Envision Blog

Speech Analytics webinar

As we announced June 1^st, we’ve changed the speech analytics game with the launch of Envision InteractionIQ, our new “right-sized” speech analytics solution. As part of the launch we’re teaming up with Frost and Sullivan and TMC to offer a complimentary webinar that will explain the key barriers to contact center adoption of speech analytics, as well as the many benefits of a right-sized speech analytics solution to the agent, center, enterprise and your customer experience.

The webinar is titled “Right-Sizing Speech Analytics: Contact Centers Need a Scalpel, Not a Chainsaw” , June 23^rd 11am PT/2pm ET and will be presented by Keith Dawson, Senior Analyst for Frost and Sullivan, Jim Shulkin, Marketing Director for Envision, and moderated by Brendan Read, senior contributing editor of Customer Interaction Solutions magazine.

Come to this session to learn:

What the key barriers are to mainstream contact center adoption of speech analytics solutions
The new paradigm: “Blue Sky” speech analytics vs. “Right-Sized” speech analytics
– breaking down the barriers
The benefits of a right-sized speech analytics solution to the agent, the center,
the enterprise and your customer experience

If you’re a contact center manager, customer service professional, or Enterprise decision maker, you won’t want to miss this educational webinar. Click here to register.

Post tags: Keith Dawson, Frost & Sullivan, Speech Analytics, InteractionIQ, webinar, Brendan Read, Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine

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The Speech Analytics Game Has Changed

It's official! Envision has changed the Speech Analytics Game! Envision InteractionIQ™, a right-sized speech analytics solution simplifies the processing, search and reporting of speech data from within audio recordings. With Envision InteractionIQ, contact center and enterprise management can now affordably and simply incorporate speech data into the WFO analysis equation to more effectively meet specific agent, center and business performance objectives.

According to Keith Dawson, principal analyst with Frost & Sullivan, “Envision InteractionIQ breaks down the barriers for contact centers that have not yet been able to take advantage of speech analytics technology. Up to now we have not seen wide spread adoption of speech analytics even though it can offer tremendously valuable insights to agent, center and organizational performance and trends. InteractionIQ drastically reduces the total cost of ownership for speech analytics while still delivering the market’s core and most practical needs for speech processing technology.”

Envision InteractionIQ integrates with Envision Performance Analytics™ to make up the Envision Analytics Suite.

Post tags: Keith Dawson, Frost & Sullivan, Speech Analytics

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Heading to ICMI Austin

You may have already heard the buzz about the upcoming launch of Envision’s new speech analytics solution, and I’m thrilled to announce that we are officially launching it at the ICMI Contact Center Management Conference in Austin, TX on June 1-2. If you’re at the show, make sure to stop by Envision booth G4 to say hello and to be one of the first to see a demo of the new product. We’ll be releasing more information about this right-sized speech analytics solution including the name on June 1^st. You can see the press release about the show and the upcoming Envision launch here.

As part of our launch, we’ll be hosting an invitation-onlyhospitality event on the deck of Z Tejas in the Austin Arboretum on June 1st. Z Tejas is just 2 blocks from the Austin Arboretum Renaissance on Arboretum BLVD. We’ll be serving appetizers and cocktails and giving away some great prizes.

If you aren’t signed up to attend the ICMI show but are interested in attending, you can do so here http://www.icmi.com/CCM2009.

We hope to see you in Austin!

Post tags: ICMI, Contact Center Management Conference, Speech Analytics

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Seeing Insight in Every Call

Christopher Musico from destinationCRM.com recently wrote about the new Centricity 9.7 release...

"A massive volume of information pours into every contact center daily. The challenge is to somehow utilize all that information for actionable purposes, whether for organizational change or simply to better train customer service representatives (CSRs) to handle a particular kind of call. With the release of Centricity 9.7, the latest version of its workforce optimization (WFO) platform, Seattle-based Envision Telephony has chosen to highlight information-tagging as a main feature." ... to read the entire article, visit DestinationCRM.com

Post tags: Christopher Musico, call center, callcenter best practices, contact center, destinationCRM

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12 steps to better results

It’s a safe bet that your call center’s sales results can be improved upon. Here are the 12 best practices of high selling call centers as posted by Call Center Café:

Clearly communicate sales targets:

Set expectations: Communicate sales objectives on a daily basis so your Agents know exactly what is expected of them.
Provide feedback: Post daily sales results at each Agent’s desk or on-line so they know how they are performing versus expectations.
Spot trends: Analyze results per Agent and, per product, to determine trends. Use these trends to coach your team to higher performance.

