A core consulting engagement that we perform is the “Strategic Operational Assessment.” This engagement type generally focuses on the customer experience, and specifically how operations in the contact center and in other areas of the organization impact that experience.
A typical engagement includes at least four to five days of on-site client meetings. The first activity we perform on-site is to sit side-by-side with contact center agents. During these sessions, we listen to customer phone calls, watch digital interactions, and observe how an agent resolves customer questions and issues. In these meetings, we might investigate what systems an agent uses, how many times an agent places the caller on hold, and whether the agent needs to transfer the call to complete the request.
Entropy is defined as a lack of order or predictability, or, in this context, the natural tendency of things to go from a state of order to a state of disorder.
The exponential growth of technology has companies scrambling to move to new services with the hope that VOIP, or UC, or WebRTC, or the latest flavor of BYOD will solve their communications problems. In the old days the scramble had companies moving from Centrex to PBX, to private networks, to remote modules, to TEM packages ... well, you get the idea.
Voice services have, historically, had a high level of reliability. This has led many who are not familiar with the technology to assume that because voice services are reliable, they must therefore be simple. This leads to a further assumption: Because it's simple, anyone can do it.
Well, maybe not.
While deciding which new telephony solution to acquire can be a daunting task (see my previous article 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Replacing Your Telephone System), getting it installed properly is a different challenge. During the sales process, our clients are often told that the vendor will take care of everything and the installation process will be easy. If only...
As consultants, we have acted as project managers on behalf of our clients and have been involved in hundreds of installation projects. While each project is unique, here are some tips for avoiding issues that we see most often.
It's true--a Request For Proposal (RFP) process can take a lot of time and effort. So when does it make sense to go through the effort?
1. When you are making a complex purchase, an RFP will help you organize both yourself and the vendors who are bidding the products and/or services you plan to obtain. Putting your requirements in writing up front helps you to decide what capabilities are essential and what is optional.