What has been the greatest challenge the contact center industry has faced in the last 12 months?
The biggest challenge is the result of the advent of VoIP: Enterprises are tasked with re-engineering their business processes to enable the migration to virtual call centers, and helping people within the contact center adapt to this virtualization.
Why has this been a challenge?
Re-engineering an enterprise’s business processes requires an enterprise to re-think how they connect and work collaboratively with their customers - especially in an IP world with multiple communication channels available 24 hours a day. In many cases, both contact center and enterprise applications are islands developed for a centralized world.
A true virtual enterprise and contact center, however, require new, open IP architectures designed to inter-operate with other enterprise and contact center applications. Migrating traditional applications to new architectures requires not only new platforms and ACD systems, but also new applications that are integrated to support these platforms. Additionally, managing remote workers requires new processes and practices to ensure quality customer interactions.
In 2008, what do you think will be the top priorities for a)Contact Center Managers b) Company Executives?
a) Consistent service while increasing revenues and maintaining cost measures
b) Customer loyalty while increasing revenues and maintaining cost measures.
What do you believe will have the biggest impact on the industry over the next 12 months?
Both data and voice analytics tools that are fed information from contact center application suites will make a significant impact on the industry. Specifically, these analytics tools provide real time views of a contact center’s operational status, including current revenue generation and customer satisfaction.
What impact have "external events" even had on your company, and how have you adapted your business?
The overall market shift from TDM to VoIP has benefited our bet on IP and reinforced our business focus and goals.
Do you feel the service you personally get as a customer is better or worse than it was a year ago?
Service is better because companies are starting to understand the immense value of the customer and the role of customer loyalty in a company’s overall success. As a result, more companies are putting a special focus on improving service through a variety of ways, including better technology applications and tools.
About Jon Silverman:
Jon Silverman is the Chief Technology Officer for Calabrio, Inc. Jon brings over 20 years of experience in the technology community, where he’s had a lead role in technology projects that have became successful commercial products. Jon has published numerous papers in professional journals on computer security, fault tolerance, distributed systems and software engineering; and holds patents on software architecture. Jon has a B.S. and an M.S. in computer science from Union College.
About Calabrio Software:
Calabrio Software develops and markets customer interaction software, workforce optimization software and business management software. By integrating workforce optimization within the team’s daily workflow, Calabrio helps customers align their contact center business processes with their business objectives.
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