Train your call center Agents on how to sell:

Hold sales skills workshops: Having good customer service skills isn’t enough. They need to attend a call center sales workshop so they can learn how to upsell and right size client accounts.
Conduct product knowledge training: During team meetings, have each call center Agent take turns doing a five minute presentation on the key selling benefits of a product.
Distribute current competitive information: Train your Agents on how your products and services compare to your competitors. Provide them with solid answers they can use when a client says, “But your competitor offers…”

Provide a “big picture perspective for your Agents:

Key Business Indicators: Ensure your Agents understand how their performance impacts your department, your company and its customers.

Motivate your call center Agents:

Rewards and recognition: Give out out prizes for “Most Improved Performer” or “Top Ten Salespeople.” The rewards can be food, movie passes or company branded items like mugs or caps.
Motivational ideas: Use one idea per week from an employee motivation book like “1,001 Ways to Reward Employees” by Bob Nelson and Ken Blanchard to encourage your team.
Post a “Wall of Fame”: Show photos of the top sales Agent for each product. Beneath each photo, have that Agent share their best sales tips on how to sell that particular product.

Constantly reinforce your team’s sales performance:

Share best practices: Discuss sales tips at every team meeting, shift huddle and one-on-one coaching session.
Send out a “Sales Tip of the Day” to your Agents: Ask your top-selling Agents to write the tips so they get public recognition.

Use these 12 tips to improve your call center’s up-selling and rightsizing performance. Ensure your Agents understand how their performance impacts your department, your company and its customers.

Post tags: call center, callcenter best practices, contact center, call center cafe

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Ventana Research

In a recent post on the Ventana Research blog, Richard Snow, VP & Research Director discusses how center managers are under constant pressure to do more with less and how the newly enhanced Centricity suite is taylor made to fit call centers that are having to handle more calls with the same or fewer agents. To read the entire article, visit Richard's Ventana Blog here.

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Top 10 Tricks for Training that Sticks

Today, more than ever, tightening budgets are forcing managers to cut back on expenditures that are not considered central to the corporate mission. But what happens when the item on the chopping block is something as crucial to the success of a team as training is? And once you’ve decided on including training in the yearly budget how can you be certain it will stick? Theo Gilbert-Jamison offers ten tips to ensure training is effective, memorable, and sustainable.

1. Solicit Employee Input. Get preliminary employee input and feedback before the training begins. Find out what they would like to get out of the learning, and what will make it interesting for them. Then customize the training content to meet not only the needs of the organization, but also those of its participants.

2. Integrate Icebreakers. To get everyone’s creative juices flowing, start the training session with a brief icebreaker that is relevant to the content that will be covered. The resource book, Games Trainers Play, includes hundreds of icebreaker ideas to choose from.

3. Incorporate Storytelling. Use real life stories and examples to bring specific points to life. An example might be that if you are facilitating a workshop on Problem Resolution and Empowerment, use personal stories that illustrate a time when you received poor service and how it was resolved. You could even share personal examples of situations when you either felt empowered or disempowered to resolve an issue, citing specifically who, what, where, and how you overcame the situation with professionalism and finesse.

4. Encourage Participant Involvement. Engage participants throughout the learning process with open-ended questions, allowing them ample time to respond. We all learn when everyone participates. It demonstrates that you (as a facilitator) are on top of your game, comfortable sharing the spotlight with workshop participants, and that everyone is accountable for making the learning energizing, inspiring, informative, fun, and memorable.

5. Use Visual Aids. When possible, incorporating PowerPoint presentations with relevant pictures are a great way to stimulate the learning process. Also, proper use of a flip chart to jot down participant responses to illustrate or make a point adds variety to the learning process.

