agent can never
access a customer’s profile or interaction
history – even within the confines of a single
channel.
22% of businesses say the agent can only
within the same, high-touch channel; an
additional 11% say the agent’s perspective
is limited to the customer’s history within a
singular, low-touch forum.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
Many businesses have defined specialists for
particular channels. Social media, for example
is one such area that demands a specialist
skillset. Organizations may also want to draw
on a range of domain expertise across the
broader connected enterprise. Equally, many
contact center agents today will have expertise
in one core channel, such as voice, but also
have received a level of training in a secondary
skillset such as web chat. In general terms,
businesses need to spend time understanding
their staff, so that they know what skillsets
their employees have and when they can use
presence-enabled tools to draw on specific
available employees with the right skills to
resolve a particular customer interaction.
Michael Mills, CGS
Providing a dedicated staffing model for
each channel would be cost prohibitive,
notwithstanding that your utilization attainment
for email would be very low, based on a 24x7
support model. The best practice is to cross
train staff to cover all supported channels and
to balance the staff across the peak times for
specific channels being supported.
28% say the agent has a customer view
across some channels, while 17% offer such
a perspective across most channels.
7% allow for the coveted view across all
contact channels.
An agent’s view of a customer is only part
of the battle. In order to create a truly
seamless, integrated experience, instant
access to different channels represents a
helpful capability.
33% of agents possess the most efficient
form of that capability.
That percentage of businesses offers agents
access to a myriad of contact channels from
a singular desktop.
15% provide access to most channels from
within one desktop, while 23% provide the
agent with a singular source of access to
all high-touch channels. 7% only extend
the capability to lower-touch, transactional
channels, while 22% only allow access to
one channel from the desktop.
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Q17
Can agents access multiple channels from
a single desktop?
33.30% Yes
15.0% They can access most channels
23.3% They can access priority/full-
service channels
6.70% They can access transactional/
low-touch channels
21.70% No

Q18
During an interaction, can the agent access the
customer’s profile and history?

15.00% Not at all

21.70% Yes, within the same channel
(for select, high-priority
channels)
11.70% Yes, within the same channel
(for select, low-touch channels)
28.30% Yes, across some channels
16.70% Yes, across most channels
6.70% Yes, across all channels

callcenter-iq.com 126
The Customer’s
Perspective
The service experience is designed for and
delivered to customers. It is not, however,
designed and delivered by them.
The customer experience is a business
construct. It is created by business people
in business offices and then executed at the
business’ touch points. The customer has no
inherent agency.
A great contradiction often results.
Brands will never shy away from an
opportunity to espouse the importance of
customer-centricity, but they will make contact
center decisions entirely from a business
perspective. Guided by insular assessments
and “best practices” from other business
people, customer management leaders will
prescribe things for customers. They will
impose things on customers.
From an operational standpoint, there is no
obvious counter to this scenario. Customers
are not employees. They are not part of
the organization or directly involved in any
investments or strategic decisions. They will
never directly design the customer experience.
A business looking to heavily incorporate
the customer into its contact center strategy
is not, however, completely precluded from
doing so. The customer may not live within
the walls of its business, but the customer’s
voice absolutely can ring throughout the entire
organization.
While ambiguity surrounds the term “voice
of the customer,” there is nothing unclear
about its fundamental meaning: it is an
accumulation of customers’ perspectives,
sentiments, expectations, and demands. It
provides a window into what the customer
requires to be satisfied.
Since today’s businesses identify customer
satisfaction as their most paramount contact
center goal, it carries an intuitive and
undeniable worth.
That worth is particularly significant in the
context of an omni-channel discussion.
Given the relative newness of the omni-
channel concept – and the uncertainty
surrounding the most urgent requirements –
the voice of the customer represents a means
of establishing clarity. In the age of customer
empowerment, the voice of the customer
provides a particularly compelling starting point
for those looking to establish or optimize an
omni-channel contact center.
Since the omni-channel revolution is
bringing contact centers into uncharted
territory, the voice of the customer – particularly
that in the form of customer feedback and
responsive behavior – helps flesh out an
understanding of what works and what does
not work in today’s age. Whereas businesses
have decades of data to at least roughly guide
them when it comes to the single channel
contact center, they are likely still establishing
standards for omni-channel performance.
Moreover, the omni-channel revolution also
provides an unparalleled level of access to
the voice of the customer. The omni-channel
environment features an immense number of
touch points – and an immense number of
circumstances – in which to engage customers.
Each of these passive or active engagements
represents an opportunity not simply to
communicate information to the customer
but to learn about that customer.
In theory, omni-channel is both a beneficiary
and driver of an increased emphasis on the
voice of the customer.
To what extent are today’s businesses
taking advantage?
Locating the Voice
The customer management landscape provides
today’s businesses with an array of options for
locating the voice of the customer.
Those businesses most commonly locate – and
acquire – the voice in customer feedback
surveys.
A whopping 74% of businesses say they
leverage such surveys to gain insight into the
customer’s sentiment.
Other popular means of acquiring the voice of
the customer include interaction recordings and
verbatims (55%), interaction analytics (50%),
agent feedback and post-call wrap-ups (47%),
and inbound, unsolicited customer feedback
(41%).
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 Four of the five most popular options – surveys,
recordings, analytics, and feedback – involve
direct communication with the customer.
Agent feedback, the fifth, is theoretically the
immediate product of direct communication
with the customer. All such options effectively
take the “voice of the customer” notion
literally; they draw insights based on what the
customer actually said or expressed during or
about the interaction.
In the status quo, businesses are generally less
reliant on passive insights drawn from consumer
behavior. Only 17% of contact centers, for
instance, use changes in customer behavior
(such as changes in buying habits) as a source
of customer intelligence.
A similarly low 22%, meanwhile, use changes
in business metrics as a source of voice of the
customer insight.
While a more substantial 40% acquire customer
intelligence from changes in customer-oriented
metrics, such metrics are not necessarily a
passive form of customer communication.
Metrics like CSAT score and Net Promoter
Score are constructed directly from customer
sentiment. In such cases, customers, via what
are effectively customer feedback surveys,
are explicitly declaring their satisfaction and
willingness to recommend the brand.
In terms of active voice of the customer insights,
the only comparatively unpopular source is
external customer sentiment. External customer
comments, such as those shared in social media,
represent valid voice of the customer insights in
only 22% of businesses.
That finding is relevant – and damning – for
the status quo impact of the omni-channel
revolution. External customer commentary
epitomizes the “always on” nature of omni-
channel communication. That “always on”
communication does not, however, carry as
much weight as traditional feedback surveys
and call recording when it comes to informing
business decisions.
In addition to suggesting that businesses are
not making the most of the omni-channel
landscape, the finding also reveals that
businesses are bottlenecking their ability to
“compete on the customer experience.”
Direct customer feedback will often be of
the reactionary variety; customers will share
what they loved or hated about the particular
experience they received with the brand.
While it too includes reactionary insight,
external customer sentiment also paints a
broader picture of the marketplace.
It reveals bigger picture, unadulterated
information about customer wants, demands,
and expectations.
Whereas reactionary feedback tells a business
whether what it is already doing is successful
or unsuccessful, external communication tells a
business whether it is doing all that it should or
could be doing.
Impact of the Voice
We know where businesses go to hear the
voice of the customer. Do they actually listen?
They at least moderately do when it comes to
overall contact center strategy.
While not a resounding factor, the voice of
the customer is at least a somewhat important
factor in 85% of businesses. It makes at least
a solid impact in 63% of businesses and a
significant one in 28%.
In revealing that the voice of the customer
makes a significant impact in only 28% of
contact centers, the data dispels the notion
of this truly being the “age of the customer.”
It undermines the idea that today’s contact
centers all put the customer first.
It nonetheless confirms that businesses
pay attention to the voice of the customer
when crafting customer overall contact
center strategy.
They adhere to a similar approach when
designing channel strategy. They listen to the
voice of the customer, but they generally do
not make decisions based specifically on the
customer’s input.
Today’s businesses most notably use the voice
of the customer to determine which channels
to measure. By scoring the impact at 3.16/5,
businesses nonetheless confirm that the voice
of the customer is not the exclusive determinant.
Other strategies comparatively reliant on
customer intelligence include the decision
of which channels to incorporate into agent
training (3.08) and the form of engagement
to offer within each channel (3.02). Strategies
comparatively less reliant on voice of the
customer insight include when to allow
engagement within each channel (2.50) and
which channels to use (2.90).
The range between the high- and low-
ranking options confirms that companies turn
to the voice of customer when making most
strategic decisions.
They do not, however, make any decision
exclusively based on the customer’s voice.
callcenter-iq.com 128
Q19
How do you acquire the voice of the
customer?
Interaction recordings/verbatim
55.20%

Interaction analytics
50.00%

Agent feedback/post-call wrap-up 46.60%

Customer feedback (response to surveys)

74.10%
Customer feedback (inbound, unsolicited)
41.40%
E xternal customer discussion
(such as in social media) 22.40%
 hanges in customer behavior
C
(buying habits, etc) 17.20%
 hanges in business metrics
C
(revenue, etc) 22.40%
Changes in customer metrics
(CSAT, NPS, etc) 39.70%

Q20
To what extent does voice of the customer
impact contact center strategy?

6.70% Not at all

8.30% Slightly
21.70% Somewhat
35.00% Solidly
28.30% Significantly

Q21
How does the voice of the customer impact
channel strategy? (0-5 scale)
0 1 2 3 4 5

Which channels to use 2.90

 hat kind of engagement to offer
W
in each channel 3.07
 hen to offer the channel within
W
2.88
each work day

Which channels to staff 2.87

Which channels to incorporate into
agent training 3.08

Which channels to measure 3.16

Which channels to integrate with
other systems 3.01

callcenter-iq.com 129
Expert Perspectives
Erich Dietz, InMoment
The two biggest missed opportunities for the
insights we gather in contact centers are that
they stay siloed inside of our departments and
that we don’t use the information to make
important changes. Most contact centers do
a good job of using customer feedback to
improve agent performance. However, they
rarely take the opportunity to share that
information with other departments that have
the ability to either improve the root causes
that are sending customers to the contact
center, or to reinforce and expand what
customers love. If we are going to take the
time to ask customers for feedback and they,
in turn, take the time to share details about
their experiences, we shouldn’t take that for
granted. It’s simply bad business.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
With the proliferation of smartphones
and other mobile devices and associated
GPS technology in use today, businesses
increasingly know who their customers
are, what devices they are using and where
Content of the Voice
While its impact on the customer experience
is fairly moderate, the voice of the customer
still exists. It still provides businesses with a
window into what customers want. It also
lets businesses know how customers feel
about what is currently being offered.
In the status quo, businesses do not
believe their customers are wowed by any
experiential element.
They do, however, believe customers are
reasonably satisfied with a few elements.
Per a survey question asking them to assess
their companies’ experiences from the
perspectives of customers, respondents
confirm the greatest level of satisfaction
with agent friendliness.
They score that element 4.00/5.
Other comparatively strong experiential
elements include the likelihood of achieving
a suitable resolution (3.76/5), the value of
resolutions being offered (3.68/5), accuracy
(3.56/5), and speed (3.36/5).
Low-scoring elements include the ability to
span channels within the same transaction
(1.96/5), the ability to span channels in future
transactions (2.16/5), the ability to transfer
they are in the world. This is all contextual
information that can speed up the journey
time and allow effortless customer service to
take place even faster than before. Quality
monitoring platforms used in conjunction with
speech analytics solutions can also be key in this
context. They help businesses ensure that their
customer-facing agents are interacting correctly
with customers and using the information
gleaned from the process to improve the
services they deliver through their channels.
Michael Mills, CGS
Contact centers should be leveraging any
and all information that can help their agents
perform more effectively and proficiently in
delivering a quality level of support to their
customers.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
Businesses should leverage data to create a true,
meaningful, 360-degree view of customers.
Doing so enables them to deliver a truly optimal
experience across all channels.
without repeating information (2.46/5),
proactive care (2.62), and accommodation of
channel preference (2.75/5).
Collectively, the scores offer a clear
conclusion: when the interaction occurs
within the organization’s wheelhouse, the
business generally delivers for its customers.
It provides friendly, valuable, accurate,
resolute and efficient care.
That wheelhouse is unfortunately small.
If the customer wants to communicate in
his preferred channel, span channels, transfer
or hear from the business without initiating
the engagement, he is far less likely to walk
away satisfied.
Essentially, today’s businesses deliver a solid
level of customer support, but they have not
yet successfully tailored that support to the
omni-channel world.
If the customer adheres to the business’
preferred terms of engagement, he will
probably get the resolution he desires.
If he expects the business to accommodate
his terms and provide a seamless, consistent,
integrated service experience across all
channels, he will run into some obstacles.
callcenter-iq.com 130
Q22 If you were a customer, how would you score
your business on the following? (0-5 Scale)

Speed

Accuracy
0 1 2 3 4 5

3.362069

3.561404
Friendliness 4
Value of resolutions typically offered 3.678571
L ikelihood of a suitable resolution
3.763636
being offered
Honors channel preference 2.745455

Preferred channel is available at desired time 2.854545

Interaction is personalized to customer 3.054545

Interaction is tailored to transaction 3.203704

Can span channels within the same transaction/call 1.962264

Can span channels for future transactions 2.163636

Customer does not need to repeat information
2.462963
following transfer/channel change
Proactive care 2.618182

Consumer Perspective
(via Microsoft’s 2015 US State of Multichannel Customer Service Report)
What do you feel is the most important element of a satisfying customer service experience?

