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Perhaps one of the most daunting aspects of contact
center products is the time, cost and hassle of
installing and managing these enterprise-class systems
on site. We have all seen demonstrations of yet
another product promising to revolutionize a company's
contact center, only to find that regardless of its
impressive features, it costs upwards of $20,000 and
requires six days of installation and training.
Another frequent problem is the disconnect between two
acronyms: CIM and CRM. Where an increasing number of
companies position their wares as complete contact
center solutions, closer inspection reveals a heavy
concentration of either customer interaction or
relationship management features. As a result, a truly
complete solution tends to require the separate
purchase of at least two enterprise-sized systems and
all the related integration: small to mid-sized
companies are left out of the discussion before it
really begins.
How refreshing, then, to explore White Pajama, a
service whose remotely hosted ASP model allows the
company to address both of these problems. White
Pajama combines multimedia customer interaction
features (such as automated e-mail, chat and call
distribution) with CRM capabilities (storage,
retrieval and tracking of customer histories) into a
single service, requiring no onsite installation or
related costs.
Installation
Since White Pajama fully leverages the merits of an
ASP model, its service does not require hardware setup
or system integration on the client's site.
Additionally, each agent's PC and telephone
requirements will not be difficult for most companies
to meet (Pentium II, 64 megs of RAM, a gig of hard
disk space, 56k or better connection -- though
broadband access is recommended -- and an analog phone
with a direct number). According to White Pajama
personnel, an account is usually delivered within 24
to 72 hours. The delay is attributed to the fact that
the company does not offer a completely Web-based, or
automated, setup. While shielding you from the
extensive hassle of onsite installation, White Pajama
does not shield users from having to speak with
salespeople, and in between application on the company
Web site and implementation, customers must wait to be
contacted by a company representative. While setup is
not as immediate as with some ASP services (such as 3Cube
and Orchestrate,
reviewed for this magazine's sister publication Communications
ASP'), it is still an improvement on the
installation time required of a typical contact center
product offering a similar feature set of
communications channels, CRM features and reporting
options.
Documentation
Another way White Pajama optimizes the ASP model is
through effective documentation. Combined with the
fact that the service is intuitive and easy-to-use,
the documentation will assist companies in getting the
solution up and running without the lengthy and
expensive onsite training usually required by many
non-ASP contact center products. A centrally located
table of contents enables each step-by-step tutorial
to serve either as a topical help file or a training
manual. In addition to these separate files,
individual pages on the administrative screens, for
example, contain helpful glossary-style definitions of
service features as used by White Pajama.
Features
White Pajama combines a host of traditional contact
center features, usually available only through
multiple products, and offers them via a largely
simplified (but not simplistic) ASP model. This
variety of features may be grouped into three general
categories: customer interaction, customer
relationship management and aspects of workforce
management in the form of a performance analysis
component.
On the customer interaction side, agents armed with
a phone and a Web browser can handle telephone, e-mail
and chat interactions, which are all queued and
distributed through an ACD system responding to
priority, agent availability and user-defined agent
skill sets. CRM features include contact and case
management systems geared toward efficient issue
tracking and resolution. The system also furnishes a
variety of customer self-service options in addition
to agent tools. IVR capabilities can play greetings
and prompts while hosting interactive menus, allowing
customers to enter identification and case numbers for
issue follow-up. FAQs are used as a tool both for
agents -- who can use them as prepackaged chat
responses -- and for customers to access during
self-service queries. Spanning customer interaction
and relationship management, White Pajama's CTI
features provide agents with screen pops based on user
and case information associated with all incoming
contacts, whether they arrive via phone, e-mail or
chat channels.
Regarding workforce management, the system offers
both real-time and historical reporting, providing
managers with information as general or as detailed as
they require. Specific agents and queues can be viewed
to determine factors such as number of contact
interactions, time spent wrapping up calls, time
unavailable and average handle times. Drilling up,
charts and graphs display overall contact center
performance, enabling managers to get a broader view
of past, current and projected contact center
performance.
Operational Testing
With White Pajama, walking through the administration
process was perhaps as important as testing the end
results. In looking at the Configuration Manager, we
were able to get a good sense of how easy the service
would be for a small or mid-sized company to
implement, through a unified configuration interface
enabling IVR, ACD and other traditionally separate and
complex systems to be set up in one place.