6. Use Humor. Injecting funny stories that relate to the points you are making during the training are a great way to keep people engaged and help them remember critical tips on things you want them to consistently do or not do. Just make sure to keep all humor - jokes and funny stories strictly professional and in good taste.

7. Discuss Life Application. End training sessions by having participants share how they will apply what they have learned. This will encourage self-reflection, self-accountability, and is likely to motivate participants to use the tools, skills, and knowledge gained.

8. Give Away Prizes. You would be surprised how effective small give-aways (like candy bars, movie tickets, or even books) are in engaging participants and stimulating enthusiasm in learning. And we all know that when participants are engaged, they retain and apply a great deal of what they have learned.

9. Incorporate Testing. Give a brief quiz at the end of the training session to ensure retention of vital information. When participants believe they will be tested on the information shared, they are more apt to retain and later utilize what they have learned.

10. Follow-Up. Inform participants that you will be following up on their progress, and then do so to heighten self-accountability. Learning and development professionals who routinely follow-up with their participants are more successful in creating an environment where employees feel compelled to implement what they have learned.

Bottom-line, the key to creating training that sticks is engaging the learner in the process from start to finish. It is up to the training facilitator to ensure the learning sticks. Therefore, they should build sustainability mechanisms into the training content and session. If you are a senior leader, make it a priority to let your learning professional know that you will be following-up with them and expecting them to create a learning environment that will create sustainable change. Anything less is unacceptable.

Theo Gilbert-Jamison is CEO of Performance Solutions by Design, a global performance consulting firm that caters to luxury and premium brands with an emphasis on transforming organizational culture. She is also the author of two books, The Six Principles of Service Excellence (2005), and The Leadership Book of Numbers, Volume I (2008). As the creative force behind Performance Solutions by Design, Theo is a highly sought after speaker and consultant to CEOs and senior executives in high profile organizations.

Post tags: Theo Gilbert-Jamison call center, callcenter best practices, contact center

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Envision Launches Customer �SBat Phone��

This week, Envision formally announced the launch of its Executive Direct Program. The latest example of Envision’s commitment to delivering uncompromising customer experience as a competitive advantage, the Executive Direct Program represents the customer “Bat Phone,” providing every customer with a convenient means to quickly engage with the very top level of the company. In addition to the account management and support contacts already dedicated to every Envision customer, the Executive Direct program simply provides a customer insurance policy that holds Envision 100% accountable to fulfill their mission to not just satisfy, but delight every single customer.

The Executive Direct program offers every customer contact a phone, Web or email option for submitting their inquiry. When received, an appropriate member of Envision’s executive team, based on the nature of the inquiry, will respond directly to the request within 48 business hours, guaranteed.

The program has been touted by industry analysts as a competitive differentiator that further validates Envision’s mission to provide an unparalleled level of customer intimacy and centricity in the WFO marketplace.

Paul Stockford, president of Saddletree Research, noted “Envision’s Executive Direct program is a unique and innovative add-on to its overall approach to customer service. Their willingness to grant such unadulterated access to the very top level of the organization’s management underscores Envision’s commitment to ensuring a positive experience for every customer.”

For more information on the program, visit the program overview.

Post tags: Paul Stockford, call center, callcenter best practices, contact center, Saddletree Research

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Assuring the best quality for your Call Center

As we’ve said time and time again, customer satisfaction is the cornerstone of any successful business enterprise. Poor performance, bad databases, rude agents (or just really really persistent ones) all are contributors to getting a bad name. In a recently posted article on Call Center Café, Gyahner discusses the reasons for poor reception from customers and ways to keep your team from being on the receiving end of all that negativity.

Read the entire article here

Post tags: call center cafe, call center, call center best practices, contact center

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Time Management Webinar for Contact Center Pros

Don’t miss Envision’s upcoming Webinar, entitled, “Apply Time Management Principles and Increase Contact Center Management Effectiveness,” to be held on April 8^th at 10:00 a.m. pacific time. Click here to register today!

Join our featured presenter, Connie Smith, industry consultant for Envision and President of SpotOn Enterprises, for this valuable contact center management session. She has some amazing time management principles that will increase your effectiveness in the contact center and will demonstrate how focusing on these essentials will enable you to make a greater impact while improving work/life balance.