48%
42% 41%
34%
29% 26%
27% 26%
22% 23%
20%
16% 16% 15%
12%
9%

US UK Brazil Japan
Getting issue resolved quickly First contact resolution
Agent friendliness Ability to get information without assistance

What do you feel is the most frustrating aspect of a customer service experience?
32%

22% 25%
23% 23% 24%
21% 21%
18% 19% 16%
17% 16% 15%
15%
13% 13% 13% 12%
9% 11%
9% 8%
6%

US UK Brazil Japan

Being passed between agents Having to contact the brand multiple times for the same issue
Inability to reach a live agent Inability to resolve issue online
Impolite customer service agent Being kept waiting on hold

callcenter-iq.com 131
Roadmap to Omni-
Channel Excellence
Proceed with Caution
The prefix “omni” means all. The majority
of today’s businesses believe full service
in all channels is a core requirement of the
omni-channel contact center. All of today’s
businesses hear rhetoric regarding the
importance of serving the customer on the
customer’s terms.
Collectively, the three realities produce
pressure to venture into all contact channels.
Companies should not ignore that pressure.
While the omni-channel revolution is about
more than location of service, it is absolutely
concerned with location of service.
Customers are not simply becoming
comfortable with an increasing array of
channels; they are developing preferences for
non-telephonic channels. Per fundamental
concepts like “the customer is always
right” and “the customer comes first,”
accommodating channel preference is pivotal.
In order to successfully do so, businesses
ultimately will need to offer robust service
in all channels.
The pressure to expand into all channels
should not, however, blind businesses to
the fact that customer preferences fit into
a hierarchy. While channel preference
is important, it may not be as important
as fundamental care elements like speed,
accuracy, efficiency and resolve.
If a company’s customer base values
those elements more substantially than it
does channel preference, delivering those
elements represents the business’ paramount
customer experience priority. Its expansion into
new channels cannot come at the expense of
such elements.
While shunning new channels is foolish,
rushing into those channels is similarly foolish.
When expanding the walls of its customer
experience, a business retain – if not improve –
its standard of care in all existing channels.
It must also apply the standard of care to all
new channels.
Appreciate Self-Service
Businesses that are looking to quickly expand
their channel offers should pay careful attention
to self-service.
Web- and mobile-self-service are widely
recognized as important to the contact
center experience. The implementation and
optimization of self-service options, moreover,
carries “win-win” value for businesses.
Self-service channels play a pivotal role in
boosting overall contact center efficiency. In
addition to being low-touch by definition, self-
service channels absorb inquiries that otherwise
would have reached live agents. With fewer
transactional engagements on their plate, live
agents can focus more substantially on the
matters that truly require – and benefit from –
their assistance.
Customers also benefit from self-service.
While live agent interactions have historically
represented a pathway to resolution, they also
require effort – and have a history of spurring
frustration. If customers can independently
and conveniently access the information or
resolution they desire, they avoid that hassle
and frustration. They benefit from a stronger,
more customer-centric experience, and their
satisfaction improves.
Self-service thus represents an intersection
between operational efficiency and customer
centricity. Both the contact center and the
customer benefit from a lower-impact, less-
taxing support experience. Whether guided
by cost containment or customer satisfaction,
an organization stands to benefit when it
effectively deploys self-service capabilities.
“Effectively” is an important qualifier. While
self-service can represent a win-win option
for businesses and customers, it does not
automatically produce a desirable outcome.
When sourcing and implementing a self-service
tool, businesses must remain mindful of their
core contact center objectives. If customer
satisfaction represents one of the priorities, self-
service must be implemented with the customer
in mind. The business can certainly appreciate
the efficiency benefits of self-service, but the
callcenter-iq.com 132
effort to cut costs and reduce volume should not
come at the expense of the customer experience.
The system should be user-friendly, and it should
be offered when contextually appropriate.
Customers should never be forced to use self-
service when they would prefer to interact with
a live agent.
Self-service technology can help cut costs and
reduce interaction volume. It should not be
introduced for the sole purpose of doing so.
Establish Unity, Not Uniformity
Customers and businesses both recognize the
importance of a seamless, integrated, consistent
customer experience. Such an approach is the
cornerstone of the omni-channel revolution.
When pursuing such a customer experience,
businesses must remain mindful of the distinction
between unity and uniformity. Customers
should receive the same, complete commitment
to service regardless of where they interact. They
should receive the same commitment to speedy,
accurate, worthwhile care regardless of where
they interact.
They should not, however, necessarily receive the
exact same experience in each channel.
Customers have reasons for preferring
the channels they prefer. They have specific
expectations for the channels in which they
interact. While these concerns do not often
outweigh customers’ fundamental desires for
effective, resolute customer experiences, they
are not trivial. They should not be ignored
by businesses.
In pursuit of unity and consistency between
channels, businesses should not necessarily strive
for uniformity of each channel experience.
The correct approach is to first establish the core
of the experience. Businesses must determine
what customers see as fundamental to the
Expert Perspectives
Michael Mills, CGS
The one standard across any and all channels
is the quality of service being provided and
the ability to effectively resolve the customer’s
issues in a timely manner.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
Customers have a different set of expectations
based on the channel they are using.
Differences in expectations also emerge based
on the age and demographics of the customer.
An individual of 60 and over, for example, is
more likely than other age ranges also to
want to resolve their problem through spoken
interaction with a customer service agent. A
younger digital native may, in contrast, be
customer experience. Upon doing so, they
must assure that all channels offer those
fundamentals. They must also assure that the
customer’s ability to receive that core value
does not change as he transfers between
channels, agents and transactions.
Once the business establishes a core, integrated
experiential promise, it must then assess the
intricacies of each channel. What makes certain
customers choose certain channels at certain
times? What unique attributes and capabilities
exist within certain channels?
The omni-channel business then plays to
the strengths – and masks the weaknesses
– of each individual channel. It assures that
customers who connect in live chat get access
to an experience enhanced with the unique
elements of the live chat arena. It assures that
customers who call for support receive access
to an experience that makes the most sense for
the telephonic arena.
To support these channel-specific experiences,
businesses must also introduce channel-specific
performance measures for each environment. If
different average handle times are warranted
in different channels, the organization – and
affected supervisors and agents – need to
appreciate those differences at the onset.
Some metrics – particularly those that cover
customer- and resolution-oriented outcomes
– should not be graded on a curve. CSAT, for
instance, is as important in the Twitter support
environment as it is in the e-mail channel.
Businesses should, however, distinctly measure
performance within each channel. CSAT
score may be as an important in social as it
is in e-mail, but businesses absolutely must
know whether social is as effective at driving
CSAT score as e-mail. If not, it gains an
understanding of the changes it must make.
looking for a much more immediate answer in
an online or mobile environment.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
While a business needs to understand the unique
components of each channel, it also needs to
enforce a universal performance standard and
apply universal key performance indicators.
Erich Dietz, InMoment
Businesses should not assume uniformity;
customer expectations vary depending on
how compelling the issue is, industry and
past experiences with that company. Their
expectation for service level, however, is often
similar across channels.
callcenter-iq.com 133
Leverage Omni-Channel
Yes, the omni-channel revolution requires
ample time, resource and fiscal commitment.
It is not, however, a pure burden on
the contact center. It also represents a
significant opportunity.
Today’s omni-channel marketplace
provides businesses with unprecedented
access to their customers. Smart businesses
use that unprecedented access to cultivate
stronger relationships with customers.
They also seek – and acquire – previously
unknown insights about their past, present
and potential customers.
For this to happen, contact centers must
Expert Perspectives
Erich Dietz, InMoment
The more comfortable a person is talking to
you, the more information they’ll share. The
more data and information you have, the easier
it becomes to then personalize the customer
experience. I like to think of these new
channels and technologies as having the ability
to connect, and help us understand and nurture
relationships with our customers. Customers
don’t want to feel like just a number. Show you
know the customer by having their experience
information readily available – from what
happened six seconds ago to what happened
six months ago.
Michael Mills, CGS
Today, call centers are leveraging the use of
analytics and call-trending metrics to gain a
deeper insight into customer issues, and how
well the call center agents are addressing the
problems being submitted to the call center.
Integrating the analytics and call-trending
metrics with the knowledge database articles
Involve the Business
While the contact center stands to markedly
benefit from these omni-channel approaches
to customer interaction and customer data
management, it need not be the only
organizational beneficiary.
By creating a stronger, more perpetual, more
intimate relationship between brand and
customer, an omni-channel experience can
produce insights – and results – that matter to
all business units.
It can enable a business to more productively
develop its products. It can enable a business to
more successfully market and sell its products. It
can enable a business to more efficiently recruit
employees. It can enable a business to more
valuably establish corporate culture.
establish more robust support offerings within
each channel. They must also establish more
robust, seamless approaches to knowledge
management. They must be in position to
secure – and utilize – this nearly bottomless
pool of customer intelligence.
“Always on” is not simply a call for 24/7/365
engagement. It also represents the idea that
the customer experience is ongoing. Every
conceivable passive or active interaction
between brand and business represents a
component of that experience.
Every conceivable passive or active
interaction, therefore, represents a chance
to both showcase and strengthen the
customer experience.
provides the agents with a real-time repository
of customer information that will help the agent
be more effective the next time that customer
calls into the desk.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
Rather than looking at customer service as
a cost, organizations increasingly see it as a
resource. Companies like TripAdvisor have built
an entire business around harnessing customer
insight and sharing that with their audience.
Organizations now are increasingly asking for
follow-up on all aspects of the service they
delivered. We are also seeing a proliferation of
user forums where customers share experiences
and information with their peers.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
Integrating all your channels into a central
CRM facilitates high-quality interactions. It
allows for effective automation and scripting
regardless of channel, which in turn ensues
the right information and knowledge is being
communicated to customers.
For this to happen, the contact center must
first assure it is taking advantage of the omni-
channel atmosphere. It must be engaging
customers – whether indirectly, directly,
passively or actively – at all touch points.
It must be actively learning from customers
every time they share anything approximating
their “voice.”
Once the contact center is able to deliver
an omni-channel, customer-centric service
experience and foster an omni-channel,
customer-minded knowledge management
process, the business then must seamlessly
integrate the contact center with the rest of
the business.
That is correct. “Integration” in an omni-
channel world is not simply between e-mail,
callcenter-iq.com 134
chat and web self-service. It is also between
the contact center and the sales department.
It is between the customer service team and the
human resources team.
By eliminating internal seams, the organization
effectively turns the entire business into
its customer experience department. Not all
business units will contribute or benefit from
the customer experience in the same way,
but all will be connected to each other – and
to customers.
We already know today’s contact center data
is driving business decisions. In the optimized,
omni-channel organization, the “contact center”
Expert Perspectives
Michael Mills, CGS
As the central repository for all customer call
information across all supported channels, the
contact center can provide detailed insight into
the problems and issues that are impacting
a company’s network, infrastructure and
organization. For example, call center analytics
and trending metrics have the ability to show
that a large component of end-user issues are
related around COTS (commercial off the shelf)
products that could be easily resolved through
some type of e-learning or training program.
The analytics may also contain another set
of frequent issues that are focused on the
customer network or PC support infrastructure
that could be resolved by implementing new
technologies or processes. In both instances,
the call center management team could
communicate these findings to their customers,
and simultaneously recommend a point of
contact within their internal organizations
that specializes in that type of support. In this
way, the call center would be empowering
the success of the greater business with its
customers and with its internal organization.
Jeremy Payne, Enghouse Interactive
Today, the whole company is increasingly
involved in customer service and in making
sure customers are loyal and happy. Insight can
be shared across the organization. Customer
complaints about company solutions can be
shared with product development; for example,
and the marketing department can be provided
with information about which campaigns work
especially well.
qualifier effectively becomes unnecessary.
The data becomes business data, and it is used
by every department as part of a broader effort
to improve the customer’s experience and the
organization’s bottom line.
We already know today’s contact center
is engaging customers at a variety of touch
points. In the optimized, omni-channel
organization, the “contact center” qualifier
effectively becomes unnecessary. The touch
points become broader customer experience
portals, and the entire business is capable of
fostering the most relevant and worthwhile
form of engagement.
Greg Moser, PowerObjects
When successfully communicated across the
business, omni-channel insights drive significant
reductions in operational expenditure. They
also uncover opportunities to drive more
revenue through cross-selling and upselling.
Erich Dietz, InMoment
Some of our most innovative clients have
formed or participate in cross-departmental
action groups charged with identifying and
vetting insights, creating action plans to get
the information to the right places and people,
assigning stewards, and holding the teams
accountable to report back to the larger group
with their progress.
While the contact center is a hub of customer
information, we rarely have the ability to do
anything besides perform triage for a problem
created in other parts of the business. We can
definitely make customers’ experiences worse,
but when we share information and work
across departments to address root causes, we
can also be part of a much bigger solution.
The best leaders understand the potential of
what contact centers can offer colleagues
and customers, and they also have the most
strategic and comprehensive view of their
business and customers. They also have the
level of influence required to get the right
resources and support to affect real change.
The most important thing to remember,
however, is that while the buck must stop
somewhere, companies have got to do
everything possible to help each manager and
employee with the information it takes
to fully own the experiences for which they
have responsibility.
callcenter-iq.com 135
EXECUTIVE REPORT
ON THE FUTURE OF
THE CONTACT CENTER

Over the past year, Call Center IQ’s executive
research reports have confirmed one undeniable
reality: today’s contact center professionals have
embraced a new customer experience normal.
The community once notorious for prioritizing
cost reduction has begun to recognize customer
satisfaction as a more pivotal contact center focus.
The community that once operated from within a
“call center” – a department that answered calls
from customers – has declared a commitment to
creating an omni-channel engagement center.
The community has similarly embraced innovations
when it comes to agent engagement and contact
center technology.
It then works to unveil a strategic roadmap
for contact center excellence. Which specific
initiatives, solutions, strategies, and best practices
will contact centers implement and/or optimize
in the immediate term? What about later in the
year? What about in the distant future?
The report concludes with an element never
previously featured in a Call Center IQ Executive
Report: a practicality guide. Across four
individual sets of case studies, implementation
recommendations, and best practice breakdowns,
the guide will create context for the data and
findings documented in the first part of this report.
More importantly, it will empower you to take
action and drive results.

