Cookie Preference Centre

Your Privacy
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Performance Cookies
Functional Cookies
Targeting Cookies

Your Privacy

When you visit any web site, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences, your device or used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually identify you directly, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. You can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, you should know that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on the site and the services we are able to offer.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site may not work then.

Cookies used

ContactCenterWorld.com

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources, so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies, we will not know when you have visited our site.

Cookies used

Google Analytics

Functional Cookies

These cookies allow the provision of enhance functionality and personalization, such as videos and live chats. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies, then some or all of these functionalities may not function properly.

Cookies used

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Targeting Cookies

These cookies are set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant ads on other sites. They work by uniquely identifying your browser and device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will not experience our targeted advertising across different websites.

Cookies used

LinkedIn

This site uses cookies and other tracking technologies to assist with navigation and your ability to provide feedback, analyse your use of our products and services, assist with our promotional and marketing efforts, and provide content from third parties

OK
[HIDE]

Here are some suggested Connections for you! - Log in to start networking.

EXECUTIVE MEMBER
Ikhwal Sidiq
Assistant Manager Trade and Remittance Services
408
MEMBER
Athina Karahogiti
Global Deputy Chief Client Officer
2
MEMBER
Thamer Noori
Director of Industrial Security and Safety Dept.
13
EXECUTIVE MEMBER
Eric Young
President / Contact Centre & Business Optimization Consultant
30

Drinking from the fire hose - The challenge of 'big data' in the contact center - Jamie Stewart - ContactCenterWorld.com Blog

Drinking from the fire hose - The challenge of 'big data' in the contact center

As more contact centers escape the confines of physical location and become virtual/ cloud-based, the customer interaction data produced can start to increase. This has the potential to grow massively, even exponentially, in a short time, and is virtually unlimited. This phenomenon has been dubbed 'big data' and if it hasn’t reached you yet, it may be closer than you think.

Managers must carefully consider how to cope with, and extract value from, this big data load; high performance tools are needed that, as some have put it, can drink from the fire hose.

Infinite Scalability

In the good old days, call center systems were largely finite; 'X' number of agents over 'Y' period will produce 'Z' Specific Data Items creating 'V' volume of data. X and Y could be predicted and Z was static, so V could be calculated fairly accurately, and storage and retrieval systems for that data could be built accordingly.

In the new world of cloud/ hosted contact centers, systems have become almost infinitely elastic and therefore inherently unpredictable. As the variables increase within these systems, data becomes 'big data'. For example:

  • Number of agents
    Hosted/cloud systems provide ease of scalability and agent numbers will increase/ decrease as demand dictates. 100 today might be many times that tomorrow.
  • Specific data items
    Systems once only collected known KPIs – talk time, wrap time, per call, etc. The new world calls for infinite extensibility, even the definition of new metrics, and certainly the ability to customise and extend.

The period a report could cover has not changed and must still be configurable, spanning anything from minutes to years.

Tools that can Cope

The speed of storage and retrieval of high data volumes is a major issue. Traditional SQL databases do not lend themselves to ultra-fast read/ write, so users are looking elsewhere.

The breed of tools known as 'noSQL' (e.g. mongoDB) is built to deliver in this environment. These maintain many of the familiar SQL features, and facilitate speed by adding some unique functionality, e.g. the ability to process many transactions simultaneously via contention-free, non-locking updates; fast handling of unstructured data in a file system rather than a database.

But capture of big data is only one side of the coin. The other is that the data is practically useless unless it can be ordered, analysed and processed. Only then can comparisons be made, patterns emerge and big data become business data.

In order to start making sense of the data explosion, the right tools are needed and are coming on stream. In order to aid the speed at which meaningful results can be produced, many of these employ several methods of data aggregation.

  1. Real-time aggregation 
    With this method, real-time data is used to update counts of events – e.g. live connects, abandoned calls, etc – and other calculated metrics – e.g. average talk time. Running totals can then be used in reports without any need for further processing, database interaction, etc., producing results much faster than otherwise possible. This method also reduces the need for the more time-consuming periodic aggregations below.
  2. Periodic aggregation (MapReduce)
    Periodic aggregation (a.k.a. MapReduce) is commonly available off the shelf within noSQL systems. Using this method, the work of aggregation is carried out simultaneously by many processors, maybe within the same server, maybe in a widely distributed cluster. The results are then fed back to a master process which presents the results as output to a reporting system or writes to a database. As this method is more processor intensive, it cannot be done in real-time with big data.

Using a combination of real-time and periodic processes, various levels of aggregation are possible, depending on the view of the data required, e.g. an hourly report, weekly, monthly, or even yearly. As resolution zooms out, the level of detail required reduces and a higher level of aggregation is possible. As the metrics are already available, fast load time is maintained. Of course, no two users have the same requirements, so the levels of aggregation must be customisable.

But care must be taken in order to maintain accuracy when the user needs it. Aggregation must occur alongside the capture of individual interaction events, so that data is not lost and then has to be approximated.

Maybe you have not had to make any decisions about a 'big data' strategy yet; the fire hose may be safely trickling right now. But we suspect that any call center of 100+ agent seats will have to deal with this pretty soon. When the time comes, make sure you choose technology that is flexible enough to cope with future demand, so you will be waving, not drowning, when the fire hose is opened up.

Sytel Limited - contact center software & solutions

Publish Date: September 17, 2012 5:57 AM

About us - in 60 seconds!

Join Our Team

Industry Champion Award Leaderboard

Most active award (top 10) entrants in the past 48 hours! - Vote for Others / About Program
Submit Event

Upcoming Events

The 19th AMERICAS Annual Best Practices Conferences are here! Meeting Point for the World's Best Contact Center & CX Companies Read More...
 31753 
Showing 1 - 1 of 3 items

Newsletter Registration

Please check to agree to be placed on the eNewsletter mailing list.
both ids empty
session userid =
session UserTempID =
session adminlevel =
session blnTempHelpChatShow =
CMS =
session cookie set = True
session page-view-total = 1
session page-view-total = 1
applicaiton blnAwardsClosed =
session blnCompletedAwardInterestPopup =
session blnCheckNewsletterInterestPopup =
session blnCompletedNewsletterInterestPopup =