How to identify and eliminate barriers of performance
Why perfectionism is not a preferred method of execution
How to leverage people, process and technology to get things done
What tips are needed to tackle procrastination
How to avoid “Karoshi”, a term the Japanese have coined which means “Death from overwork”

Click here to register!

Post tags: Connie Smith, call center, call center best practices, contact center

Connie Smith has been involved with contact center operations in various roles for more than 20 years. She leveraged her cumulative experience with all aspects of running contact centers and became a consultant, helping world-class contact centers with building, relocation, mergers, assessments, vendor selection, metrics, telephone systems, CRM and CTI applications, performance management, customer service skill development, training initiatives, leadership skills as well as quality monitoring and coaching programs. ...

New Contact Center White Paper by Dick Bucci

I’m very excited to announce the availability of a brand new white paper, titled “Customer Centricity – Why Now More Than Ever!” sponsored by Envision and written by Dick Bucci, renowned contact center expert and senior consultant with The Pelorus Group.

I’m sure you’ll find it a very timely and relevant read given the importance of holding onto and even gaining new customers during this recession. How do you do that? Well, it starts with how you treat them of course. Creating an exceptional customer experience has never been more important. As the adage goes, people don’t by products, they buy companies and relationships – so how do you know if the experience with your company is promoting customer retention? Here’s a great scorecard for the center and organization.

Customer Centricity- Why now more than ever! Download your copy today!

In today’s difficult economic climate, customer retention is imperative, yet daunting. Fortunately, by employing customer centricity and making it a key metric in your contact center, customer retention can be a true competitive advantage. Envision is pleased to offer the complimentary white paper, “Customer Centricity- Why now more than ever!“ written by Dick Bucci, that will provide insight in to what customer centricity is, what it is not, and help you to build a truly customer centric contact center.

· Find out if your contact center is truly customer centric

· Discover the key requirements for customer centricity

· Realize how your organization can make customer centricity a well defined and measurable key objective that can be tracked and analyzed just as any other critical line item on the balance sheet

· Learn about the role contact centers play in demonstrating, driving and owning this critical metric

Download your copy of the white paper today and start delighting and retaining your customers.

Post tags:Pelorus Group, call center, call center best practices, contact center, Dick Bucci

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Envision Centricity v9.7 Released

I’m happy to report that Envision has recently launched the latest upgrade to our Envision Centricity workforce optimization (WFO) platform. In addition to a pile of relatively subtle, but customer-requested enhancements, this release is a major milestone for many of our international customers and partners. It includes localization of the new platform (launched last September) in both German and Spanish, so customers in those markets are now able to migrate to the latest and greatest.

In addition, there were other key features added, including expanded eLearning authoring capabilities and the ability to perform custom desktop tagging for selective/scheduled recordings – a feature previously only available to full time recording customers. The news release can be viewed here, or you can certainly contact us directly for more information.

Post tags:Centricity Workforce Optimization, call center, call center best practices, contact center, David VanAmburg

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Retail�"s Turn to Customer Centricity

We talk about Customer Centricity at Envision quite a bit because it’s more than just fluffy Marketing messaging or product branding, but rather a mission with tangible metrics, milestones and requirements. That’s apparently ringing very true in the struggling retail sector these days as well, as evidenced in the recent 1to1 Media article, “Retailers Look to Service Experience During Tough Times,” by Elizabeth Glagowski.

I found the article to hit home with retailers as the focus, but with a good message that cuts across industry lines given these tough times for most sectors. In particular, it explains how the current economic condition is in fact forcing the hands of retailers to improve their customer experience because they simply can’t afford to pay it lip service anymore.

Paying it more than lip service is something Envision customers have in common obviously, which is why it was gratifying to see three of the top four retail performers in the Q4 2008 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) referenced in the article are Envision customers.

David VanAmburg, managing director of the ACSI says, “It’s really a defensive game…for retailers…working hard to hold onto the customers they’ve got.”

Fortunately, many of our customers understand that the very best defense is in fact a great offense.