Having accepted the vision, contact center 2015 was a year of accepting a new contact center
professionals – and businesses at large – must now vision. Let 2016 be a year of realizing that vision.
transition to realizing that vision. As organizations
look toward 2016 and beyond, taking action is the
priority.

Call Center IQ’s Executive Report on the Future

of the Contact Center focuses on that action.
After confirming the earlier notion – that today’s
contact centers see customer satisfaction as their
key objective – it transitions to action. What
is standing in the way of success? What will
businesses do to overcome those barriers?

callcenter-iq.com 136
Key Findings
n As they approach the future, businesses
identify “customer satisfaction” as the
paramount contact center objective.
“Customer loyalty” and “customer advocacy,”
which can represent progressions from
customer satisfaction, are the next-biggest
focuses.
n The people element represents the most
prominent challenge facing today’s contact
centers. Other top-ranking challenges include
technology and channel engagement strategy.
n As they work to overcome their challenges –
and pursue their key contact center objectives
– organizations are most likely to prioritize
technology matters. Agent-related initiatives
and structural contact center changes
(expansion, consolidation, and new vendor
partnerships) represent the next-biggest
priorities.
n When it comes to managing the people
element, today’s organizations are most
urgently focused on agent engagement,
training, and retention.
Key Guidance
n Today’s customers are demanding omni-
channel experience journeys that are
consistent, low-effort, empathetic, accurate,
and personalized. Businesses that meet
these demands will reap tangible rewards.
n The four contact center imperatives: Rethink
metrics, embrace omni-channel, transition to
the cloud, and leverage real-time intelligence.
n Over the next 6-24 months, gamification will
garner considerable attention.
n When it comes to managing the
technology solutions, knowledge
management, agent engagement, and
workforce management constitute the most
urgent focuses.
n Customer experience measurement tools will
be a consistent priority over the next two
years, while predictive analytics will move
toward the limelight later this year and into
next year.
n When it comes to the overall omni-
channel customer experience, customer
satisfaction management represents the most
urgent priority. It will hold that distinction for
the rest of the year before ceding the throne
to customer loyalty in 2017.
n In terms of individual channel capabilities,
optimizing live chat is the biggest present-day
priority. That focus will shift to mobile later
in the year.
n The multi-channel contact center experience is
no longer sufficient. As organizations look to
the future, they should be developing omni-
channel customer engagement centers.
n In addition to acquiring and acting on the voice
of the customer, today’s contact centers must
consider agent analytics. By understanding
the personas of each individual agent, contact
centers can better empower personnel to
deliver satisfying experiences.
callcenter-iq.com 137
Methodology & Demographics
To collect data for the Executive Report on the
Future of the Contact Center, Call Center IQ
surveyed registered attendees from the 2015 Call
Center Week and 2016 Call Center Week Winter
events.
Respondents generally hold customer experience,
customer service, contact center, information
technology, operations, human resources,
marketing, and executive leadership positions
within their organizations. Example job titles
include “director, call center strategy,” “call
center manager,” “chief technology officer,”
“assistant director, customer care,” “divisional vice
president, operations,” “associate vice president,
omni-channel,” “digital communications
manager,” “divisional vice president, customer
care,” “director of US sales and marketing,” “vice
president, enterprise accounts,” “director, call
center,” “manager of customer service,” “vice
president, contact center,” “operations manager,”
Contact Center: What’s
the Point?
Whether assessing current performance or
devising strategies for the future, it is imperative
to understand the role the contact center plays
within organizations.
Of specific importance: what are the contact
center’s key objectives?
All contact centers are tasked with achieving key
objectives, and those objectives will determine
the optimal way to manage people, design
processes, and implement technology. They
function as a barometer for determining success
or failure.
For today’s contact centers, success or failure
is most notably determined by the ability to
generate customer satisfaction.
Provided with a series of options, respondents
resoundingly identified increasing customer
satisfaction as the most important contact
center objective.
“vice president of marketing,” “manager of
workforce planning,” “director of global customer
care,” “e-commerce specialist,” “general
manager,” and “chief executive officer.”
The survey sample encompasses small, medium,
and large contact centers. 45% of respondent
organizations seat fewer than 100 agents in their
centers, while 22% seat between 100 and 250.
The remaining 33% of respondents represent
contact centers with at least 250 seats; a total of
23% say their contact center hosts more than 500
agents.
Supplemental data was generated from Call
Center IQ’s four annual reports, which surveyed
customer experience, contact center, IT, operations,
and marketing professionals on topics related
to the customer experience, cloud technology,
contact center performance, and omni-channel.
The finding mirrors that of Call Center IQ’s four
previous executive reports. Survey data compiled
for the Executive Report on the Customer
Experience, the Executive Report on Cloud
Contact Center Technology, the Executive Report
on Contact Center Performance and Operations,
and the Executive Report on the Omni-Channel
Contact Center confirms the same: today’s
contact centers are, first and foremost, tasked
with driving customer satisfaction.
Per the survey conducted in association with this
report, increasing customer loyalty follows
as second-most important, while increasing
customer advocacy follows as third-most.
Both represent natural progressions from customer
satisfaction. Upon reaching a certain level of
satisfaction, customers, in theory, will become
loyal to that business. Upon reaching certain
levels of satisfaction and/or loyalty, customers, in
theory, will become advocates for the business.
callcenter-iq.com 138
In positioning those objectives near the top of
the totem pole, businesses confirm interest in the
progression. They value the outcomes that stem
from customer satisfaction.
In positioning those objectives below customer
satisfaction, businesses nonetheless declare
customer satisfaction a valuable end in and of
itself. They may hope the satisfaction will lead
to loyalty and advocacy, but satisfaction itself
Lesson for Tomorrow’s Contact Centers:
With customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy
as their driving objectives, tomorrow’s contact
centers must adopt customer centricity as their
driving philosophy. People, processes, and
technology must be calibrated to create the best
possible experiences for customers.
Contact Center: What’s
the Problem?
Identifying a contact center objective does not
ensure the business will achieve that contact
center objective. Contact centers possess many
moving parts, and all present risks of error and
setback. All represent potential challenges.
Businesses may be resounding in their declaration
that customer satisfaction is the paramount
objective, but in order to achieve that objective,
they will have to overcome their most pressing
challenges.
As contact centers look toward a future
of satisfied customers, the people element
represents the most notable potential roadblock.
Asked to identify their most pressing contact
center challenge in an open-ended format, 19%
of respondents identified a matter related
to contact center employees.
The most common people challenges concern
areas like agent retention, agent recruiting, agent
training, and agent engagement.
represents their biggest priority when shaping
contact center strategy and making contact
center investments.
Comparatively unimportant objectives include
gaining product knowledge, growing market
share, and gaining customer insights. Factors
like reducing cost and increasing revenue
fall in between – they are neither irrelevant
considerations nor the driving forces.
Cost and operational considerations remain
on the radar, but few contact centers should
be making decisions based on those factors
alone. If a contact center cannot identify the link
between a contact center initiative and customer
satisfaction, it typically should avoid that initiative.
Illustrated by phrases like “happy agents =
happy customers,” today’s businesses recognize
employees as pivotal components of the contact
center function. Given that perception, it
is unsurprising that businesses ascribe such
significance to personnel challenges.
The people element is not, however, the only
major obstacle facing today’s contact centers.
A nearly as substantial 17% of respondents
identify technology and systems matters
as their biggest type of challenge. Example
focuses include issues with integration,
functionality, reliability, modernization, and
security. In terms of individual technology
solutions, CRM systems represent the most
common source of strife.
At the end of the day, contact centers rely on
technological systems to execute their strategies.
No matter how engaged the employees or
expertly constructed the processes, broken
systems can prevent organizations from delivering
the intended experience and thus achieving the
desired satisfaction.
callcenter-iq.com 139
 Given that importance – and the fact that
systems encompass so many different functions
and thus have so many opportunities for error – it
is unsurprising that technology represents a major
challenge for today’s contact centers.
The omni-channel revolution consumes a
substantial portion of contact center conversation,
and challenges related to channel strategy are the
third-most-common focus for contact centers.
13% of respondents cite channel elements
– including the creation of seamless,
consistent communication across channels,
the rise of self-service, and engagement in
specific media like mobile and social – as
their most pressing contact center concerns.
Lesson for Tomorrow’s Contact Centers:
A contact center is only as good as its people,
who represent the face of the organization. Their
performance plays an instrumental role in driving
customer satisfaction, and no contact center can
succeed without proper practices for recruiting,
training, engaging, and retaining its employees.
While significant, the people challenge is not the
only hurdle on the road to customer satisfaction.
Q1 Which represents the top challenge facing your
contact center?
People/Agents
Technology
Growth
Volume and Workflow
Income/Business Metrics
Customer Experience/Customer Impact
Omni-Channel/Channel Engagement
Strategy
Other
Direct customer experience issues collectively
represent the fourth-most-pressing concern.
12% of respondents are most notably
struggling with customer-oriented matters
like customer retention, delivery of first contact
resolution, customer segmentation and routing,
and reduction of effort levels and wait times.
Factors related to recruiting, retaining, training,
and engaging contact center employees
collectively represent the most pressing contact
center concern. Optimally leveraging those
employees presents an additional challenge.
11% of organizations believe matters
related to volume, forecasting, scheduling
and workflow collectively serve as their
most daunting challenge.
No matter how great, contact center employees
can only thrive if the systems allow for their
success. The omni-channel revolution is
replicating the problems that have long plagued
the telephony-based call center across a
myriad of customer touch points. Customer
satisfaction cannot be generated if the business
does not optimize the experience it creates for
all customers. And that experience cannot be
optimized if the center is not optimally equipped
to handle workflow.
19.30%
17.10%
6.80%
10.30%
9.50%
12.00%
12.50%
12.50%
callcenter-iq.com 140
Contact Center: What’s
the Priority?
It would be nice if contact centers could instantly
solve all their challenges. Common sense
confirms the unlikelihood of such a scenario.
All organizations – even the richest, most
customer-centric ones – face limitations.
Consequently, they will neither be able to
account for all challenges nor perfect all
processes. They will need to prioritize
their initiatives.
An inquiry into the future of contact centers,
therefore, benefits from an assessment of the
initiatives organizations identify as their biggest
priorities. It provides us with insight into the
contact center challenges today’s organizations
are most committed to solving.
For the greatest percentage of organizations,
the biggest priority involves technologies and
systems.
Asked to identify their top priority in an open-
ended format, 22% of organizations confirm
a paramount focus on matters related to
technology. Example focuses include upgrading
platforms, replacing obsolete systems, adding
new capabilities, and unifying disparate tools. In
terms of specific technologies, businesses will
specifically focus on solutions related to IVR,
CRM, and cloud and virtualization.
The comparatively significant focus on technology
corresponds with the fact that technology
represents one of the most pressing challenges
facing today’s contact centers. If issues related
to technology are commonly preventing contact
centers from achieving customer satisfaction in
the present, solutions related to technology will
help organizations more successfully achieve that
goal in the future.
Technology, moreover, can address the full gamut
of contact center challenges.
In addition to addressing problems directly
related to existing systems, new technology can
facilitate stronger omni-channel communication.
It can improve agent training and engagement.
It can optimize workflow.
Solution-oriented in nature, new technology is
an obvious, intuitive priority for an organization
looking to solve any form of contact center
challenge.
Given the fact that people issues collectively
represent the most pressing contact center
challenge, many organizations are prioritizing such
matters when devising their future contact center
strategies.
16% of organizations, in fact, say people will
be their biggest contact center focus moving
forward. The focus will manifest in the form
of stronger recruiting and onboarding practices,
improved training and e-learning, an increased
emphasis on agent engagement and culture, and
a focus on remote/work-from-home options.
Structurally transforming the contact center
represents the next-greatest priority. 11%
of businesses say they will prioritize
efforts related to adding contact centers,
expanding contact centers, consolidating
contact centers, or aligning with new vendor
partners and outsourcers.
9% will put the customer at the forefront.
Through focus on optimizing the customer
experience, improving interaction quality,
raising CSAT scores, improving segmentation
and routing, and offering a greater level of
transparency between brand and customer, these
organizations will skip the intermediary steps and
focus directly on the end outcome: customer
satisfaction.
8% will most prominently emphasize the
omni-channel revolution. Key initiatives will
include improving consistency across channels
and expanding capabilities within individual
channels. Live chat represents a particularly
popular priority, while self-service and video
will also attract attention from non-trivial
percentages of organizations.
callcenter-iq.com 141
 Lesson for Tomorrow’s Contact Centers:
When devising their contact center strategies,
organizations will need to identify – and enact –
preferred courses of action.
To identify those priorities, they will need to
find the optimal intersection points between
the challenges deemed most pressing and the
solutions likely to be most effective.
They will also, inevitably, face a debate between
focusing on systems and focusing on strategy. In
addition to solving for technology issues, such as
poor integration, poor speed, and poor uptime,
technological solutions can account for a myriad
of functional contact center challenges. There
are few contact center challenges for which a
Q2
Which represents the top priority for your contact
center?
People/Agents
Technology
Framework
Business Impact
Customer Experience
Omni-Channel/Channgel Engagement
Strategy
Other
corresponding technology product does not exist.
Such solutions are not, however, always effective.
If the organization and its processes are broken,
no amount of technology can fully solve the
problem. Gamification technology, for instance,
can help make a well-developed contact center
environment more enjoyable and productive, but
it cannot completely compensate for a lack of
culture, poor management, poor compensation,
and a poor career development journey.
In that scenario, the organization would generate
more reward from strategic improvement than it
would from systemic improvement.
16.30%
22.00%
10.90%
7.60%
9.20%
7.90%
26.10%
callcenter-iq.com 142
In Focus: A Roadmap To
Success
By understanding their most pressing challenges
and identifying their most paramount priorities, we
know what matters most to contact centers. We
know today’s contact centers, in their pursuit of
customer satisfaction, will most prominently address
challenges related to people and technology.
That information does not form the complete picture.
The customer experience is not a one-dimensional
game. Contact centers will face a myriad of
nuanced challenges, and they must respond
with a myriad of solutions. The impact of the
challenges and the priority of the solutions will
inevitably change over time.
In Focus: People of the Contact Center
In declaring it the most pressing challenge and
the second biggest priority, organizations have
resoundingly confirmed that the people element is
on the radar.
But how are they specifically addressing that
element right now? Which initiatives will come
into focus in the months and years ahead?
To answer these questions, respondents were
asked to identify the imminence of a variety of
agent-related issues. In order to accurately reveal
strategic priorities, respondents were only able
to choose one of the following: immediate focus,
focus in 6-12 months, focus in 12-24 months, or
not applicable.
Immediate Focus
Presently, organizations are most commonly
focused on employee engagement. 41% say they
are imminently tackling the engagement challenge.
Agent training carries nearly as much urgency.
39% of businesses consider training a challenge
worth tackling in the immediate term.
Other immediate people concerns include retention
initiatives (37%), employee reward and incentive
programs (35%), and recruiting strategies (33%).
Of note: even comparatively low-ranking
priorities like gamification (21%), workforce
management (31%), and culture (32%) represent
immediate concerns for substantial percentages
of organizations. This speaks to the universal
importance of the people element: it matters to
contact centers, and it matters right now.
6-12 Months
In the interim, employee engagement will receive
the greatest level of attention from organizations.
In six-to-twelve months, gamification will come
into focus.
In order to fully understand the current and
future states of the contact center, we need to
analyze the complete strategic roadmap. We
need to identify the specific issues businesses
are currently addressing, the ones they plan to
address in the near future, the ones they plan to
tackle in the distant future, and the ones that are
completely off the radar.
We have already established a big picture view
of the contact center. We now need to examine
specific challenges, solutions, and capabilities
from a granular perspective.
24% of organizations say they will tackle
gamification challenges in the latter half of the
year. It is the highest-ranking priority for the six-
to-twelve month window.
An anticipated focus for 23% of organizations,
employee reward and incentive programs will
represent the second-most widespread priority in
6-12 months.
Collectively, the interest in gamification and incentive
programs confirms a forthcoming emphasis on
employee motivation. While general engagement,
training, and retention represent the biggest priorities
in the immediate term, strategies for driving agent
performance will take center stage in 6-12 months.
Organizations do not, however, believe training,
engagement, and retention will become
non-factors at the end of the year. The three,
which are each anticipated focuses for 20% of
organizations, represent the next-three-highest-
scoring priorities for the 6-12-month window.
Generally lower than those for the immediate term,
the 6-12 month scores lend further credence to the
idea that the people element is an urgent, high-
priority focus for businesses. Businesses, on the
whole, do not want to wait 6-12 months to tackle
agent-related challenges and introduce agent-
related solutions. They want to act immediately.
12-24 Months
If they anticipate addressing people challenges
prior to the 6-12 month window, organizations
certainly have no interest in waiting 12-24 months.
Indeed, recruitment, which is the highest-ranking
priority for the 12-24 month window, is an
anticipated focus for only 8% of organizations.
The issue is not that the majority of contact centers
plan to cease recruiting next year; it is that many
do not feel they can wait until next year to begin
improving their recruiting strategies.
callcenter-iq.com 143
 The same is true for all people-related initiatives.
Gamification and training, the next-highest-
ranking focuses, are anticipated strategic issues for
only 7% of organizations.
Not Applicable
Given the tremendous importance ascribed to the
people element, it is unsurprising that the majority
of organizations plan to address all associated
challenges within the next 24 months, if not
within the next 12.
Still, substantial numbers of organizations—
between 33% and 48% for the available
options—do not include these agent-oriented
focuses in their strategic roadmaps.
In some cases, the “not applicable” selection
may confirm that the respondent’s contact center
does not include such an activity. Some of the
48% who exclude gamification challenges from
their roadmap, for instance, may not be using
gamification in their centers.
In other cases, the “not applicable” selection
would seemingly connote contentedness with
current performance. It is unfathomable that a
contact center is not engaging and training its
agents. The 33% and 34% who identified those
as not applicable, therefore, are likely declaring an
absence of struggle.

