Contact Managment Magazine Issue 3 2019

THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MAGAZINE ISSUE 3 • 2019

The

People

Issue

❯❯ Changing strategies ❯❯ Harnessing the hybrid workforce ❯❯ The benefits of employee retention ❯❯ Staying powered…and safe ❯❯ Rewriting the customer experience ❯❯ Agent automation technology that works!

People

Changing strategies

By Sangeeta Bhatnagar

C

ustomer needs, technology and the evolving marketplace are changing contact centre recruitment and retention strategies for companies globally.

With a strong economy and a demand for top-tiered employees to train and deliver the best customer experience, companies are expanding the pool of talent from which they draw from in order to create a fully diversified and flexible workforce.

Consequently, the contact centre of today has increased diversity across age, culture, gender, learning style and location (onsite or at-home). Many new hires are now either second career or mature workers over 40 years of age. This is excellent as it provides a balance to the Gen Y (Millennials) and the Gen Z employees (those born after 1996). Some companies use a cost-per-call method with the at-home agents in order to increase efficiencies and to tap the part of the workforce who is looking for increased flexibility.

Working with technology With the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) it is important to acknowledge the positive impact to the customer and contact centre agent experience. AI and chatbots are commonly used for various simpler, repetitive functions in many companies, like account balance and reporting payments, thereby allowing the agents to focus on the more complex tasks delivering better customer experiences.

In order to maximize the benefits of AI, agents need the tools and the desire to learn how to utilize technology to enhance the customer experience and solve customer issues on the first call. When searching for top talent, that desire to learn, being coachable and willingness to solve problems must be identified.

Industry leader Nygel Weishar, who is director, NLP (natural language processing) & Social Media Strategy, Contact Centre Transformation, CIBC felt “there will be some subtle changes in what we look for and train to with the introduction of AI/chatbots”.

“At the core, the role is relatively the same: using your available systems to gather the right information in order to provide awesome client experiences,” he told me. “What changes is the higher degree of technology interaction [and] the pace of change increases. Overall [agents] need to feel comfortable working in the AI space. Ultimately, they [AI tools] are meant to make the roles easier [and] more efficient, but the biggest consideration point for agents is the 2 | Contact management

amount of learning they need to do”.

In terms of recruitment and identifying the right fit, “If an agent is very stuck in their ways, not open to working with technology and/or are not comfortable with the concept of AI would all be red flags for me,” said Weishar. “Otherwise, keep that north star of ‘motivation, intelligence and integrity’ in what you’re looking for and it shouldn’t be an issue.”

Recruitment/training impacts Contact centres no longer need to look for skills such as “listen, talk, type”. Instead, they need to also look for “listen, empathize, problem solve, type, communicate”, along with the desire to learn and willingness to adapt to work with technology. That includes being able to be trained on how to educate customers to work with the new technology in place, i.e. completing address changes or reporting a bill payment online or on automated systems.

Training for our diverse workforce must also be diverse. The training must be less theoretical, and more application-based to ensure that all new hires can learn all that is required. Trainers must be cognizant that different generations learn at different paces.

Here are several other key points to keep in mind.

1. Talk times will be longer as complex inquiries take longer.

Agents are now handling more complex tasks.

2. Frontline agents are expected to have great skills and knowledge. Since consumers are being empowered to utilize technology and self-serve options more, they are also more educated on products and services. Consequently, they

have higher expectations prior to their interaction with an agent.

3. Different skills for different channels. Since customers have the ability to communicate across multiple channels in the contact centre, companies need to hire agents that are adaptable enough to communicate well across any channel. The best hire would be someone that can adapt to the needs of the customer and work with technology to deliver the best service.

4. Ensuring that mature workers are accepted. When training and onboarding mature workers, it is important to make them feel like they belong and that being an agent is not just for the young. The role of an agent is so critical that a company is lucky to have a professional, articulate mature individual representing them. It is important to also be aware of the mature workers learning style may be very different from a Gen Y or Gen Z as those generations grasp technology very quickly as the bulk of them are digital natives.

