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Summary
Contact centers are now one of the key channels companies use to interact with their customers. All but the most basic centers are notoriously difficult to build and expensive to operate, requiring the integration of complex processes, people and technology. Historically, the companies deploying them have focused on reducing the cost of handling customer calls and have used technology for this purpose. As the business environment becomes ever more competitive, however, companies are learning that they must turn their centers into a business asset that helps win and retain customers. Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories’ latest product release promises to ease some of the technology integration issues for contact centers and to provide support for key workforce and performance management functions.

Assessment
Running a contact center is a complex task that requires a constant balance of technology, human resources and expectations for business outcomes. A recent Ventana Research study shows that the number of systems required in a contact center is increasing, and therefore so is the complexity of running a center. Centers now need to support more communications channels, including instant messaging (IM) and video, and more automated services, such as the Web, speech-based interactive voice response (IVR) and e-mail autoresponse systems. They also must support more systems to resolve customer issues, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), knowledge management and workflow, and more systems to manage the operation, including workforce and performance management.

One of the hardest tasks is ensuring that enough skilled agents and supervisors are available to handle customer interactions. Our research shows that a majority of companies don’t take this last issue seriously; only about one-fourth of companies use special systems to determine agents’ work schedules, and the majority do not fully utilize their call routing systems to ensure that the most appropriate agent handles each customer interaction. Until recently, operations management mainly focused on handling the maximum number of customer interactions at the minimum cost, using the lowest number of agents possible. But competitive pressures and the need to increase customer satisfaction have changed that focus; today, managers must take a more business-driven approach, which in turn has brought pressure to implement a formal performance management system.

For most companies, this means using several systems that historically have been hard to integrate. Genesys 7.5 promises to change that. It includes the Dynamic Contact Center (DCC), which automatically adjusts how the Genesys system handles customer traffic and internal resources to ensure optimal performance. Genesys, best known for its computer telephony integration (CTI) tools, has enhanced its products’ the call routing capabilities so they can route all types of interactions, including e-mail, text messages and chat sessions, according to the caller’s profile. In this way, the most appropriate resource handles each customer, regardless of that person’s location. The system’s workflow also routes electronic forms to the appropriate personnel to support the interaction.

One of the company’s less well known products, Genesys Workforce Management, provides agent workforce management. While it contains many traditional functions found in products from Blue Pumpkin and IEX, it has the advantage of being integrated with CTI and therefore can determine in real time what agents are doing and whether they are able to handle a new inbound interaction. The system can plan schedules, determine which agents are doing what task and, if necessary, make routing decisions based on real-time information about agent availability. As companies route more and more interactions to different locations within the company – a process called contact center virtualization – this ability will be essential to keep operations running smoothly.

Operations managers also need performance information so they can make decisions on how to improve the way agents and the processes work. To that end, Genesys has enhanced the reporting and analytics capabilities in 7.5. Different managerial levels can now have the information they need to see how the center is running and what they can do to improve the outcomes from the business and customer points of view.

Market Impact
The contact center market continues to consolidate, through both takeovers and tightly coupled partnerships. At the same time, traditional telephone switch manufacturers – Aspect, Avaya and Nortel, for instance – are expanding into other communication channels and into workforce, quality and performance management. Similarly, Cisco Systems has moved into performance management, although more through partnerships than acquisitions. Meanwhile, NICE, Verint and other quality management vendors have expanded into workforce and performance management. Genesys has been quietly doing the same thing but has taken a more organic route; it has enhanced many of its traditional products and developed new tools for workforce management and reporting. This should enable it to compete with some of its rivals’ integrated offerings. However, the different products will still be available individually, and thus can be used in an architecture that also contains competitive products. 

Genesys actively promotes contact center virtualization. Recent research from Ventana Research shows that the increased adoption of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is making this vision practical. A growing number of companies are looking to route interactions to employees in different business units, as well as to mobile workers and home-based workers. To succeed fully, we believe, companies need to recognize that it will take more than deploying VoIP; it will require the integration of new processes, enhanced routing and more rigorous workforce management. With version 7.5, Genesys has taken a significant step toward supporting companies taking this journey. As a result, we expect it to increase market share in this volatile, competitive market.

Recommendation
Our research shows that most contact centers are under severe pressures to cut costs and at the same time improve customer satisfaction and increase volume. Achieving this balancing act is no easy feat, especially as centers struggle with old ways of working and legacy technology systems. Companies that want to raise the maturity of their contact center operations should look at Genesys’ Dynamic Contact Center as they evaluate new technologies to support that effort.