Post tags: ACSI, Elizabeth Glagowski, 1to1 Media, call center, call center best practices, contact center, David VanAmburg

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Tidbits from Call Center Demo Miami (continued)

Also from the CC Demo & Conference last week in Miami, FL, I found one of the more interesting sessions to be the panel discussion titled “The No-Holds-Barred Panel on Speech Analytics.” This had Gerry Barber from Deloitte Services moderating a panel of vendor representatives that each carry some form of speech analytics solution designed for contact centers.

As I’d suspected, the session drew well given the topic (there’s been so much hype on speech analytics the past couple years you’d think it had been caught taking performance enhancing drugs), with a virtually full room of executives and managers from centers across various industries. And to their credit, the panelists did cover a relatively diverse range of topics regarding the value of this technology to the contact center. Gerry successfully navigated them through many topics in what was a spirited and even testy discussion at times between the panelists – very entertaining.

What I found most interesting and telling though was actually the audience response to a very simple question Gerry asked them, which was, ”How many of you have successfully implemented a speech analytics solution within your center?”

If you’ve followed this topic at any level beneath the hype, it will come as little surprise that there wasn’t a hand raised in the room. Although each of the vendors represented (all indicating their respective companies had been in the speech analytics business for 5+ years) had one or even a handful of mostly nameless success stories, the fact is that the broad market adoption of speech analytics has been and remains extremely low within the contact center space.

When asked why this was, each of the panelists had some version of the same basic answer that the solution just hasn’t matured versus other technologies in the WFO suite. Interesting, and certainly not untrue, although in talking to our customers we think there may be a lot more to it than just that.

If you have other ideas as to why speech analytics hasn’t been more widely adopted yet I’d like to hear them.

Post tags: ICMI, Speech Analytics, Call Center Demo & Conference, call center, call center best practices, contact center, Gerry Barber

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Leadership - Connect to Engage!

Leadership – Connect to Engage!

Richard Gorham recently posted an article on Call Center Café in which he offers salient advice for call center managers who are building teams. An excerpt from the article states: It’s been said many times that true leadership is measured by ones ability to motivate and influence others. Leaders must work hard at motivating people to take action necessary to drive change and to ultimately increase results. Even though most people would agree with the definition of leadership as the ability to motivate and influence others, most people still have trouble translating the definition of leadership into actionable and measurable steps.

The biggest obstacle faced by many leaders is simply figuring out how to effectively motivate and influence an entire team comprised of unique individuals. Let’s face it, not everyone is motivated by the same things, nor is everyone influenced to take action or change behavior based on the same factors.

The entire article, posted on Call Center Café, can be accessed here

Richard Gorham is the founder and President of Leadership-Tools, Inc. His web site, http://www.leadership-tools.com is dedicated to providing free tools and resources for today’s aspiring leaders. Offering high-quality tools in the areas of Business Planning, Leadership Development, Customer Service, Sales Management and Team Building.

Post tags: Richard Gorham, Leadership-Tools, call center, call center coaching, contact center

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Tidbits from Call Center Demo Miami

Envision participated in the CC Demo & Conference last week in Miami, FL, which turned out to be surprisingly well attended. I wasn’t the only one expecting a lighter crowd, as the vendor exhibit floor was noticeably sparse as compared with previous events, but the delegate attendance appeared to be about on par with last year’s event. Some more indication the economy is not entirely hampering many organizations’ willingness to invest in improving their customer experience…in fact, there’s evidence to the contrary.

Many of the sessions I attended included a recurring point of why focusing on the service delivered to customers is more important now than ever.

One thing that wasn’t surprising was a common theme among many sessions of how to get more out of the things you may already have, or should think about having, as a means to delivering that high level of customer service. Even if cost cutting is paramount, doing it without conceding to a lesser customer experience as a result is a hot topic.

One session in particular, hosted by Brent Haverkamp and Dan Rickwalder (both from ICMI), focused on many of the common reasons that workforce management (WFM) systems are not as effective in practice as they are in principal. The session title, “Why Your WFM System is Not Working…and How to Fix It!” profoundly addressed the fact that getting these systems to perform as intended is not an uncommon problem and reviewed many of the common user- and vendor-based issues that keep these systems from delivering to their full value. Although many of the points and tips were tactical (and useful) I thought the big theme was simply that these tools cannot be implemented, set on cruise control and forgotten if you want them to be continually effective.