Lesson for Tomorrow’s Contact Centers:

Whether due to a concentration on core features
or contentedness with current performance,
substantial numbers of organizations do not plan
to tackle specific agent-related issues within the
next 24 months.
Those that do, however, are taking a sooner
rather than later approach. Concurring with the
notion that the people element represents a big
strategic priority and an even bigger challenge,
many organizations will address these factors
within the next 6-12 months, if not in the
immediate term.
To compete on the agent experience – and,
ultimately, on the customer experience – a
contact center must follow suit. It must identify
its needs when it comes to agent-related issues
and begin addressing those immediately.

Q3
When will you prioritize the following “people”
challenges?
Immediate 6-12 Months 12-24 Months N/A

Culture

0.32 0.18 0.05 0.45

Employee Engagement

0.41 0.20 0.05 0.33

Employee Loyalty
Rewards & Incentives
0.36 0.23 0.07 0.35

Gamification
0.21 0.24 0.07 0.48

Training
0.39 0.20 0.07 0.34

Recruitment
0.33 0.19 0.08 0.41

Retention Strategies

0.37 0.20 0.07 0.37

callcenter-iq.com 144
In Focus: Contact Center Technology
Like the people element, technology is, conceptually,
of immense importance to contact center strategy.
Technology and systemic issues, collectively, represent
the second-biggest challenge facing contact centers.
Tackling such issues is the paramount priority.
In tackling those issues, contact centers will have to
account for a unique array of factors.
They will have to align technology solutions with key
contact center objectives. Which pressing challenges
can best be conquered through technology? Which
strategic initiatives rely on technology to succeed?
They will have to identify and overcome functional
issues. Technology strategy requires more than
simply selecting compelling solutions. It involves
assuring those systems are operating properly. Do
they deliver the required uptime, reliability, accuracy
and consistency? Do they align with existing agent
skillsets and company practices? Do they properly
integrate with other systems?
They will have to consider financial matters.
While properly selected, optimally implemented
technology may improve efficiency and add value
in the long run, it typically requires an upfront
investment. No matter how philosophically
committed a business is to customer centricity,
cost rarely falls off its radar. Cost, therefore, will
inevitably affect its technology decisions.
With a far wider, more nuanced pool of paths to
undertake, the technology strategic roadmap is even
more valuable for contact center practitioners and
more illuminating for contact center analysts.
Immediate Focus
Identified as an urgent priority for 32% of businesses,
knowledge management ranks as the top technology
focus for the immediate term.
Also priorities for a rounded 32% of businesses, agent
analytics and dashboard solutions follow as the next-
most imminent priorities for businesses. Workforce
management solutions, the fourth-biggest focus in
the present, are top of mind for 31% of businesses.
A priority for 27%, real-time feedback solutions rank
fifth among immediate-term concerns.
Collectively, improvement in the aforementioned
five technologies will enable contact centers to
better assess customer demands, better assess agent
performance, and better assist agents in improving
that performance.
The survey data confirms the earlier notion that
technology strategy is about more than improving
functionality. It is also about leveraging technology
to achieve fundamental contact center objectives.
Agent engagement, customer impact, and
workforce optimization were all identified as top
contact center challenges, and it is technology
solutions directly related to those endeavors that
represent imminent priorities.
Several of the top-ranking technology priorities
involve insights and analytics.
Interestingly, some of the lowest-ranking priorities
also fall under the data umbrella.
Immediate focuses for 14% and 18% of contact
centers, solutions related to data management and
predictive analytics respectively represent the fourth-
and sixth-least-urgent priorities.
Other comparatively low-ranking present-day focuses
include WebRTC (4%), cloud solutions (12%),
hosted and virtual solutions (13%), and unified
communications (17%).
6-12 Months
A comparatively low-ranking priority in the
immediate term, predictive analytics will enter the
limelight in the latter half of the year. 30% intend
on making it a priority within the next 6-12 months.
Only customer experience measurement tools and
customer insights and analytics solutions, which
will respectively command attention from 35% and
31% of organizations, will represent bigger priorities
within that timeframe.
The trajectory for predictive analytics is similar to that
of gamification. Businesses are not dismissing its
importance, but they do acknowledge a myriad of
more pressing concerns.
By positioning customer experience measurement at or
near the top of the hierarchy for the immediate term
(a priority for 27%, it narrowly trails real-time feedback
as the sixth-greatest focus in the present) and 6-12
month windows, organizations are clearly identifying
the focus as pivotal. When it comes to technology
strategy for the coming year, nothing matters more
than measuring the customer experience.
Dashboard solutions come close. The focus, which
ranks second in the immediate term, is fourth for the
latter half of the year. 29% will make dashboards a
priority in the next 6-12 months.
An anticipated focus for 27% of businesses, real-time
feedback will represent the fifth-biggest focus at the
end of the year.
Of note: three of the top five immediate term
priorities rank as top five priorities for the 6-12 month
period. Organizations, consequently, do not anticipate
conquering their technology challenges or markedly
revamping their technology focus by the middle of the
year. What matters most now is generally what will
matter most in six-to-twelve months.
callcenter-iq.com 145
12-24 Months
After coming into focus at the end of this year,
predictive analytics will remain a comparatively great
priority in the following year.
16% of businesses anticipate focusing on predictive
analytics solutions in the 12-24 month window. It is
the most widely anticipated priority for that window.
A modestly rated priority for the current year, IVR
and speech recognition technology will become
the second most common focus in 2017. 15% of
businesses intend to focus on IVR and speech twelve-
to-twenty four months from now.
Other top priorities for that timeframe include CRM
solutions (15%), data management (14%) and
customer analytics and insights (14%).
As was the case with the people element, the
percentages are generally smaller for the 12-24 month
window than they are for the current year. Not a sign
that businesses will stop focusing on technology in
the next year, the data instead proves that businesses
generally do not want to wait. As the #2 contact
center challenge and #1 contact center priority,
technology – and the various solution categories that
fall under the technology umbrella – is something to
address right now.
Solutions that will command comparatively great
attention next year tend to be emerging, high-value
products (predictive analytics) or timeless staples that,
while perhaps not “hot” enough to steal the spotlight
in the near term, will never fall out of focus (CRM, IVR).
Not Applicable
Like the people element, technology represents a top
challenge and top priority for contact centers.
Lesson for Tomorrow’s Contact Centers:
Technology strategy involves more than simply
addressing systemic performance and quality;
it involves determining which solutions can
best impact the totality of the contact center
operation.
Over the next year, organizations plan to
leverage technology to address matters related
to customer insights, performance analytics, and
agent empowerment. Some issues – knowledge
management, workforce management,
dashboards – are particularly urgent priorities,
while others – customer experience measurement,
Unlike all of the individual people focuses, several
technology solutions are absent from the majority of
strategic roadmaps.
When asked to identify when they most notably plan
to focus various technology solutions, the majority
selected “not applicable” for WebRTC (74%), hosted
or virtual contact center solutions (64%), cloud
solutions (58%), unified communications (57%), call
recording (55%), big data management (54%) and
call monitoring (54%).
Whether deemed “not applicable” by a majority or a
substantial minority (as was the case for most other
technology solutions -- and most people matters), it
is again important to understand the context.
The “not applicable” vote is not necessarily a
proclamation of irrelevance. 2015 Call Center IQ
research, for example, found that roughly three-
fourths of organizations plan to be investing in cloud
solutions within the year. Cloud strategy clearly
matters to more than 42% of businesses.
In this case, it is more likely that businesses are either
content with their exiting cloud systems or confident
that they their future cloud purchases will be easy to
manage. This “set it and forget it” mindset is, in fact,
a selling point for many cloud solutions.
The same logic may explain why many solutions were
commonly deemed “not applicable.”
Since the value proposition and breadth of its impact
are still being fleshed out, WebRTC may presently be
off the radar for a substantial number of organizations.
By the same token, it is very likely relevant to at
least some of the 74% who excluded it from their
strategic roadmap.
customer analytics, and predictive analytics – will
come more prominently into view later in the year.
Hoping to immediately optimize those forms of
solutions, contact centers will thrust staples like
CRM and IVR back to the top of the ladder next
year.
Few technology issues are ever irrelevant, but the
best strategic roadmaps astutely identify which
solutions to urgently address, which to consider
over time, and which to “set and forget.”
callcenter-iq.com 146
Q4
When will you prioritize the following technology/
solution challenges?

