The document discusses trends in multi-channel contact centers that increase agent workload complexity. It emphasizes that improving agent performance is important for customer experience. Emerging technologies like proactive communications, social media integration, and mobile/video support require new agent skills. Enterprises are investing in workforce optimization and home agent support to address these changes. Optimizing wait time can reduce costs by shifting activities like training into idle agent periods.

1. Taking on the Multi-Channel Call Center
Proven Strategies that Increase Productivity and Improve
the Customer Experience
1

2. Knowlagent at a Glance
Call center agent productivity solution
Headquartered in Atlanta, GA
Founded in 1995
300,000+ agents in 17 countries using Knowlagent SaaS
2

3. Art Schoeller
Principal Analyst
Contact centers
Unified Communications
3 © 2009 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
2011

4. Eight emerging trends for contact centers
Social Proactive Speech
Media Communications IVR platforms
Unified Customer
Communications Analytics
Multi-channel Video and
SIP replaces CTI
Integration Mobile support
4 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

5. Market forces drive a renewed interest in true contact
center architectures
IVR Phone Email Web Video SMS Chat
Multimedia customer interaction platform
(CTI) or SIP
Social Media
Workforce Component
Knowledge Reporting
mgt. management
Quality Analytics
Formal center Home agents monitoring Presence Business
Intelligence
Perform.
Expert
mgt. Access
Business
Remote expert eLearning Apps
Virtualization
5 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

6. Communication channel usage trends…today
6 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

7. ….and tomorrow
7 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

8. And interactions will cross channels as well!
Browse
community
Social forum
Browse
Web
Browse Tweet
Facebook page
In Person
Service Agent Sales Agent
Contact
Center
Mobile
IVR Mobile
8 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

9. Where enterprises will invest
Which of the following upgrades is your firm planning for your contact center(s) during the next 12 months?
Multiple responses accepted
Workforce optimization 43%
Support for home workers 40%
Computer telephony integration 40%
Proactive outbound notification 39%
Upgrade to IP 36%
Upgrade IVR 35%
Social media support 31%
Add speech recognition applications to IVR 25%
Multichannel integration 21%
Contact center managed services 19%
Multimodal support such as mobile SMS and video 14%
None of the above 8%
Don't know 4%
Other 2%
Base: 304 North American and European networks and telecommunications decision-makers at
companies with 50 or more contact center seats.
Source: Forrsights Networks And Telecommunications Survey, Q1 2011
9 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

10. Proactive Communications becomes cost effective
way to reach customers
• Outbound notification and alert systems for
– Emergency notification
– Collections
– Customer care
• Customer care represents fastest growing market segment
• Reduce incoming calls and support revenue generation activities
• Stand alone offering or blended IVR application
• Support alerts to multiple devices, phones, cell phones, SMS, email
• Allow customer to transfer to agent as needed
• Uses advance speech technology for automated interactions
10 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

11. Mobile device and video support are becoming
core requirements
• Mobile device processing power and increased
bandwidth open new opportunities for self service
• Market growth due to increased use of cell
phones as smart devices such as iPhone and
Android to contact customer service
• Video or video clips to smartphones become
increasingly popular in EMEA where video
phones widely supported
• Integration to contact center means another
pathway for connecting with an agent
11 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

12. Contact center integration of social media
Observations
• Smaller volumes – may not require full queuing, routing, reporting structure
• Highly unstructured
• The entire industry is ‘on a journey’ exploring social media metrics
Recommendations
• Connect with departments leading social media effort – marketing for branding and demand
generation, consumer response for complaint handling, support teams managing ‘crowd
source’ communities
• Ensure that issues that are surfaced in other departments get visibility into the contact center
(entry into knowledge base)
• The need to textual analysis skills in the enterprise. Can be leveraged across knowledge
base, social media, email, chat, and speech analytics
• Possibly position social media handling as career path for senior agents
12 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

13. Implications for agent skill development
• A new call for ‘blended’ agents?
• How to engage the home agent?
• The unstructured nature of social media
• New self service channels (mobility, proactive
outbound) – what happens when a call is
extended to an agent from these channels?
• With a continued tough economy where turnover
is low – how to keep agents engaged and
‘fresh’?
13 Entire contents © 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

14. Multi-channel Support Increases Complexity and
Impacts Agent Performance

15. Impact of Agent Performance on Service Metrics
Source: November 2010 Knowlagent

16. Time Invested for Improvements
Industry Average Composition of Secondary Loss
21% Training
17% Coaching
Secondary Loss 12% 16% Team Meetings
Primary Loss 17%
11% Projects
Wait time 11%
9% Paperwork
Call Handle time 9% Call Research / Follow-up
60%
17% - Email, Call Back,
Knowledgebase, Etc.
Category 1
Source: 2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey

17. Wait Time: Five Weeks of Really Bad, Boring Vacation
Wait time = Five weeks; 2 minutes at a time.
Secondary Loss
24 x 2 minute breaks/ day 12% (off-phone work)
Primary Loss
120 x 2 minute breaks/ week 17% (Absenteeism, vacations
, etc.)
480 x 2 minute breaks/ month Wait Time
11%
5,760 x 2 minute breaks/ year
Call Handle time
60%
Costs our industry $30 billion/year
Source: 2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey
Category 1

18. Wait Time: Five Weeks of Really Bad, Boring Vacation
Wait time = Five weeks; 2 minutes at a time.
Secondary Loss
12% (off-phone work)
Primary Loss
Active Wait 17% (Absenteeism, vacations
, etc.)
11% Wait Time
Call Handle time
60%
Source: 2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey
Category 1

19. Shifting Shrinkage into Active Wait
Measurable productivity gains are realized by shifting 4.5 hours of
training, coaching, and communications into Active Wait time each
month.
Labor Savings
$810,000
Shrinkage $8,640,000 Shrinkage $8,640,000
Active Wait Time
Wait Time $3,024,000 Wait Time $2,214,000
Handle Time $17,136,000 Handle Time $17,136,000
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20. Push Almost Any Activity From Shrinkage to Wait
Today
Training/Knowledge
Occupancy
Compliance training
FCR training
Call Volume
Performance
Coaching on quality
Communication
Weekly union Tomorrow
communications
Occupancy
Back-Office
Claim or application Call Volume
processing

21. Customer Satisfaction
Getting First Call Resolution Done
Major U.S. Telecommunications Company
Using Knowlagent to deliver more
training, coaching, and communications to over 45,000
agents
Increased Delivery
“Delivered more training time to a site in 5 days using
RightTime than was delivered over 1 month when
manually scheduling time”
Improved Take Rate
“71.7% take rate for RightTime
vs. 59.4% take rate for pre-scheduled breaks”

22. Key Takeaways
• Emerging trends in the multi-channel contact center increase
complexity of agents’ job.
• Improving agent performance is crucial for enhancing the customer
experience.
• Enterprise investment in workforce optimization and support for
home workers is on the horizon.
• Wait time is abundant and when optimized, lessens the impact of
incremental costs of improvement.
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