This is particularly important with WFM, as although it is a largely mature product category (i.e., tools have been around for decades), it’s not an overly mature market in terms of adoption, especially in SMB. But WFM is expected to see a new wave of adoption in the next 18 to 24 months as even smaller and mid-sized centers look for ways to reduce costs while maintaining customer SLAs and experience. Smarter scheduling and forecasting will be a key tool for helping them accomplish this.

ICMI, Call Center Demo & Conference, call center, call center best practices, contact center

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Virtues of Web 2.0 Technologies in Contact Centers

A recent article posted to tmcnet.com by Susan Campbell discusses recent assertions from industry analyst and research firm Datamonitor on the growing and impending utilization of various Web 2.0 and social networking tools within the contact center, as well as some of the benefits thereof. It’s an interesting read for those of you wondering how all of these relatively still new, and largely only thought of as “social sites,” such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and many others could be made useful and valuable to the mission and operations of the contact center.

Datamonitor is not alone, nor are they the first to suggest the evolution for Web 2.0 tools into the contact center will soon be upon us. It’s a topic that’s gained more and more steam in the past 6 months. In fact, if you’d like to hear more, we put on a Webinar with Paul Stockford from Saddletree Research on the very topic late last year. You can view the recorded webcast here.

Post tags: Susan Campbell, Datamonitor, call center, Paul Stockford, Saddletree Research, call center best practices, contact center

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Envision To Sneak Preview New Speech Technology

No, it’s not released yet. But the much anticipated new Envision Centricity speech offering that will “change the game” in the contact center speech analytics market will be on display for a sneak peak for those attending ICMI’s Call Center Demo & Conference in Miami from February 25^th – 27^th.

Going to the show and want to schedule time to see us? Let us know. Not going to Miami but still want to see the new speech solution before it’s released? Let us know that too.

Either way, if you’re going to be at the show I’d love to meet you, so please do stop by our pedestal (D2) and ask for me. We’ll have some great drawings and giveaways in addition to the speech sneak peak.

Post tags: ICMI, Call Center Demo & Conference, call center, call center best practices, contact center

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Critical Customer Information

In a recent article posted by Lora J Adrianse, she proposed some interesting questions regarding the profiling of customers. I thought many of them were particularly relevant, especially given the times we’re living in and how important it is to service and retain customers.

One of Envision’s core principles is to be “customer-centric,” and it’s fairly obvious, but a critical prerequisite to that is understanding your customers. In fact, we’ll have a new white paper authored by Dick Bucci published shortly on this very topic that better defines what “customer centricity” in the contact center really means and delivers some prescriptions on how to achieve and sustain it (it’s a great read, so we’ll definitely post when it’s available). There are some very direct correlations between some points made in the paper and some of the customer profiling questions Lora posed in her article, including those listed below.

What other customer profiling questions are important in your business?

Customer Value - How much do they spend with you in a month or a year?

Top 10 or 20 Percent - Who are the top 10 or 20 percent of your most valuable customers? These are your "gold" customers. Know who they are and treat them accordingly.

Why They Choose You - Why do they keep doing business with you? If you're not sure about what you're doing right, how will you know what to keep doing? Ask them!

Where They Came From - How did they find you? If you know where they came from you can go back for more customers just like them.

Who They Brought With Them - What new business have they brought you? Who have they referred you to? Referrals are like automatic deposits in your bank account. Find out who is making the deposits.

How You Thanked Them – If you don't currently use a simple system to thank your customers, start now! Customers who feel appreciated are easier to retain, and better yet they will reciprocate with referrals.

Deal Breakers - This is the most overlooked bit of critical data. If you've lost customers or just haven't seen them in a while (and it happens to all of us), find out what's going on. Most customers will welcome the opportunity to tell you, especially if something went wrong. What you don't know can hurt you!

Lora Adrianse is a person of many talents who is passionate about inspiring and contributing to the growth and development in others. For more info visit: http://www.connectionscoach.com.

Post tags: Lora Adrianse, call center, call center best practices, connections coach, contact center

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