Done right the introduction of AI and the benefits of a diverse workforce can lead to a dynamic contact centre providing great employee and customer experiences. Your organization will profit as a result.

Sangeeta Bhatnagar is the founder of SB Global, Human Capital Solutions (www.sbglobal.ca), a boutique firm specializing in the talent acquisition and development of top contact centre talent. You can reach Sangeeta @sbhatnagar212.

Issue 3 • 2019

People

Harnessing the hybrid workforce

By Nancy Porte

T

he concept of the 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. day is a thing of the past; if consumers have a question or a problem, they want it dealt with now. And, if this does not happen, they are more than happy to switch to the nearest competitor.

These demands are having a huge impact on how organizations support the customer experience and implement workplace technology. After all, employees are also consumers, and the omnipresence of technology in our personal lives is also driving expectations of technology in the workplace.

While preferences and customer journeys vary greatly, the results are clear. The demand for always-on service is very real. But are companies delivering it?

According to a recent survey by Verint, in collaboration with Opinium Research, loyalty and customer retention continue to decline globally, as just 44% of consumers say they have been with their service providers for three years or more: a 39% drop since a similar benchmark survey in 2015. So, what do companies need to consider in this age of “always on” where businesses are battling for loyalty with every transaction?

The always-on digital service Adoption of digital and automated channels has been driven in equal measure by customer demand and organizations’ desire to differentiate their customer experience while managing costs. But, combined with the broader technology transformation that is taking place, these digital channels have ushered in a new era of convenience.

And with it comes higher expectations. 77% percent of consumers said convenience was a major factor in choosing a service provider. Convenience particularly trumps price for over half of those 18-35 years old, with 53% saying they consider ease to engage as more important than cost when selecting service providers.

The cost of not being “always-on” could be extremely high. 60% of consumers globally expect to be able to engage with an organization on any channel and at any time. This suggests that if they do not meet this expectation, brands may lose a large swath of their customer base.

Yet consumers do not necessarily expect a human at the end of a phone every time they need help. Verint’s survey showed of those who felt more loyal through convenience, 83% were loyal to brands that use digital tools as the primary way to engage with them.

Don’t forget human interaction Digital channels have become a central part of the modern customer experience. But, contrary to expectations, they have not decreased the volume of interactions and calls to contact centres significantly.

That’s because the importance of humans to deliver Issue 3 • 2019

personalized service is high. Despite the ever-growing importance of convenience, consumers still value the ability to engage with a person, particularly for high-value interactions. 83% of consumers said that customer experience was a major factor in selecting their service providers. However, only 45% said that digital channels provided the best overall experience.

Replacing humans with technology across all channels wouldn’t just be unpopular with consumers. It would likely result in poorer business performance.

The dawn of the hybrid workforce Delivering an always-on experience that meets the high standards customers demand requires new approaches to engagement. But increasing the number of contact centre agents is not economically viable nor particularly scalable.

To succeed organizations continue to turn to automated solutions such as chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI)— leveraging a combination of man and machine (the hybrid workforce)—to drive customer engagement and operational efficiencies.

For example, robotic process automation (RPA) can automate guidance to agents to ensure they follow proper procedure while enforcing quality. Where agents have to navigate and update multiple applications, RPA can navigate between these applications and update multiple fields more efficiently and error-free. Finally, certain tasks can be fully automated and removed from human process, such as compiling and e-mailing form documents and surveys, which can reduce overall handle times.

Employees, like contact centre agents, are increasingly onboard with the hybrid approach. The survey findings show fear and apprehension around technology at work is subsiding and there is an increased

appreciation for automation. Over 70% are in favour of using technology to replace manual, laborious tasks.

And 82% percent of workers who reported high base levels of stress said they would welcome technology that would provide the right information at the right time.

