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Summary
Ventana Research defines customer experience management as the people, processes, information and technology involved in ensuring that customers’ experiences at every touch point engender the desired customer behavior and business outcome. Our benchmark research shows that the majority of customer interactions still occur through the telephone, and most calls are handled in call centers. How agents handle calls therefore has a significant impact on the customer’s experience.

It is often said that good agents can overcome bad processes and technology, but as the competition for customers increases and technology becomes more sophisticated, this is increasingly less true. The major tool agents have to help them handle calls is their desktop, and we find evidence that a good desktop can shorten calls and help deliver better service. We urge companies to examine their agent’s desktop and evaluate products that can make it more useful.

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Our benchmark research on customer experience management (sponsored by Ciboodle, Cincom and Verint and media sponsors ICCM and MyCustomer.com) assessed, among other issues, the importance companies place on how agents handle calls. When asked to identify factors that have the greatest impact on the customer’s experience, 22 percent of our research participants chose how agents handle customer calls, making it the third most often selected option (the top two were product quality, 39 percent, and brand image, 25 percent). Our earlier research into the use of technology in call centers showed that on average agents must access eight different systems when handling a customer’s call. Having to do this is time-consuming, confusing and prone to error, and the agent has less time and attention to focus on the customer’s needs. Again, the main tool that agents have to assist them during calls is the desktop, so the support it gives them in accessing all these systems is crucial to both the length of calls and how effective agents are at meeting customers’ expectations.

This conclusion was confirmed by what participants said most influences the customer’s experience during a call. The top choice was the attitude of the agent, but the agent’s ability to understand the customer’s issue and resolve it during the first call was chosen more often than any other when we added in second and third choices. We also found that only 24 percent of companies have deployed a smart desktop that matches data delivery to the flow of customer conversations and reduces the complexity of accessing the information required to handle the call; another 23 percent plan an implementation during 2008. We infer that the absence of the smart desktop has an impact on customer satisfaction levels with call-handling: about half (49 percent) of participants said their customers are less than totally satisfied with the majority of calls, and significantly more than half (60 percent) said the majority of calls are not resolved the first time.

Investigating how a smart desktop can help improve the customer’s experience, we identified three levels of “smartness” in a desktop. The most basic “hides” behind a user interface all the systems that need to be accessed as well as their integration points. Developers can restructure the interface to mirror the actual flow of typical customer calls, which makes it easier for agents to follow along. At the second level, the products capture data as the agent enters it, and based on predetermined rules, they seek out and present additional information to the agent or recommend the next action. Vendors of these products offer a new user interface or allow companies to embed this functionality into their existing desktop. At the top level, products come with the capability to search all data sources automatically for information about the customer and push relevant data and recommended next actions to the agent. The most capable of these products can process both structured data and information buried in unstructured data.

Assessment
In our research, only 15 percent of participants indicated that deploying a smart desktop is one of their company’s top three priorities for improving the customer’s experience and nearly half (46 percent) don’t see any need to adopt a smart desktop at all. Ventana Research believes this is because companies haven’t properly explored the benefits that a smart desktop can deliver. Our research shows that the average length of a call remains a key metric for most companies. Companies we have spoken to that have deployed a smart desktop report dramatic reductions in this metric for a number of reasons: Agents no longer must navigating through complex screens or across multiple applications; an easier-to-use desktop also means agents need less training and are less prone to leave because they find their job too difficult; and agents are able to resolve more calls during the first attempt, reducing the risk of upsetting the customer and saving the cost of further interaction. But most of all, the smart desktop allows agents to focus on the customer, deliver a better customer experience, reinforce loyalty and open up the possibility of more targeted offers that produce more sales. Ventana Research urges companies to evaluate smart desktop products to see whether they can help advance their customer service business goals.