A call logging, tracking and management tool, SupportCenter from royalblue
allows contact center agents to record incoming requests for support or
information, create escalation points and essential "action
tracks," and hand out assignments according to skill and availability
-- all while continually monitoring the status of open issues.
Additionally, MAPI and TAPI support allow organizations to automatically
populate incoming screen pops with past customer information and integrate
e-mail messages into its logging features. An "InfoMine" feature
also allows any agent to become an instant "expert" by allowing
him or her to tap into advice given to customers on previous calls through
an instant search of similar calls from the customer database.
Installation
SupportCenter was installed on a Pentium II machine running NT 4;
according to the latest literature it should also support Windows 2000. A
central function of this product is storing and managing information, so
the first step in installation is setting up or integrating with a
suitable database. SupportCenter works with Oracle and MS SQL Server
databases and ships with its own copy of Sybase's SQL Anywhere. Once a
data source has been established, the product itself can be installed.
There is not much to say (which is a good thing) about the server and
workstation set-up process; it was accomplished quickly and with no
hassle. We have tested products with far fewer features that were not half
as simple to install.
Documentation
The software user's documentation provided by royalblue is a set of bound
books, complete with glossy covers, diagrams, screen shots, an easy-to-use
cross-referencing system and a decent index. Aesthetics aside, the
information is sometimes a bit cursory, but nevertheless is clearly
organized and should suffice to familiarize an agent or supervisor with
the basics of the system. The complete kit provides not only a
comprehensive guide to all aspects of the software, including separate
documentation for Supervisors, Agents, Setup, Getting Started and What's
New, but also supplies information on how contact centers in general are
usually run. Online Help reflects most of the same basic content with the
added helpfulness of easily navigable search and indexing features. The
documentation would receive a perfect score were it to have more
step-by-step instruction, i.e., "point here, click there."
Features And Operational Testing
Call Logging and Hot Topics. Like any customer service/CRM system
of note, various forms of media, including faxes, e-mail, and of course,
telephone contacts, are treated as "calls" by royalblue. We
created calls by entering information into a central "Call
Details" window. Populated with fields and drop-down lists, this
relatively simple interface not only served as the initial interface, but
continued to convey the most basic information about each of our fictional
calls throughout testing. This window was manually triggered via a central
toolbar; if advanced telephony options have been licensed and configured
(using the MS TAPI standard), call details can be populated automatically
as an extension of a detailed screen pop appearing with incoming calls.
SupportCenter can also be integrated with e-mail so incoming messages are
converted into calls, and textual representations of call details can be
sent as e-mail messages to interested parties, or to send reminders or
assignments to other agents. The overall idea is to draw basic e-mail
functionality into SupportCenter's arena, allowing agents to accomplish
more from within its interface. In testing, we found this strategy
consistent throughout.
Two types of calls were logged in the Labs installation, one containing
an unusual or first-time request and the other a "Hot Topic," or
commonly encountered issue, question or request. In the former instance,
information such as customer name, contact information and issue discussed
were entered manually. As for the latter, in simulating a customer support
center for a manufacturer of cappuccino makers, we created a "Broken
Carafe" Hot Topic icon to account for a problem commonly encountered
on a particular product item number. In our fictional scenario, as soon as
our would-be CSRs received a complaint call about a faulty carafe, they
were able to automatically create a call containing the pertinent
information by clicking on this Hot Topic button. Especially important for
service providers, a "Hot Topic Instance" allows the user to
further specify topical issues that will only occur for predetermined
amounts of time.
The Call Tree. Once a call has been created, each time it is
viewed, a graphical Call Tree appears on the left side of the interface.
Similar to the folder tree in Outlook or Windows Explorer, it breaks down
the details of a call into a linear diagram, allowing more specific
details to be viewed consistently and to be clicked on for further detail.
