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			Business Research: Contact Center Technology Research: Business Intelligence, Operational Intelligence Imperative Research: Business Innovation, Performance Improvement, Process Improvement Vendor Research: AIM Technology, Aspect, CallTower, Cerebit, Cisco Systems, Enkata, Envision, Five9, Genesys Telecommunications Lab, HardMetrics, Informiam, Inova Solutions, InQuira, Intelligent Results, Jacada, KnoahSoft, Latigent, MediaTrac, Merced Systems, Microsoft, NICE Systems, Noetica, Nortel, Oracle, Portrait Software, Queplix, RightNow, Salesforce.com, Saratoga Systems, Symmetrics, Syntellect, unica, Verint, Witness Systems, InfoCentricity, VPI, ClickFox
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Summary
One of the reasons companies have struggled to improve the performance of their contact centers is because they have difficulty accessing the data needed to produce reliable, business-focused information and making that information available in appropriate forms to different users in the center. Because the dominant contact channel remains customers speaking by phone with agents, it is vital to get information to agents quickly. VPI is one of several vendors that focus on accessing data and producing business-focused reports and graphics, and it has developed a unique approach to providing information directly to the agent’s desktop.

Assessment
The latest research from Ventana Research shows that the technology required to run a contact center presents the biggest challenge to operational managers trying to monitor and assess performance of their contact centers. Our research also shows that companies are deploying more communication channels – the latest being instant messaging and video – to meet customers’ expectations and to help lower costs through increased self-service. Extracting data from these technologies remains a headache, but this element of information access is becoming less of an issue as vendors such as VPI develop extractors for many of the systems in common use. The next challenge is to pinpoint what specific information is needed by different users – the center manager, supervisors, agents and executives – and to present it to them in timely fashion and in the formats they need. Agents present a special challenge because their work life operates in real time. They don’t know when the next call will arrive, but when it does they have to answer it immediately. They don’t know who the caller will be or what the issue is going to be. They need information and insight immediately to handle the call as efficiently and effectively as possible.

VPI has an innovative response to this issue. As well as standard reports, its product, Activ! Intelligence, supports a ticker-tape style display on the agent’s desktop. It can be configured to always be present and to display different messages and performance information at the click of the mouse, giving agents a constantly updated banner of information that is relevant to their work. The information can relate to the performance of an individual, a team or the entire center and can be customized so each agent sees what he or she needs to see, when it is needed. VPI has developed extractors for various data sources, including automatic call distributors (ACDs), e-mail management systems and business applications such as workforce management, as well as VPI’s new voice recording product, Activ! Voice. The data from the selected sources is loaded into a data store where it is used to provide specific business-related insights, not just efficiency measures such as average call time.

As well as performance information, supervisors and managers can push specific messages to the desktop via the ticker-tape display, to inform agents of changed circumstances or special instructions. The managers can monitor who accesses these messages and thereby assure themselves that everyone who needs to see the message has seen it.

Activ! Intelligence also enables agents to monitor and manage their own performance. Agents see how well they are performing against their targets or team targets and know that these ratings are public, which can motivate them to approach supervisors to explain why they are not meeting their targets and seek advice about how to improve it. Spurring motivation in this manner can lead to improvement in the performance of individuals and their center as a whole.

Market Impact
Until quite recently, companies had few options in products for contact center performance management; the best-known came from AIM Technology, Merced Systems and Performix. In the last year, however, there has been a proliferation of new options from Enkata, Envision, HardMetrics, Informiam, Latigent and Symmetrics. Furthermore, in addition to vendors of specialized contact center business intelligence (BI) software, we see general-purpose BI vendors such as Business Objects and Oracle also focusing efforts on this increasingly hot market. VPI is now able to compete in this market and the wider one for contact center management. The ticker-tape style display is an innovation that should help VPI carve out a niche among the competition.

Recommendation
Ventana Research sees the contact center performance management market maturing as customer companies recognize the importance of managing their customers’ experiences across various channels of communication and vendors bring products for that purpose to market. As companies seek products to help them improve the performance of their contact centers, we recommend that they consider VPI.