Real-Time Data for the Long Term

By Joe Fleischer
Until the middle of this decade, the most visible displays of real-time data in call centers were from readerboards and wallboards that contain light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The types of electronic displays you now find in call centers are far more versatile, and they can present information from more sources, than LED models. Yet despite these advances, call centers primarily track real-time data not to improve their ability to plan

To understand why this is the case, it’s instructive to look at how call centers historically collected and presented realtime information. Call centers have long relied on LED displays to disseminate data among agents, like the number of different types of calls that are coming in, and how long, on average, customers wait on hold. Call centers also use LED displays to present messages that inform a group of agents about a situation they all need to know about, such as when too many customers remain on hold for too long.

LED models continue to possess a number of advantages over newer kinds of displays that are now available to call centers. Compared to liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma monitors, LED models have the widest viewing angles, they last the longest and they are often the least costly.

But as reliable as LED displays are, they have had significant limitations. One limitation used to be that these displays could only gather information from one type of source. When the public Internet and corporate intranets first became ubiquitous, manufacturers and distributors of LED readerboards recognized they no longer had to rely solely on the reporting mechanisms of individual phone switches to enable displays to present information to agents. So they designed LED displays that could receive and convey information across call centers’ computer networks.

Eventually, call centers were able to run their most important systems, including call routing, scheduling, interactive voice response (IVR) and call monitoring systems, on computer networks. So electronic display vendors introduced middleware to collect information from these systems. Display vendors also used middleware to show snapshots of some of this information on agents’ computers. In this way, call centers could use readerboards to disseminate information, such as average hold times, that encompassed the entire center. At the same time, agents would be able to see information on their computers that specifically applied to them, such as whether they adhered to their schedules.

Now that plasma and LCD displays are affordable to most businesses, call centers no longer restrict themselves to LED readerboards. A call center has the option of showing video feeds, including news and weather that affect its overall business, on the same monitors on which it displays call center statistics. Gathering real-time information from sources besides phone switches allows a call center to understand its performance in a context that extends beyond how much time agents spend on the phone. When a call center uses real-time information as a means to improve performance, it can replicate outcomes it aims to achieve and prevent outcomes it aims to avoid.

For example, during an influx of calls during which a significant number of customers hang up after waiting on hold, it’s valuable to find out at what point in time during the influx the center receives more calls than agents can handle. Based on this information, call centers can pinpoint what they need to do to enhance agents’ abilities to assist customers.

Perhaps agents need cross-training to answer more types of calls. Perhaps, with the help of your IT team, you can reduce how long it takes agents to look up and update customers’ records. Perhaps you can enable agents to receive information that a customer has already provided to your IVR system or to other agents; you can prevent a situation where the customer has to convey the same information multiple times during the same call. In all these scenarios, you discover what resources you need to upgrade your service.

The primary reason call centers gather and view real-time information isn’t to react to circumstances as they happen; it’s to change their circumstances for the future. Call centers that regularly distill real-time information from a variety of sources are the best equipped to continually improve their communication with customers.

Joe Fleischer has covered the call center industry for more than 11 years. With Brendan Read, he co-authored the book The Complete Guide to Customer Support.

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