Big Data Demands Smarter Infrastructure
By: John Bantleman
In today’s Big Data Age, companies are grappling with more data than they know what to do with. The challenge facing businesses is figuring out how to properly turn big data into a profitable resource, especially since much of our customer data is siloed from other business metrics.
When done properly, data analysis can provide invaluable insights into customer behavior, help companies anticipate customer trends, and make customer experiences more relevant and timely. By treating Big Data as a business asset, companies will have the competitive advantage they need to innovate, increase revenue, improve the bottom-line and keep customers happier.
At the contact center level, how can you use Big Data to improve business results, such as operational effectiveness, customer support and personalization?
Here are my three tips for managing and capitalizing on Big Data to enhance the customer experience:
1. Use agent data.
In the contact center, the first way you can begin using Big Data to create a better customer experience is to better understand your own agents. From historical call records and customer-agent interactions, you have extensive data about your agents’ strengths, weaknesses and specialties.
Armed with this wealth of knowledge, you can create a scoring system that matches callers with the best agents to handle their issue. You will also be able to highlight your top performers, as well as provide support and training to boost lower performers.
About Ericsson
Ericsson provides industry-leading OSS/BSS solutions and professional services, based on the deepest and broadest experience in the business. With the agility to help you realize your tomorrow today, our solutions and services are helping operators around the world succeed in the Networked Society. This means being fast, flexible and in control, delivering great experiences to consumers, operating efficiently and developing innovative new offerings for a diversifying market. In a world where mobile, broadband and the cloud are fueling a fundamental transformation, managing the subscriber lifecycle and experience will become even more important and challenging. Look to Ericsson to support your modernization and integration efforts across the full OSS/BSS landscape. www.ericsson.com/ossbss
Another benefit of having data informing you where your agents excel is that you will be prepared when an unexpected crisis hits your call center, such as a product recall, seasonal call overload or a new product promotion. Some agents will naturally be gifted at handling crisis calls, and having the right data to identify them helps everything run more smoothly as other agents manage day-to-day operations.
To make the best use out of agent scoring data, contact centers should also select a system for automating the process of scoring and ranking their agents. Analyzing agent data is a time-consuming task when left to individual contact center managers, and automation allows everyone to make better use of results. By automating the agent scoring process, it is easier to adapt to changing business needs, as well as act more quickly on the results of agent data analysis.
2. Implement predictive analytics.
Predictive analytics is a powerful resource you can use to evaluate risks and opportunities potentially affecting the future of your business. One study recently conducted by Opus Research reported that contact centers can analyze their historical data to determine the drivers that have the most effect on peak contact center performance. When you select the best analytics products and apply them to the contact center, you have the ability to improve your customer experience and your bottom line.
