by Richard Snow |
7/25/2008 | Article ID: M08-23 | Article Type: VentanaMonitor
Summary
Recent benchmark research by Ventana Research revealed just how complex a contact center desktop can be, with agents often having to access eight different systems or more to resolve one customer issue. This obviously is time-consuming, distracting, and can lead to erroneous information being captured in different systems. It also can frustrate customers when they have to repeat information and wait for contact center agents to resolve their issue.
The same research showed that customer interactions increasingly are being handled outside the contact center, which means that a broader range of employees must be able to access data. And that data increasingly resides in unstructured files such as Word documents. SmartPoint Technologies has partnered with Microsoft to integrate access to various forms of unstructured data using the latter’s search product. This, along with other enhancements included in SmartPoint v3.1, makes it easier for companies to create a single interface to multiple systems and so to present to agents the information appropriate for each customer and the current interaction.
Assessment
Companies with contact centers historically have paid little attention to the state of the agent’s desktop, even though it is a source of inefficiencies that frustrate both agents and customers. Ventana Research’s benchmark research on Customer Interaction Technologies showed that many agents have to use more than one desktop to access the systems they need to resolve customer interactions, and even those with a single desktop must access multiple systems by logging into a variety of applications, including customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), case management, workflow, business-specific applications and knowledge bases. This means agents must spend time navigating through complex menus across several systems. Moreover, they often have to enter the same data multiple times, which is time-consuming, prone to error and therefore frustrating and risky.
SmartPoint is one of a new breed of applications designed to resolve the issue of multiple desktop systems. Originally targeted at the contact center, it now supports any employee who is acting as an agent and so needs to access customer data. It belongs to a product category variously called a unified desktop, a smart desktop or even an intelligent desktop. These products provide interfaces to different applications that can be configured to retrieve or deliver data without the user having to navigate through the usual screens.
SmartPoint not only provides these core integration points, either prebuilt or through tools that help the customer build them, but v3.1 goes one step further: It can be configured to deliver data based on contextual rules. Once a customer has been identified it can automatically display relevant data. As the agent clarifies the customer’s issue, other rules can deliver further information. Agents not only are spared having to navigate around systems to find and input data but are assisted in resolving the issues by getting relevant information automatically pushed to them, thus saving time, reducing risk and likely increasing the satisfaction of both agents and customers. Such a system can also reduce training time because agents will need to know fewer details of what can be very complex systems, instead working through sequences of windows that show information as needed.
The partnership with Microsoft extends the functionality of the SmartPoint desktop by adding the capability to search across a defined number of systems to deliver back customer data from unstructured sources, such as files created by Microsoft Office applications, as well as structured data. The same contextual rules can be applied, so the agent sees all data relevant to the customer and the interaction.
The application can be deployed as a standalone agent desktop or alongside another application, typically a CRM system. In this way companies can choose the level of integration they want, retaining existing systems as appropriate and “hiding” others. SmartPoint also comes with reporting and analysis tools that allow companies to understand how well their agents are performing and thereby identify areas where improvement is needed.
Market Impact
The unified desktop has largely been the domain of in-house solutions and a single vendor, Jacada. However, over the last couple of years, new players have appeared, among them Cincom, Chordiant, Ciboodle, eglue, SmartPoint, and to a lesser degree larger vendors such as Teradata, so that this now is a highly competitive market. SmartPoint’s partnership with Microsoft both enhances the functionality of the offering and provides marketing differentiation. The company has had success selling to the public sector and helping government departments meet new central government requirements while improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their call centers. These latest additions should help it expand more into the commercial sector.
Recommendation
Ventana Research believes that companies should assess the desktops they provide for employees who have to resolve customer interactions. Products such as SmartPoint provide functionality that allows companies to make the desktop much easier to use, which can raise efficiency levels and make agents more effective by helping them end calls faster and resolve more calls the first time, reducing agent training times and raising agent and customer satisfaction levels. Such outcomes can help companies close more business and even identify root causes of why customers are calling – an important step in identifying potential improvements across the enterprise. As companies embark on initiatives to give their agents better tools, SmartPoint is one of the options they should consider.
Related Research Notes:
Customer Performance Management Research Agenda for 2008
Customer Experience Management Can Refocus Contact Centers
Customer Experience Management Technology
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