Aided by the on-screen tips and comprehensive
training, we went through a logically ordered sequence
of configuration steps ranging from creating agent
groups, supervisors and skill sets to configuring
communications channels and queues. To assist in
making the process as easy as possible, the
Configuration Manager is laid out like a traditional
Web site with a "home" page and then subsequent pages
ordered in the process a user would most often employ
during setup. After an exceptionally quick setup
process, we went on to try the agent interface and
various contact channels. We got a second chance to
see how easy the admin features are to use. In
attempting to initiate a chat with our simulated
agent, we realized our virtual person had not been
configured as having the required skill. Since the ACD
found no agent qualified to respond, our simulated
customer was sent an "agent unavailable" message. To
retrace our steps, find the agent, enable chat and
save the change did not take more than a minute, and
was all a matter of pointing and clicking.
The chat feature, although quite straightforward,
nevertheless appeared to be one of several very
effective means by which customers can contact a White
Pajama subscriber, though it has a few nice
enhancements. One useful feature we have seen in other
products, such as eShare's NetAgent, is the ability to
push FAQ content in response to customer queries.
Overall, chat also provided an excellent example of
how effective multimedia blending can be in a contact
center environment. In terms of customer information,
we received identical screen pops regardless of
whether a simulated customer was contacting us through
the phone or chat channel. Like many contact center
products, the system delivered either a blank or
prepopulated contact entry depending upon the status
of the new caller or chat participant. Performance was
impressive over the TMC' Labs T1 connection in terms
of the immediacy with which we received and answered
calls or chats, especially given the circuitous route
not only over the Internet, but also through an
off-site hosted ACD.
Chat was one of several communications channels we
could access when acting as customers, through a
customizable "Support Center" subscribers to the
service can put on their Web sites. From there,
customers can access phone, FAQ, chat, e-mail and
self-service links, connecting them to a company's
agents, knowledge base or CRM system as hosted by
White Pajama. The self-service link, in particular,
stood out as an effective yet simple way for customers
to become involved in the process of issue resolution,
as opposed to feeling completely at the mercy of a
company's tech support services. By entering a
customer I.D. (which in our case was automatically
e-mailed to us, along with default auto-reply content
we scripted in the configuration screens), we entered
a simple screen enabling us to view, mark as resolved
or post follow-ups to our sample issues.
In terms of the agent and supervisor experience
with White Pajama, there is a lot to cover. In
addition to an extremely simple agent interface (which
provides a clearer view of both present and past
customer information than the royalblue
SupportCenter product we tested recently), as
supervisors we were continually kept abreast of all
activity within our mock contact center through e-mail
messages displaying a complete list of all open or
unresolved cases, sent according to time parameters
easily set using the Configuration Manager.
Room For Improvement
We had very few suggestions for improvement. As stated
throughout this review, White Pajama covers a range of
CRM, CIM and performance analysis features that would
normally require several products to achieve. While we'd
like to suggest that the product might be improved
through the addition of VoIP push-to-talk buttons,
chat productivity tools or more extensive knowledge
base search devices, we have to say that small to
mid-sized organizations would be hard-pressed to find
other products that allow them to set up such a
complete contact center so quickly in this price
range. In fact, many call logging and tracking
products alone, without White Pajama's integrated ACD,
CTI and IVR features, can cost three times as much.
Nevertheless, over time, this impressive first start
could be even better fleshed out in subsequent
upgrades through the addition of integrated VoIP, Web
callback features and other enhanced services.
One final notation: like other new Web-based ASP
services we've test-driven, in spots White Pajama's
interfaces have a bit of a "homegrown" look. Unlike
those other services, the issues here are purely
aesthetic and do not get in the way of White Pajama's
functionality. As a result, we feel the company merits
an A+ rating. The reporting and analysis tools are a
good example of a way the service's interfaces could
be improved: while in many ways, the service's
simplicity is one of its chief merits, the graphics
can still appear a bit rough around the edges. We
suspect that much of the graphic design on this first
iteration of the product was probably done in-house
and perhaps hastily on a closely guarded budget, as is
often the way with start-ups. The point is, a drive to
attract continued funding and, most importantly,
customers can only be helped by securing every
appearance of legitimacy. We recommend White Pajama
hire a design firm to go over the interfaces with a
fine-tooth comb.
Conclusion
Needless to say, we were genuinely impressed with
White Pajama, both as a contact center service and as
an ASP model. After this, it may be difficult to look
at non-ASP contact center products in the same way.
This is not to suggest that they are outmoded; nor is
it to suggest that something like White Pajama will
necessarily be a perfect fit for large, enterprise
contact centers that may still want centralized
control of databases and applications, as well as an
enhanced feature set complementary to their budgets,
staff and infrastructure. But larger companies are
already served quite well, and it is refreshing to see
someone offering options to small and mid-sized
organizations.
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To The June 2001 Table Of Contents ]
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