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Who Said What? Analyzing Call Data Pays Off

By TMCnet Staff

One of the biggest benefits to hit call centers in recent years is the advent of analytics. Centers can now take the data they collect from callers and break it down into useful information that can contribute to a company’s bottom line.

Yet collecting and analyzing data had been thought to be an expensive, time-consuming process, but advances in the field have done away with a lot of that worry and cost.

In a recent webinar sponsored by cloud call center leader inContact (accessible for free HERE), the topic was discussed at length, starting with the inherent problems associated with the technology. Chandler Galt, Digital Marketing Manager at inContact, revisited the webinar in a blog post and dissected some of its finer points.

“In the webinar, the panelists [A.O. Smith’s Jason Kane, and inContact’s Sherri Greenhouse and Joe Dean] discuss the three main problems with contact center reporting today,” Galt noted. “First, quality reporting is a constant struggle and beneficial, reliable reporting that contact centers can use to drive business decisions is rare. Second, contact centers are missing the boat on business intelligence and are slow to evolve beyond traditional contact center analytics. Finally, contact centers are becoming less of a differentiator for businesses to use to stand out from their competition.”

But all is not hopeless, Galt said, and he pointed out five techniques the panelists mentioned, which contact centers are employing to better manage analytics. They include:

1. Blended Analysis: Blended analysis means bringing data from your contact center applications and CRM together to create a comprehensive view or your customers.

2. Enterprise Capabilities: Best-in-class contact centers are moving away from standard canned reports and ad-hoc reporting to focus on systematically gathering business intelligence.

3. Quick Decisions: Top contact centers are shrinking time. Given how long it took to gather and process call center data in the past, decision making used to be reactive and important business decisions were often based on old data.

4. Self Service: All contact centers have different analytics and reporting needs. We have realized this at inContact, which is why we don’t create a one-size-fits-all solution. We provide the tools and capabilities necessary to do their own reporting and analytics.

5. Simplification: Contact centers are at the forefront of customer satisfaction, and everyone from agents to executives are now interested in the data gathered by this piece of the organization. Thus, leading contact centers are finding solutions and ways to present data where any user or executive can easily consume and make sense of it.

Analytics can be tremendously helpful in identifying trends and putting resources where needed. But it’s finding the right combination of people and technology that will help you succeed most quickly.