Assignments, Action Tracks and Escalation Points related to a call are a
few of the many notes and details that can be viewed from this diagram. We
created assignments for employees as well as third parties, watching the
icons change along with status (resolved, reassigned, etc.). When
assignments were given only to a specific, fictional agent, the assignment
would appear only in that agent's Workload List. Assignments can also be
given to groups.
Action Tracks are essential tasks that must be completed in order for a
call to reach resolution. These are generally straightforward in concept
and execution: once a call is created, evaluated and an Action Track
determined, the agent assigns a path to the call by clicking an Action
Track button and filling in the details. From that point on, an icon
illustrates for subsequent agents whether or not the Track has been
resolved.
Also viewable on the Call Tree are details such as escalation points.
Tied into SupportCenter's use of Service Levels, which are methods by
which the product tracks call progress, escalation points are barriers
that change the urgency of a call once breached. While all escalation
points related to a call can be viewed in the Call Tree, their status is
also reflected in the Workload List that remains viewable on screen at all
times. The Workload List changes color depending upon call status: in our
installation, which contained a number of "calls" pre-populated
by royalblue, this list often appeared bright red to indicate breaches of
escalation points. The status would change as we "resolved" our
fictional calls.
InfoMine. InfoMine is a particularly compelling feature that,
like Hot Topics, allowed us to leverage existing information to
successfully resolve the issue of a call. Through a Search Builder
feature, each call becomes available for future searches. In our test
scenario, a fictional caller asked the question, "How do I drill
through concrete?" Accessing the InfoMine search tools either offline
or from within an active call, we were able to enter natural language
expressions into the field and have InfoMine bring up, in order of closest
match, all calls with information related to the question. In this case,
the database had been pre-populated with a call containing this
information, so upon conducting the InfoMine search, finding a result, and
clicking on it, a window was opened showing details of a previous call
whose Action Track contained the exact information we were looking for
(i.e., the type of industrial drill and bit needed to complete this task).
Through this feature, the system not only "learns" with each
successive call, but makes its new knowledge available to agents to help
them become experts almost instantly.
Designer. We used the Designer application to create custom
fields, menu items, drop-down lists and other features specific to the
needs of our fictional organization. Designer is entirely driven by
drag-and-drop; we were able to make a series of custom modifications very
quickly without employing any of our more technical knowledge (i.e., there
was no coding required).
Room For Improvement
We have little to recommend for improving SupportCenter, as we found it to
be a consistently impressive product. Nevertheless, throughout the course
of testing, it did occur to us that the product's default interface could
be a bit too complex to meet our needs were we to ask less technically
knowledgeable CSRs to use it, especially in a high-pressure, high-volume
environment. Although the Designer component addresses this issue,
allowing the user to remove any extraneous details and strip the interface
down significantly in order to meet any needs, it occurred to us that it
might require more work to remove screen details where simplicity is
desired than to simply add a few custom fields. Our recommendation is that
royalblue might allow users to choose from a few different interface
configurations with varying degrees of complexity. An organization asking
agents to log a smaller degree of information might then be able to begin
with a very simple interface and build up, as opposed to the reverse.
Conclusion
None of the features described in this review are wholly exclusive to
royalblue: indeed, most of them are, or should be, industry standards. In
spite of that, the company should be credited for offering all the right
ones -- logging, data mining, tracking, management and telephony/messaging
features -- and for doing so through what is a very centralized and
easy-to-use interface. This interface could be even better, as we
mentioned above, but it takes into account the demands of a busy agent,
who needs to place the call he or she is currently viewing ("Call
Details") in the context of his or her whole task list
("Workload List") as well as the context of a call's history
through the Call Tree. Any way of making customer history more accessible,
such as through this simple graphical representation, immediately elevates
a given product one step closer to a solution for true customer
relationship management. royalblue is right there, and given improvement
in the two minor features we've mentioned, we would have no hesitation
giving the product a perfect rating in all areas.
[ Return
To The March 2001 Table Of Contents ]
|