Immediate 6-12 Months 12-24 Months N/A

IVR/Speech Recognition
0.18 0.19 0.15 0.47
CRM Solutions
0.22 0.20 0.15 0.44

Data Management
0.14 0.18 0.14 0.54

Cloud Solutions
0.12 0.19 0.11 0.58
Unified Communications
0.17 0.15 0.10 0.57
WebRTC

0.04 0.12 0.10 0.74

Hosted/Virtual Contact
Center
0.13 0.11 0.12 0.64

Knowledge Management
0.32 0.22 0.08 0.38

Workforce Management
0.31 0.20 0.06 0.43
Call Monitoring

0.26 0.16 0.04 0.54

Call Recording
0.24 0.14 0.06 0.56

Data Visualization
0.19 0.23 0.12 0.46

Dashboards
0.32 0.29 0.07 0.33
Customer Analytics/Insight
0.24 0.31 0.14 0.30
Customer Experience
Measurement
0.27 0.35 0.11 0.27

Real-time Feedback
0.27 0.27 0.11 0.35
Predictive Analytics
0.18 0.30 0.16 0.36
Big Data Management

0.11 0.20 0.14 0.55

Agent Analytics and
Monitoring
0.32 0.23 0.07 0.38

callcenter-iq.com 147
In Focus: The Omni-Channel Customer Experience
A common means of differentiating multi-channel
from omni-channel is to describe the former as
a statement of capabilities and the latter as a
statement of experience.
A multi-channel business is one that capable of
engaging customers in multiple channels. An
omni-channel business is one that fosters a
singular, seamless, consistent experience across
those channels.
When using this means of differentiation, one
cannot, however, forget that omni-channel is also
an implicit statement of capability. A business
cannot deliver a singular, seamless, consistent
experience across channels without establishing
full engagement capabilities within each of those
channels.
Omni-channel is not an alternative to the multi-
channel concept. It is a progression from it.
Per Call Center IQ’s annual report on the Omni-
Channel Contact Center, a whopping 76% of
contact centers will make a meaningful attempt to
become omni-channel over the next year.
As they embark on that journey, they will develop
strategic roadmaps cognizant of two objectives:
the need to establish engagement capabilities
within key contact channels and the need to
optimally serve customers across those channels.
Immediate Focus
Call Center IQ’s 2015 research reports all agree on
one specific finding: customer satisfaction is the
paramount objective for today’s contact centers.
Naturally, customer satisfaction represents the
most pressing priority on the omni-channel
customer experience roadmap. 26% of
organizations identify customer satisfaction
management as an immediate concern.
Also a focus for 26% of businesses, live chat
represents the second most common priority in
the immediate term.
Through the top two selections, respondents
reveal the duality of the omni-channel roadmap.
Businesses are simultaneously striving to establish
specific channel capabilities (live chat, for example)
and create great experiences across those capable
channels (customer satisfaction management).
Both immediate priorities for 25% of
organizations, self-service and channel integration
represent the next-highest-ranking focuses. They
also represent the two components of the duality;
the former refers to a specific channel capability,
while the latter speaks to the ultimate customer
experience.
6-12 Months
The most popular immediate term focus will also
be the biggest focus at the end of the year. 28%
of businesses anticipate their priority emphasis on
customer satisfaction management emerging in
the next 6-12 months.
Since customer satisfaction is almost universally
identified as the core contact center objective, it
may seem unintuitive that businesses are willing to
wait to bring customer satisfaction management
into focus.
While it makes sense that some businesses believe
they have already achieved an optimal – or at least
sufficient – level of satisfaction, those who plan
to bring satisfaction into focus later this year do
not have that excuse. They clearly acknowledge
a need to improve customer satisfaction
management yet are willing to delay action.
One possible explanation: The final customer
experience, which ultimately drives satisfaction,
is the product of a contact center’s collective
operation. Recognizing operational imperfections,
a contact center may choose to more urgently
focus on addressing people, process, and
technology gaps. Once it addresses those
individual elements, it can focus on optimizing the
holistic customer experience – and maximizing the
overall satisfaction level.
In the immediate term, chat represents the
greatest specific channel focus. Six-to-twelve
months from now, mobile will command that role.
Mobile solutions will represent priorities for 25%
of businesses in the latter half of the year.
Channel integration will be a key focus for 24% of
businesses, while self-service, again the #4 priority,
will be on the late-year radar for 23%.
12-24 Months
Earlier, this report identified customer loyalty as a
natural progression from customer satisfaction.
Organizations’ strategic roadmaps affirm that
logic. While customer satisfaction management
represents the top focus for the current year,
customer loyalty management will reach the top of
the hierarchy next year.
14% say customer loyalty will receive priority
attention 12-24 months from now.
Customer satisfaction, interestingly, will not fall too
far down the hierarchy. Also an anticipated focus
for 14%, it will rank as the second-most-common
priority in the 12-24 month window.
Social media will take center stage for 13% of
businesses, while mobile will receive the spotlight
in 12%.
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 The relatively low percentages for the 12-24 month
period speak favorably to the urgency of omni-
channel customer experience endeavors. The
unified customer experience – and the channel
capabilities that facilitate it – are top-of-mind for
today’s businesses.
Even customer loyalty, which is the highest-
ranking priority for the 12-24 month period, will
receive comparatively greater attention (23% and
22%, respectively) in the immediate and 6-12
month windows.
Not Applicable
While omni-channel focuses represent urgent
priorities for many organizations, they are also
absent from many strategic roadmaps.
Customer satisfaction management, the most
commonly acknowledged priority, was still
deemed “not applicable” by 31% of organizations.
Three focuses – brand management (68%),
customer interaction management (52%), and
social media (51%) – are “not applicable” for the
majority of organizations.
As with the heavy not applicable percentages for
people and technology matters, the classification
likely accounts for a combination of contentedness,
comparative ease of implementation/optimization,
and perceived irrelevance.
For a focus like brand management, which may
not fall under the auspices of many contact
centers, the “not applicable” scores may be most
commonly rooted in the “perceived irrelevance”
bucket. For something as fundamental as
customer satisfaction (which is still “not applicable
for 31%) of organizations, the classification is
likely a product of the “contentedness” and
“comparative ease” factors.

Lesson for Tomorrow’s Contact Centers:

To deliver an omni-channel customer capabilities in individual channel areas like chat,
experience, a contact center must optimize mobile, and self-service. It must also assure those
the “omni-channel” and “customer experience” channels align in an integrated and ultimately
components. It must establish and maximize satisfying way.

Q5
When will you prioritize the following
omni-channel engagement challenges?

Immediate 6-12 Months 12-24 Months N/A

Mobile Solutions/
Services 0.21 0.25 0.12 0.42
Multi-channel
Integration
0.25 0.24 0.10 0.41
Self-Service

0.25 0.23 0.10 0.42

Social Media Service
Management
0.18 0.18 0.13 0.51

Brand Management
0.08 0.12 0.12 0.68
Customer Interaction
Management
0.16 0.21 0.11 0.52
Live Chat
0.26 0.21 0.09 0.44

Customer Loyalty
0.23 0.22 0.14 0.40
Customer Satisfaction
Management
0.26 0.28 0.14 0.31

