TMCnet News
New Empirix Service Benchmarks Contact Center Performance from Customers' Perspective WALTHAM, Mass. --(Business Wire)-- April 19, 2004 -- Empirix Baseline summarizes Quality of Service provided by automated systems, including response times, speech recognition rates and transaction failure ratesEmpirix, the leading provider of integrated test and monitoring solutions for Web, voice and network applications, today launched a new service that helps companies benchmark the performance of automated systems in their contact centers. Called Empirix Baseline(SM), the service provides quantitative, objective data that can be used to formulate goals for upcoming technology rollouts or service-level agreements, measure results of recently deployed technology, or simply to assess performance against industry norms. Empirix Baseline utilizes the company's award-winning Voice Watch(TM) hosted monitoring service, which dials into a voice application just as a customer would, navigates prompts and menus, and measures every step of a customer transaction - for instance, checking an account balance or placing an order. The transaction is run at predefined intervals (generally every 15 minutes) for two weeks. At the end of the two-week period, Empirix consultants analyze the data and present a summary report incorporating critical metrics such as time to connect, time to greet, menu response times, speech recognition rates, transaction lengths, transaction failure rates, and call quality (meaning clarity and sound quality of automated responses). Metrics can be customized, and performance compared to industry best practices. The report also includes recommendations for improving future performance. Empirix Baseline measures performance of a contact center's second workforce - its automated systems Dr. Jon Anton (also known as "Dr. Jon"), director of benchmark research at Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality and founder of BenchmarkPortal, noted that few companies are focused on measuring and managing performance of automated contact center systems today. "I've worked with hundreds of contact centers over the years," said Dr. Jon. "Most have some way to measure agent quality and productivity, but very few are measuring the quality of their other workforce - their automated systems. Because most callers interact with an automated system during a transaction, it's crucial that companies understand what their customers are experiencing. Taking baseline measurements is the first step toward making improvements." Joe Alwan, vice president, Enterprise Marketing, for Empirix, noted that benchmarking is a critical element in a lifecycle approach to maximizing the effectiveness of automated contact center systems. "Empirix Baseline provides the data required to form specific goals and objectives for improving Quality of Service," said Alwan. "It's an inexpensive and fast way to ensure that your investments are focused on the areas that will have the most impact on customers and costs." Pricing for Empirix Baseline begins at $5,000 to benchmark one customer application. The service is available immediately. About Empirix Empirix is the leading source for test and monitoring solutions that measure, manage, and enhance the performance of Web and voice applications, contact centers and communications networks. Empirix delivers powerful and innovative products and services that improve end-users' Quality of Experience (QoE) while reducing development costs and improving time to market. Empirix currently delivers products, services and support to more than 3,400 customers worldwide, including Global 2000 enterprises, network equipment manufacturers and service providers. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Empirix has offices throughout the United States, and in Europe and Asia. For more information, visit Empirix on the Web at www.empirix.com. Empirix Baseline, Voice Watch and Hammer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Empirix Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. |