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Practicality Guide: It’s
Time To Take Action
In its introductory statement, this report declared
2016 the year of action. It focused on the need
to realize the evolved contact center vision
organizations have spent the year embracing from
a conceptual standpoint.
In assessing key contact center trends, identifying
key industry challenges, uncovering key contact
center priorities, and revealing organizations’
strategic roadmaps, the previous sections have
collectively provided a great framework for taking
action. They have revealed what needs to happen
– and how the market at large plans to make it
happen.
This report, however, goes one step further. It
works to empower you and your organization to
achieve optimal, unparalleled success.
It features a Practicality Guide.
Four Contact Center
Imperatives
The customer experience
has never represented a
more significant source of
competitive differentiation.
As the gateway to that experience, the contact
center has never possessed a more overt impact
on the success of the business.
On the one hand, this reality underscores the
value of contact center investments. Since
initiatives that improve a contact center’s people,
processes, and technology will naturally improve
the customer experience, they also improve the
business. Investing in the contact center yields
unmistakable value for the business.
On the other hand, this reality underscores the
cost of underperformance. If a contact center’s
people, processes, and technology do not
produce optimal customer experiences, they
serve to weaken the business. They afford rival
organizations the opportunity to gain competitive
advantages.
Through four individual passages, this guide works
to “bring the numbers to life.” Each section draws
from a combination of expert commentaries,
strategic recommendations, and results-oriented
case studies to jumpstart your journey to contact
center excellence.
By providing a nuanced, action-oriented look
at contact center management imperatives,
the customer-centricity/business-centricity
balance, omni-channel engagement journeys,
and agent empowerment initiatives, the
Practicality Guide focuses not simply on what
the market is thinking or on what the market
should be doing – but instead on what your
organization can do in the short- and long-term.
When combined with the data highlighted in the
previous sections of this report, it will arm you
with a complete portrait of where contact centers
are, where they need to go, and how you can
successfully transition from the former starting
point to the latter destination.
Whether a business chooses to embrace the former
glass half-full philosophy or the latter glass half-
empty one, it will ultimately arrive at the same
conclusion: it must optimize its contact center. It
then must leverage that contact center to produce
unparalleled customer experiences.
There is no simple pathway to that objective. Since
all customers and businesses are different, there is
no singular, one-size-fits-all model for contact center
management. Contact centers must be designed
based on their unique circumstances, and they must
be nimble enough to adapt as those circumstances
change.
There are, however, four pillars required of all
modern contact centers. These four, essential tenets
determine whether a contact center can adjust to the
unique, evolving needs of its customer base.
For a contact center looking to create uniquely
valuable customer experiences and thus establish a
clear competitive advantage, these four elements
represent imperatives.
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Rethinking Metrics
Historically, contact centers have made the
mistake of treating performance metrics as ends
in and of themselves. Reducing talk time, for
instance, was considered a universal positive.
In the modern, customer-centric contact center,
the conversation shifts to the customer experience.
A contact center or agent’s “score” against a
particular metric only matters if that aspect of the
operation clearly benefits the customer experience.
“If particular KPIs only assess cost efficiency, they
are of no value in today’s contact centers,” says
Interactive Intelligence’s Tim Passios. “Metrics
are only worthwhile if performance against those
metrics leads to a better customer experience.”
If customers are demanding quicker, more efficient
calls, it may make sense to consider handle time
when managing agent performance. If, however,
the push for speedier calls results in more errors
or less opportunity to connect personally with
customers, a performance imperative historically
perceived as “good” for the contact center may
actually be undermining the customer experience.
The business can still use such a metric for
assessing workflow and scheduling, but it should
not be using the metric as a barometer of success.
“Managing based on isolated KPIs – such as
average speed of answer or talk time – is a contact
center ‘best practice’ that needs to be avoided,”
adds Passios. “The best contact centers assess
performance based on a complete evaluation of
what impacts the customer experience.”
Today’s customers are generally demanding
effortless, consistent, accurate interactions
in which their problems are properly solved,
according to Passios. An agent that spends the
time needed to deliver such an interaction is a
better performer than one whose first priority is to
minimize average handle time.
There is, of course, no singular metric that speaks
to the success of the customer experience.
Performance must instead be based on the
intersection of various metrics that combine
to assess the effort and value associated with
customer interactions. The combination of
“scores” that reflect minimal effort and optimal
value are the ones that should guide contact center
performance.
The specific palette of metrics will vary by
organization. What will not vary, however, is the
approach needed to create that palette.
When assessing whether to manage based on
a given metric, ask why that metric is important.
What does performance against that metric say
about the customer experience? How does that
align with what customers are demanding?
Worthwhile metrics will, by rule, assess the extent
to which the organization is delivering on a
customer-centric objective.
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Embracing Omni-Channel
The omni-channel revolution is simultaneously
easier and more complex than it seems on the
surface.
On the one hand, an omni-channel business
does not necessarily have to make every possible
channel immediately available to customers. It
can play loosely with the “omni” prefix.
On the other hand, merely offering an immense
array of communication channels is insufficient.
Less a description of where a business engages
customers, the omni-channel qualifier much more
notably speaks to how that business interacts.
“It’s not just about the specific channels, notes
Passios. “It is about communicating with
customers in a way that is consistent and
seamless across all channel types.”
The demand for effortless, consistent, accurate
interactions is not specific to certain channels. It
is a perpetual demand that spans all channels and
all interaction types.
Upon embracing the omni-channel revolution,
the business’ most immediate priority is to assure
there are no cracks in the customer experience.
No matter where the customer goes, he must
receive the same, customer-centric commitment
from the agents or systems he encounters.
According to Passios, an omni-channel
organization “lets customers consistently get the
information they need in all available channels.
Whether they choose to interact in a self-service
or agent-assisted environment, they can get
immediate access to the information or resolution
they need.”
The effortless concept lies at the heart of the
omni-channel revolution. When interacting with
omni-channel organizations, customers must
not experience causes of undue effort such as
inefficient transfers, inconsistent service across
channels, or the need for repetition as they span
channels.
“Does the business need to offer all channels?
The answer to that is no,” declares Passios. “It
is much more essential for the business to offer
an effortless experience within the channels it
does offer. That has a far greater correlation with
customer loyalty.”
To deliver an omni-channel customer experience,
a contact center must centralize functions
related to reporting, queues, and knowledge
management. Agents cannot provide customers
with a seamless, effortless, consistent experience if
they do not, themselves, enjoy such an experience
on the back end.
When they do, they can provide an irrefutably
better customer experience.
In Practice: As Walgreens began to offer support
across multiple channels, a misalignment emerged
between its systems. The web and telephony
support systems were not unified, which meant
that routing was not optimized. The most
important tickets did not always reach agents first,
and matters that spanned the web and phone
were not routed to a singular agent. Reporting
was also segmented based on channel. In essence,
Walgreens was not offering a seamless, consistent
experience across channels, and both the business
and its customers were suffering.
To remedy its issue, the retail pharmacy chain
selected Interactive Intelligence’s Customer
Interaction Center, which is an all-in-one IP
communications suite that offers reporting,
customization tools and multi-channel queuing
through a centralized platform. “Unlike many
other products we reviewed, CIC used a single
platform to route tickets created via multiple
media types,” said Walgreens’ Ross Talbot. “This
was a major distinguishing factor for us because it
meant we would not have to duplicate functions,
thus needlessly adding to the cost and complexity
of our system.”
With help from Adapt LLC, Walgreens optimized
the routing functionality and added a plethora of
new functionality to the system.
Following the implementation and optimization,
Talbot says, “we’ve been able to increase
productivity, reduce ongoing maintenance and
support costs, and improve overall functionality
while retaining other core components of our
infrastructure.” Agents “save time during the
call since they no longer have to switch between
interfaces to look up information such as store
location and problem history,” and supervisors
have a better window into agent performance
across all channels.
This optimized agent experience valuably trickles
down to customers, who can now interact in a
multitude of channels without facing inefficiencies,
difficulties, or inaccuracies. No matter the
touchpoint, they receive the best possible
experience.
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 Transitioning to the Cloud
A contact center is only as good as its systems.
For those relying on disparate, antiquated, legacy
systems, the ceiling on contact center performance
is therefore very low.
Today’s contact centers must demonstrate a potent
combination of efficiency, efficacy, reliability, and
agility. That cocktail is rarely produced by the
premises-based systems of old; it is, however,
commonly achieved through cloud technology.
Initially bottlenecked by uncertainty about
performance, questions about stability and security,
concerns about customization, and organizational
aversion to change, cloud adoption has taken flight
in the past few years. It will continue to do so.
Per Call Center IQ’s Executive Report on Cloud
Contact Center Technology, 50% of businesses are
already investing in cloud solutions. Over the next
year, that number will increase to 76%.
The benefits of the transition are obvious to Tim
Passios- “Increased flexibility, scalability, security,
versatility, and cost efficiency are all standard
benefits of moving to the cloud.”
He continues, “When it comes to security, cloud
contact center providers invest so much more heavily
in their environment than most individual companies
do. They’re far more secure.
“For reliability, cloud providers invest heavily in
redundancies. Cost-wise, a business relying
on cloud technology no longer has to focus as
Leveraging Real-Time Intelligence
By committing to customer centricity, fostering an
effortless, omni-channel experience, and utilizing
the flexibility of cloud contact center technology,
a contact center creates a framework to success.
Its ability to truly deliver that success, however,
depends on the extent to which it understands
its customers. The best customer experiences
emerge when a company understands who its
customers are, where they are in the journey, and
what they ultimately want.
For that to happen, the business must expertly
leverage voice of the customer intelligence.
“Metrics are only one part of understanding the
customer experience,” explains Passios. “To truly
excel, a contact center must analyze its customers
and the type of interactions they have in the
contact center. Who are they? When have they
been happy?
extensively on monitoring technology; resources
previously used for that purpose can be shifted to
another part of the organization.”
Cloud technology also comes without the limits
and constraints of on-premises systems; it can
be expanded or retracted based on need, which
enables an organization to more expertly assist
customers during peak times and better contain
costs during valleys.
“The biggest piece is that it allows you to be more
competitive,” adds Passios. “If you invest in
technology that you own and have on your site,
you have a desire to protect that investment. That
means you will delay expanding on that purchase
until it hits certain depreciation. For that fact alone,
you are likely to be delayed in responding to market
and competitive drivers.
“If you move to the cloud, you don’t have that
psychological investment issue. You can move in any
direction that you want, and it’s far less costly.”
While psychological factors may inhibit cloud
investment, the benefits are certainly not theoretical.
The aforementioned CCIQ cloud report cites an
aggregate of actual cloud users in confirming cost
reduction and customer satisfaction improvement.
From a customer experience standpoint, the cloud
transition is valuable. And insofar as the customer
experience is the paramount focus for the contact
center and a core business differentiator, the cloud
transition is an absolute necessity moving forward.
“A business that can answer those questions is
far more capable of building out the processes,
technology, and training needed to consistently
create satisfaction.”
For many organizations, acquiring customer
intelligence begins with post-call surveys and
traditional forms of feedback. Insights gained
through those means is undeniably important. It
does not, however, generate the most complete
picture.
“Survey data is important, but it comes with biases
and limitations,” clarifies Passios. “It will often, for
example, be based on the customer’s mood at one
given time.”
To generate a truer assessment of the voice of the
customer – and of the business’ role in creating
that sentiment – the business must investigate
additional layers of analytics.
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“Real-time analytics give the business the
opportunity to understand what is actually
occurring within the transaction,” says Passios.
“That level of insight can help the business
understand what is causing happiness (or
unhappiness) and optimize people, processes,
and technology accordingly.”
An organization should combine real-time
interaction analytics with deeper customer insight,
such as “buying habits, interaction history, and
whether first contact resolution was achieved.”
Upon doing so, an organization will have a
“much better picture of its customer base than it
ever has before.”
Using that insight, an organization can make
more informed, more productive decisions about
strategy. It will no longer be acting based on
what it thinks customers want but based on what
it knows they want.
Moving forward, the organization will also
be able to use such insight to fuel artificial
intelligence.
“I’m not talking about virtual agents in the avatar
sense,” explains Passios, “but about real-time
decision making. Using the wealth of intelligence
about customers and interactions, the business
will, in real-time, be able to adapt to the customer
and provide the right information.”
If a seamless, effortless end user experience is
the goal, a contact center that can instantly adapt
and act based on the nuances of an interaction is
surely on the right track.
In Practice: Fragmented by different systems and
different physical locations, International Game
Enablement, Not Prescription
The aforementioned four imperatives do not
prescribe a specific contact center design. They
do not tell businesses exactly which metrics to use,
exactly which channels to service, exactly which
cloud technology to purchase, or exactly which
customer insights to measure and actualize.
Only the voice of the customer can offer such
a prescription.
The four imperatives put a business in position
to act on that voice. They calibrate performance
based on what customers want. They assure that
Technology’s contact centers struggled to produce
a consistent experience. It also lacked universal
insight into customer inquiries.
With the intention of improving consistency,
gaining a more vivid portrait of the voice of the
customer, and managing staff and scheduling
based on customer demand, IGT implemented
Interactive Intelligence’s Customer Interaction
Center. It also leveraged the Interaction Analyzer,
Interaction Optimizer, and Interaction Feedback
add-ons.
One benefit included the ability to pass customer
insights throughout the system. For individual
customers, the result was a more personalized,
seamless customer experience without the need
for repetition as one moved from channel to
channel, agent to agent, or issue to issue. For the
overall customer experience design, the result was
a more complete view of the customer journey,
which enabled the business to identify and
optimize pain points.
According to IGT’s Doug Owen, the analytics
component’s ability to “flag predefined key words
and phrases saves our analysts from doing this
manually, which means they can review twice as
many calls as before. This has not only increased
efficiencies, but it’s enabled us to get laser-
focused on the most important issues happening
in our contact centers right now.”
The workforce optimization component created
better, more efficient alignments between
staffing and demand, while the feedback add-on
enabled IGT to improve survey frequency and
thus gain more regular and reliable feedback from
customers.
a customer will consistently receive the optimal
experience wherever and whenever he chooses
to engage. They assure the business will not
suffer systemic limitations that must be imposed
upon customers. They assure the business will be
able to design experiences based on big picture
customer demand and tailor individual interactions
based on specific customer scenarios.
The contact center of the future is one that meets
all of those criteria. In doing so, it embraces its
role in driving the customer experience.
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Improve The Customer
Experience, Better
The Business
As contact center leaders
look toward 2016, they are
surely aware of many specific
marketplace trends. They are
aware of the rise of omni-channel. They are
aware of the emphasis on a more relationship-
oriented customer experience. They are aware of
the need to reduce customer effort.
All such individual directives, however, fall
under a singular philosophy. It is one that all
organizations must adopt as they look to the
future of customer management.
What is good for the customer is what is good
for the business.
Too often, businesses mistakenly view customer-
centric endeavors and business-centric endeavors
as diametrically opposed. To do what is right for
What Today’s Customer Wants
“Historically, the contact center has imposed
management on customers,” says SAP’s Tony
Fassette. “We’ve drawn a box telling you, the
customer, how we want you to interact with us.”
That business-first approach is no longer tenable
in today’s marketplace. Today’s customer wants
his needs to come first, and he has the power to
demand a business make it happen.
“In today’s environment, the customer has more
ways to interact and more choice,” adds Fassette.
“They’re telling you that the rules you’re putting in
place are not good enough.”
Businesses, consequently must adopt a
“relationship mindset.” They must “create a
scenario that actually works for the customer.”
What does that scenario include?
the customer is to increase costs and potentially
reduce revenue. To do what is right for the
business is to sacrifice the quality of the customer
experience.
In truth, such endeavors are often correlated rather
than contradictory. Inefficient experiences are
often what cause dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction
often results in lengthier and thus less efficient
interactions. Efforts that improve efficiency and
efforts that improve satisfaction, consequently,
tend to be connected.
While connected, customer centricity and business
centricity are not interchangeable. It is still
imperative to put the customer first in today’s age
of customer empowerment.
The point is that putting customer centricity first is
not tantamount to hurting the bottom line.
The business honors the customer’s
preferences for channel, time, and
information: The contact center must be
equipped to serve the customer where he wants,
when he wants, and in the way he wants. The
contact center framework works for the customer;
it does not ask the customer to embrace a
suboptimal situation.
Consistency: While different channels and
issues require different mechanics, the core of the
experience should be the same across all channels
and in all situations.
Low effort: Effort level has emerged as one of the
most important determinants of a quality customer
experience. The less time and energy required of
the customer, the higher the satisfaction.
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 Thinks like a customer: The contact center is
consistently approaching the experience from the
customer’s perspective. How will a new initiative
impact the customer? What is the customer’s
mindset when interacting with our business, and
how can we build around that? Knowing some
customers may call from a hands-free device, one
example may involve allowing customers to voice
their answers to IVR prompts.
Accuracy: No matter where, when or how the
customer contacts the business, he should always
be able to get the most relevant, accurate, and
updated information possible. Each interaction,
whether agent-assisted or self-service, should
result in the customer getting what he needs.
What Today’s Businesses Must Do
The contact center plays the most overt role in
driving the customer experience, but it is certainly
not the only factor. The entire business plays a
role in yielding the aforementioned, customer-first
scenario.
When it comes to the customer experience,
“what you need to do is make sure all of your
departments, all your work is unified,” explains
Fassette.
“Your marketing, your sales, your fulfillment;
everyone must have an eye on the ball.”
Numerous tenets signify whether the entire
organization truly has its eye on the ball – and is
thus truly capable of putting the customer first.
All departments are connected to the same
systems: While different departments obviously
require different capabilities, all should be united
by centralized systems. They should never be
working in isolation; all data and workflow should
be seamlessly available to all functions.
Systemic simplicity: In addition to connecting
all units to the same systems, the business must
assure such systems are simplified. Employees
should have streamlined access to the information
they need when they need it; overly complex tools
may boast impressive capabilities, but they are the
enemy of organizations hoping to be customer-
centric and business-centric.
All departments are connected to the
customer: A 360-degree view truly means a
360-degree view. It is not simply a call for all
channels to listen to the voice of the customer; the
entire business must have a direct understanding
of who customers are, how they are connecting,
what they want, and how the business can
Personalized and Predictive: The customer
expects the business to know him throughout the
life cycle. Its experiences should be tailored and
proactively guided by the customer’s actual profile,
sentiment, and historical behavior. If a customer
encounters a billing problem, the agent or system
that receives the customer should already know
when the bill was issued, what services the
customer purchased and whether an error may
exist.
“Today’s customer expectations are high and
companies need to create a consistent, satisfying,
omni-channel experience throughout the entire
customer journey,” summarizes Fassette. “Contact
centers have a strong role in enabling that.”
sufficiently deliver.
All departments recognize consistent
metrics: As with systems and processes, different
departments will naturally need to measure their
workflow in specific ways. They must, however,
also recognize a set of core, unified metrics. All
businesses should be united in their pursuit of
optimal performance against these metrics and
thus able to articulate how their current workflow is
either helping or hurting the overall business.
All departments must embrace a fundamental
culture: No matter how unified the systems,
the customer experience breaks if different
departments have contrasting priorities. If the IT
department sees its job as purchasing the cheapest
systems, a conflict could emerge with a customer
service team that requires a system that creates the
best experiences for agents and customers.
The organization is flexible: While a single
department may identify a particular issue or
problem, it is highly unlikely that issue is the result
of a singular department. It is equally unlikely that
the issue only affects one department. As a result,
the entire organization must be robust and flexible
enough to change as warranted by the customer or
business.
Automation is paramount: Inefficiencies and
irregularities simultaneously hurt the business
and its customers. In order to create consistent,
repetitive, efficient customer experiences, the
business must automate as many processes as
possible.
Embedded communication: When possible
and logical, customer-oriented organizations are
embedding contact center capabilities into business
applications.
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Why Customer-Centricity Matters
Collectively, the previous two sections reveal that
an organization that delivers a unified, consistent,
omni-channel, customer-centric experience will be
in an optimal position to meet customer needs.
But to an organization ultimately hoping to
maximize profit, what is the motivation? How does
such a framework improve the business?
The obvious answer is that improved customer
experiences drive customer satisfaction, which
in turn produce greater revenue. For today’s
customers, who possess a greater level of choice
and autonomy, the quality of the customer
experience represents a significant purchasing
determinant. For today’s businesses, it thus
represents a significant differentiator.
Any initiative that improves the customer experience
will naturally help to drive revenue.
Endeavors that improve customer experiences also
tend to reduce operational costs. The contact
center has historically been dismissed a “cost
center,” but much of that cost stems from the fact
that the contact center is not delivering an optimal
customer experience.
Uniting systems and automating processes, for
instance, will result in more efficient, lower-effort
experiences for customers. The business will
spend less time serving the customer, thus saving
money, and deliver more satisfaction, thus boosting
revenue.
Since some customers may prefer self-service or
lower-impact digital channels, accommodating the
customer’s channel preferences, moreover, will likely
reduce high-touch contact volume. The customer
receives a more satisfying experience, while the
business exerts less resources to deliver it.
Consistency adds regularity to the cost structure,
which in turn creates a more desirable scenario for
business leaders.
Living Proof: Good For The Customer = Good For
The Business
Logical from a philosophical standpoint, the
connection between improved experiences
and improved business outcomes is routinely
demonstrated in reality.
Two SAP use cases provide examples.
Utilities Company, 600 Employees: Using
SAP CRM and SAP Contact Center, the company
provided its agents with integrated functionality.
The agents were able to have more informed,
more productive calls with customers, which
improved interaction quality and efficiency.
Contact quality improved, wait times declined, and
customer satisfaction increased. The business was
A robust, flexible organization – perhaps one aided
by cloud technology – can more swiftly respond to
customer issues and thus prevent costly escalation. It
can even address issues proactively.
It is also important to recognize the value that an
integrated contact center can generate for other
business units.
Contact center data, for example, can prove
immensely valuable to virtually all business units. It
allows the C-level to make informed decisions about
corporate strategy. It allows product development to
improve its innovations. It allows the human resources
department to foster the best corporate culture. It
allows the IT department to make sourcing decisions
based on practical implications rather than cost and
features alone.
A direct link between the customer and other business
units can, quite simply, make those units better.
“We were working with an electronics manufacturer
in which the customer support organization was
distanced from the sales department,” details Fassette.
“The customer service and CRM people wanted to be
part of the monthly sales meetings, but the sales team
did not see the value.
“The customer service team responded by showcasing
the value of its CRM application. The application
contained valuable data about customers, which the
sales team could then use to make more informed
sales calls.”
The cascading benefits are endless. In order to create
better experiences, the business will naturally need
to streamline its operations. Upon streamlining its
operations, it reduces costs. Upon improving customer
experiences, it drives additional revenue and reduces
costs. Upon connecting all business units, it can better
serve customers. While better serving customers, the
connected business can also leverage customer data to
improve the rest of the organization.
leaner, and the customer experience was better.
Manufacturing Company, 900 Employees:
Using the SAP Contact Center-SAP CRM
integrated solution, the company combined
contact centers from numerous sites into a single,
virtualized location. Call allocation, resource
management, and customer service oversight
were all more centralized and thus easier to
executive. The average customer wait time
decreased by 50%, while 94% of interactions
can now be answered within 30 seconds. The
business has improved its productivity, and the
customers are able to get their problems solved
more quickly. Cost is down and satisfaction is up.
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Buy Into a Better Customer Experience,
Earn a Better Business
Contact center leaders are notorious for
identifying “executive buy-in” as one of their
biggest challenges. That no longer needs to be
an issue.
By collaborating with the business to improve the
experience, contact center leaders will be driving
improvement in financial terms as well. They can
secure support for customer centricity while still
Introducing
the Omnichannel
Engagement Center
This report focuses on
the “Future of the
Contact Center.”
Ironically, the future of customer engagement
has no place for a “contact center.”
By introducing new communication channels,
the contact center represented a natural
and necessary evolution from the traditional
“call center.” As customers began using
other modes of communication – and often
demonstrating a preference for that new media
– it became unacceptable to exclusively offer
telephonic engagement.
appealing to the financially motivated facet of
business leadership.
The key is to think in holistic terms. Assess the
needs of the customer, and then determine how
the entire business can, from a unified standpoint,
address those needs. Once it does so, how will
the organization benefit?
Offering additional channels does not, however,
account for the totality of the modern,
empowered customer’s demand.
In addition to expecting more channels, today’s
customer expects a seamless, consistent,
personalized experience across all touch points
and throughout the life cycle of his relationship
with the business.
As the customer embarks on that journey, the
company must deliver a cohesive experience
perpetually mindful of who he is, what he wants,
and how he expects to receive it.
It must establish an omnichannel engagement
center.
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 Understanding the Customer Journey
According to Lisa Abbott (Genesys), the customer
journey is the “overall collection of interactions
and steps that customers are undertaking when
they try to get answers or issues solved.”
Under the journey model, the business must
recognize that every interaction in which a
customer takes part – from a simple, low-
touch transaction to a complex technical
support matter – is part of a bigger picture.
Instead of identifying customers based on the
isolated interactions in which they are involved,
journey-oriented organizations identify
customers based on where they have been
and where they ultimately want or need to
go.
Context, consequently, plays a pivotal role in the
journey-driven experience.
To the customer, an interaction has meaning
beyond the literal transaction, and it is the job of
the business to identify and act in accordance with
that meaning.
Consider a customer who signs up for cable
television service. From a transactional standpoint,
the customer is selecting a package and providing
a means of payment. A contact center that thinks
in disparate terms would focus on the proper
execution of the transaction.
The Need for an Omnichannel Engagement Center
The multi-channel contact center gives
customers more options, but it does not
inherently provide the framework necessary
for managing a customer journey. It does
not necessarily allow the customer to move
seamlessly between channels over time – let
alone during the same interaction – and it does
not necessarily act with cognizance of the
customer’s ongoing journey.
If anything, the additional contact channels
result in a more disparate, less gratifying
experience. There is less cohesion between
touch points and thus less ability to deliver
an experience of optimal efficiency and
personalization.
“When these channels are handled in isolation,
the customer context of that interaction
cannot be passed along to the next interaction,
resulting in higher customer effort and
frustration,” explains Stefan Captijn (Genesys).
A journey-oriented business, however, would
focus on what the customer is truly aiming to do
when purchasing the cable service. It would also
focus on what future interactions may result from
that initial purchase.
Instead of simply processing the credit card, it
is proactively instructing the customer on the
installation process so that he can actually
watch the cable he is ordering. It is learning
his communication preferences to ensure future
interactions, such as those related to upgrades or
technical support issues, are done on his terms.
It is building a profile based on his order and
behavior to make optimal offers and route him to
the most appropriate agents in the future.
It is treating the purchase as one moment in a
relationship that will contain many. It defines a
successful interaction not simply based on the
execution of a task but by the relevance and value
of that task.
“Customer experience pays. To reap those rewards,
you need to understand the gaps and where
things are breaking down in the customer journey,”
declares Abbott. “The customer journey should
be easy and seamless. It is about knowing what
the customer is trying to achieve and thus what
path of action is necessary for your organization,”
explains Abbott.
“Organizations that continue to treat different
channels as independent interaction points often
deliver poorer customer experiences and are at a
significant competitive disadvantage.”
Customer satisfaction has a clear link to revenue.
By fostering an environment of segmented and
ultimately frustrating customer experiences, the
multi-channel contact center bottlenecks the
growth of the business.
Contact center fragmentation also leads to
inefficient or ineffective service, which in turn
proves costly for a business that wants to reduce
interaction volume and optimize the interactions
it cannot eliminate. That, too, has a detrimental
effect on the bottom line.
“To successfully engage today’s customer – and to
optimize business results – an organization must
establish an omnichannel engagement center”,
explains Captijn.
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5 Elements of an Omnichannel Engagement Center
To accommodate this evolved, journey-oriented
approach to the customer experience, a business
must transform its contact center (or call center) into
an omnichannel engagement center.
An omnichannel engagement center possesses
several fundamental elements.
It is spans channels and departments. All
channels, touch points, departments, and functions
are involved in the engagement center, and all play
roles in managing and optimizing customer journeys.
It is unified across all touch points. No matter
where or when the customer chooses to interact, the
relevant touch point can identify him, recognize the
state of his journey and provide the most appropriate
and value next step of that journey. Different
channels possess different mechanics, but they
should never feel disconnected.
It is multimodal. Not simply connected on a
big picture basis, the omnichannel engagement is
seamless at the interaction level. The customer can
switch between channels within single interactions.
It is orchestrated. While it can be random and
nearly unpredictable, the customer’s journey
still adheres to a progression. An omnichannel
engagement system orchestrates that progression,
using each interaction as an opportunity to place the
customer on a more satisfying, more fruitful, more
manageable trajectory. “Orchestration manages the
steps before, during and after each interaction and
the transitions across interactions and touchpoints
– while maintaining step by step the journey state
along the way,” explains Captijn.
It is personalized. In addition to facilitating and
orchestrating a seamless journey, the omnichannel
engagement center constantly calibrates experiences
to the individual customers. It monitors what is
happening, identifies what the customer is feeling,
determines what the customer is seeking, and
enables the business to act accordingly.
“To provide a true omnichannel experience,
enterprises must provide a consistent and connected
experience over each and every touchpoint, whether
self-directed or with an agent,” summarizes Captijn.
“They need to shift from single channel, single
department solutions to enterprise-wide solutions.”
Once it transforms the customer experience into a
unified, company-wide endeavor, it can focus on
expertly managing the journey.
“The Omnichannel Engagement Center preserves
customer context and interaction state such as
customer profile, previous transactions and other
information that contain the interaction context
between the different customer/case status and
when customers switch from channel to channel
during a customer journey,” adds Captijn.
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 Creating the Omnichannel Engagement System
The five elements may be ambitious, but they are
absolutely doable.
More importantly, they are absolutely necessary.
In order to provide the experience customers
are expecting – rather than the one businesses
have historically been imposing – organizations
must create an omnichannel engagement center
that spans all touch points, unifies those touch
points, offers multimodality, orchestrates customer
journeys, and personalizes customer interactions.
By leveraging people, processes, and technology
to offer the following functionalities, businesses
will be able to create the elements required of an
omnichannel engagement center.
Unified Contact Center Platform: To create a
consistent, journey-oriented customer experience,
the engagement center should rely on a unified
platform with native support for all channels,
including voice. No matter the touchpoint, the agent
should always possess the information and vantage
point he needs to successfully engage the customer.
Omnichannel Engagement Desktop
with Journey Histories: The agent desktop
must include access to all channels and to all
information about customer interactions within
those channels. No interaction agent should ever
be without a full palette of information about the
customer’s journey.
Cross-Channel Quality Monitoring and
Analytics: To assure a consistent experience –
and continuous insight into the customer’s journey
– the center’s quality management and analytics
capabilities must extend to all channels.
Omnichannel Engagement Takes Flight
Conceptually, the need for a journey-oriented
customer experience is clear. The role an
omnichannel customer engagement center can
play in driving that experience is equally clear.
For certain, inert stakeholders and organizations,
that conceptual clarity may not be enough. They
may desire a living, breathing example of the
journey-oriented, omnichannel engagement center.
“There are several leading organizations that
really value the journey concept, that really
put the customer at the center of everything,”
says Abbott. “Everything the company does is
evaluated from the perspective of a customer.
That aids greatly with journey-mapping, as the
business is constantly updating based on what
the customer is seeing.”
The list of organizations that have embraced
the journey concept includes a leading
Cross-Channel SLA Management: Leadership
must have complete oversight into performance
across channels. In today’s environment, the
service level promise must be universalized, and
no individual channel should possess reduced
performance standards or cause the penalties
associated with poor performance.
Integrated Workforce Management for All
Channels: In the omnichannel engagement center,
leadership should optimize the workforce in all
channels. Forecasting, scheduling, and adherence
are not simply concerns for telephony.
Proactive Engagement: To optimize the
customer experience and meet expectations for a
low effort experience, omnichannel engagement
centers should initiate proactive engagement,
including alerts, notifications and even product
support, across a myriad of contact channels.
Engagement centers can also tailor these
outbound communications based on customer
channel preference.
Multivariate Routing: To enhance the journey,
omnichannel engagement centers should
intelligently route customers based on a variety
of factors. They can use variables related to issue
type, issue context, and personality to direct the
customer to the right agent and/or the right system.
Universal Global Queue: Channels within an
omnichannel engagement center do not operate
in isolation; the queue, therefore, should track
customers across all channels, platforms, and regions
and ensure each interaction is managed and routed
to the best resource in a consistent manner.
global airline.
“Our biggest challenge is consistency, and it’s
the area that we work on the most,” says a key
executive from the organization. “We’re a global
brand, and our customers expect the same level of
experience everywhere.”
That need for consistency brings customer
journey mapping into the forefront.
“If you think about this from a traveler’s
perspective, they start with reservations, and they
go to check in, and then they get on board,” she
explains. “That’s a customer journey within itself,
and there are variables and levers that you need to
manage to deliver the right experience.
“[We have] been working with a customer journey
map for many years. It’s important that everyone
knows their role and what the customer expects
at each touchpoint across the journey.”
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By leveraging the Genesys customer experience
platform with an omnichannel approach
to engagement, the airline is able to deliver
consistent value throughout the journey.
The organization’s agents have access to an
omnichannel desktop. In addition to providing
seamless access to all channels, the unified
desktop provides the agent with all necessary
information about customers and their journeys.
No matter where the customer’s journey began,
each agent he encounters will be able to provide
an optimal experience.
Committed to consistency, the airline also adheres to
universal reporting, performance, and quality
management practices across all channels.
In addition to providing a unified experience for
customers, the universalized approach creates as
more scalable, more flexible contact center. Since
the performance and quality management is
standardized, the business will not need to retrain
agents or rethink protocol (at least not in isolation)
when it adds new channels.
Get on the Path to Managing Customer Journeys
Omnichannel Engagement: Your
Organization Is Ready
Beyond the benefits and beyond the necessity
is the most exciting reality: your organization is
ready for an omnichannel engagement center.
Organizations clearly identify the customer
experience as a top business priority. The disconnect
and inconsistency that exists across contact center
touch points, let alone across the business, is the
greatest roadblock to a great experience.
Scalability is paramount in today’s journey-oriented
customer management landscape. The virtualized
nature of the platform also ensures that capability.
The airline’s omnichannel engagement center has
produced significant, tangible benefits.
No Growing Pains: Unified across the business
and bolstered by consistent channel practices
and a virtualization platform, the engagement
center avoids traditional barriers to growth. As
it expands into new destinations and increases its
customer touch points, it is able to offer a consistent,
uninterrupted experience.
Virtualized Means Centralized: Instead of
building costly reservation offices in each destination,
the company leverages virtualization to serve
customers from a central hub. It also uses the central
hub to handle surges in contact volume. The airline is
able to provide a personalized, consistent experience
while maximizing operational efficiency.
Better Experience: When the business runs more
efficiently, the agents have more information, and
service is unified, consistent and tailored to the
customer journey, the experience is better.
Different business units ultimately think the
same way about the customer experience. An
omnichannel engagement center drives them to
act the same way.
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People: The Key
To Future Contact
Center Success
As the human face of the They remain unclear on how to improve agent
organization, contact center productivity.
agents play an instrumental
They, consequently, bottleneck their ability to
role in the customer experience.
create happy, satisfied, loyal customers.
Their performance does not simply make or break
individual interactions; it completely shapes As businesses look to the future and see a
business’ reputations. competitive landscape increasingly defined by
the customer experience, they must remove that
“When somebody calls in to the organization, the
bottleneck. In addition to recognizing people as
agent with whom they speak becomes the face of
the gateway to future contact center success, they
the organization,” says NICE Systems’ Rich Correia.
must act in accordance with that philosophy. They
“How the agents talks, how the agent handles the
must hire the right talent, develop that talent,
customer, how the agent resolves the actual issue all
and then leverage that talent to create efficient,
define how customers actually view businesses.”
effective, customer-centric experiences.
Conceptually, organizations understand this
The journey is not an easy one; if it were, the
importance. They trumpet mantras like “happy
concept of agent productivity would not
agents = happy customers,” which support the idea
continuously elude businesses. When approached
that people are the gateway to a better experience.
with a combination of best practices and
Practically, many organizations struggle to act on established and emerging technology, it is,
this importance. They struggle to understand, let however, a manageable one.
alone enact, the things that make happy agents.

Defining the Great Agent

While an answer in the vein of “it depends on
the organization” often feels like a cop-out, it is
irrefutably true when it comes to the ideal contact
center agent.
The agent is the face the organization is showing
to the customer. He must consequently represent
the values and culture of the business and connect
compellingly with the business’ actual customers.
Since businesses have unique cultures and
customers have unique demands, expectations and
personalities, it is impossible to define a set agent
prototype that will apply in all scenarios.
There are, however, core skills that are essential to
today’s contact center environment. If an agent
passing through the recruitment phase does not
meet these criteria, he has no chance of serving
the business well.
The agent must be versatile. Today’s
customers use different styles to communicate
different issues across a myriad of different
channels. Their expectation for fast, accurate,
reliable service nonetheless continues to rise. An
agent must be able to consistently deliver on
that expectation regardless of the interaction’s
specific construct. He must feel comfortable in
all scenarios and in all channels.
The agent must be a sharp thinker. When
interacting with a customer, an agent must
demonstrate an impressive quantity of knowledge.
While the organization itself is responsible for
generating that knowledge through training and
connected systems, the agent still must be able to
put the information to work. He must recognize
common customer behaviors and patterns, and
he must be able to demonstrate a mastery of the
relevant information.

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 The agent must be coachable. The organization
knows the image it wants to project to customers,
but it ultimately relies on agents to broadcast that
image. Its only hope for guiding the message is to
create strong training and then find agents who
can quickly and completely absorb that training.
The agent must be a self-starter. Issues
beyond the scope of training, procedure, and the
knowledgebase will emerge. The uniqueness or
unexpectedness of the issue does not, however,
give the agent a free pass to operate slowly
and seek on-the-spot advice from his peers
and superiors. He must be able to make smart,
business-minded, yet customer-centric decisions
without hand-holding.
Getting to Know the Great Agent
The aforementioned qualities represent the core
skills required of today’s contact center agents.
They provide a broad template for the type of talent
today’s contact center recruiters must hire.
Specific agents, however, will demonstrate specific
strengths and weaknesses. They will demonstrate
specific proclivities and passions.
While it is true that today’s agents must be versatile
and coachable, they will still possess the differences
inherent to humanity. They will still thrive in certain
situations and struggle in others.
Since a contact center must always aim to put its
best foot forward, it is going to want to put agents
in the situations best suited for their personalities
and skillsets. It will want to shield them from the
situations in which they are likely to struggle.
In order to best create that framework, the
business must truly understand its individual agents.
“We believe that to really get the best out of the
agents, you really have to understand who they
are,” says Correia. “We need to know their strengths,
weaknesses, behaviors, tendencies, and personalities.”
How can one acquire this information?
“One of the ways you can do that is by evaluating
performance at the agent level,” explains Correia.
“In addition to looking at how the contact center
and greater business are performing, you need to
look at how agents are specifically performing.”
All contact centers are measuring performance;
they, thus, already have the framework in place
to begin evaluating agent performance. They
can already begin to identify particular strengths,
weaknesses, and behavioral trends.
“On top of that, you really need to understand who
they are,” adds Correia. “Just as we spend a lot of
time understanding the customer journey, we also
need to understand the agent journey.
“We need to understand the agent’s persona. By
using analytics to capture agent behavior within
interactions or training sessions, we can gather
so much more about the agent. We can really
understand the agent’s persona.”
The agent must be clear and concise. The best
agents communicate the right information in the
most efficient, straightforward way possible. The
fact that today’s customers demand thorough,
personalized care does not mean they tolerate
inefficient interactions.
The agent must be personable. Contact center
interactions do not necessarily require heavy
doses of small talk and banter. They universally,
however, require agents who are warm, friendly,
and capable of making a legitimate connection
with customers. In an era of heightened customer
demands, the notion of “hiring the smile, training
the skill” has never been more relevant.
Understanding the persona has ramifications for
numerous contact center functions.
Training and Coaching: In addition to telling
leaders the type of skills or knowledge a particular
agent needs to learn, the persona informs leaders
how best to impart that wisdom.
Onboarding: By understanding the agent’s
personality, the organization knows how to best
introduce its culture. It also knows how to adapt its
own environment to best welcome the new agent.
Assignments: Agents in the omni-channel
contact center cannot be one-dimensional. They
must be able to handle a multitude of issues
across a multitude of channels. An organization
can, however, situate agents in such a way that
they will primarily handle interactions that play to
their strengths. Persona insights allow businesses
to put agents in the right roles in the right
channels in the right departments.
Routing: Since personal connections represent
an important part of the interaction experience,
it is logical to route customers to the agents
with whom they possess compatible personality
traits. An organization that truly understands its
customers is capable of this routing.
Evaluation: By understanding an agent’s nuances,
a business can better assess how the agent is and
should be contributing to the customer experience.
Evaluation is more pointed, meaningful, and useful.
Feedback: Agent insights have a two-pronged
impact on feedback. They enable supervisors
to best articulate feedback during coaching and
training sessions. They also provide context for
the feedback the agent opts to share with the
business and thus turn the “voice of the agent”
into a more actionable resource.
Motivation and Incentivization: Certain
personalities are motivated by certain factors. By
honing in on the right factors for each agent, the
business can optimize performance.
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 Enabling an Agent’s Greatness
Tools to best capture agent insights – and thus
best identify agent personas – are consistently
being introduced and improved. NICE Systems is
prioritizing the development of such systems.
“By going to the next level to really capture who
the agents are, we’ll be able to make an impact on
contact center performance,” declares Correia.
As an organization acquires and internalizes
the information it needs to optimize the agent
experience, it must also remember to create a
framework that empowers agent performance.
An organization need not wait for agent journey-
mapping to foster the agent performance that
results in customer satisfaction.
Strategically, it is important for organizations to
adhere to a methodical progression. Instead of
introducing several new channels and systems at a
given time, the organization is best served by rolling
some out, establishing mastery and replicable
Agents Can Drive Satisfaction – Let Them
In order to put customers first, a business must
simultaneously make agent empowerment a
priority. From the way it trains, to the way it
engages, to the way it coaches, to the way it
measures, to the way it works to retain its agents,
a business has numerous, critical opportunities
to develop agents who are best equipped to
represent the business. It has numerous, critical
opportunities to develop agents who produce
satisfied, loyal customers.
procedures, and then following those replicable
procedures to expand. Agents will neither be
overwhelmed nor unfamiliar as change commences.
Systemically, and organization must grant
customers singular access to necessary knowledge
bases, CRM tools, and channel interfaces. It can
strengthen the value of these interfaces by making
expert use of real-time analytics and customer
insight tools. An agent who understands his
customers and has access to the knowledge and
systems needed to act on that understanding is a
happy agent who produces happy customers.
A more modernized, personalized approach to
performance management is important. Even if
an organization does not know every personality
trigger associated with an agent, it must still
identify each agent as an individual person.
Gamification is a great way to enhance training
and inspire better performance.
By bringing the right agents into the contact
center, understanding the specific qualities
of each agent, acting based on that nuanced
understanding and empowering organizations to
perform from within the organization dynamic,
your business will have unlocked the door to
contact center success.
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Call Center IQ 2016
Editorial Calendar

Research Reports:
April Cloud
29 Technology

June Performance, Metrics

3 & Operations

Aug. Next-Generation
22 Customer Engagement

Oct. Call Center

31 Week Winter

Online Summits:
June Call Center
14-16 Week Online

Oct. Next-generation Customer

3-5 Engagement Online

Dec. Call Center Week

6-8 Winter Online

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