The majority of those polled want their employers to use more technology. 58% percent said they want their employer to use more automation, such as AI, and 55% have asked their employer for better technology to help them work more effectively.

There is, not surprisingly, wide differences between age groups and their receptiveness to technology.

Workers aged 35 or younger were 260% more likely to ask for technology to help them work more effectively than those older than 50, and they are 100% more likely to want their employer to leverage advanced tools such as AI. But given the value of older workers, who have had a lifetime of experience with many and varied customer issues, and customers, there needs to be education and training to show how these new tools can help them become more proficient and effective in enhancing the customer experience.

By effectively harnessing technology, businesses can gain efficiencies through automating laborious tasks, provide always-on service through the latest digital channels and equip their employees with the right information at the right time. With these innovative tools, the workforce can be empowered and free to provide a more fulfilling engagement. In the always-on era, it’s the hybrid workforce that will be crucial to delivering on consumer expectations in the age of convenience.

Nancy Porte is vice president, Global Customer Experience, Verint (www.verint.com).

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People

The benefits of employee retention

By Atif Siddiqi

W

ithin the Canadian workforce, nearly 60% of employees are hourly, according to Statistics Canada1. They span across a number of sectors, most notably service industries like retail, fast food and contact centres.

Thanks to a strong economy and consumers’ appetites for services, demand for hourly workers has reached alltime highs, as replacing one hourly employee can cost more than C$3,300. Given the tight labour market and unemployment at record lows, contact centres are ramping up their efforts and the variety of benefits they offer to retain hourly employees: agents and supervisors.

While higher pay has been one of the top ways employers have been attracting new employees, not every enterprise can compete just by raising wages or do so immediately. But there are other benefits that employers can offer that don’t necessarily have to lead to excessive costs and that they can implement pretty quickly.

Predictability Unpredictable schedules are a major pain for both employees and employers alike. Employers face the challenge of anticipating and forecasting needs weeks in advance, but they often end up over- and understaffed.

Meanwhile, employees are often asked to fill in shifts at the last minute, leading to absenteeism or the same individuals overstretched.

It’s critical that employers retain and grow that talent.

Increasing predictability for hourly employees can not only help address a company’s own staffing challenges, but also decrease professional and financial stress. Research has shown that workers who had more than two weeks’ notice of their schedules had a nearly 75% likelihood of experiencing happiness, while workers who had two days’ notice of their schedules or less only had a 65% probability of being happy2. Employers that can maintain more predictable scheduling can reduce turnover rates as high as 15%. They can also decrease income volatility for hourly workers, who often experience some paycheque variance as their schedules shift.

Contact centre managers typically make schedules two weeks in advance for their hourly agents, but the variation in call volumes can lead to volatile forecasting after schedules have been set. Whether it’s changes in product releases, product recalls or credit card collections, a range of factors can impact forecast variance.

Therefore, find a tool that can take into account the real4 | Contact management

time demand that you can align with employee preferences. Having mobile capabilities is a plus too; Millennials make up the vast majority of hourly employees and are used to managing their lives from their devices.

Employees can easily enter their preferences from their own mobile devices while managers can quickly broadcast and fill shifts.

Flexibility Along with predictability, hourly employees often lack flexibility in both their schedules and pay.

Employees can also take a hit on their pay if the hours they work fluctuate or an unexpected costly emergency occurs. These one-time occurrences can easily derail their finances.

When considering a solution or strategy for making schedules more predictable, make sure that there’s a capability that allows them to increase flexibility too. Consider incorporating technology that can help match real-time demand with employee preferences so that managers can meet staffing needs while providing employees with greater flexibility and control.

There are also solutions that can help employees get paid when they want or have unexpected expenses. This flexibility helps decrease employee absenteeism while helping workers meet their daily needs or emergencies. But before implementing any kind of scheduling or financial technology, make sure your provider is compliant within your locations’ regions.

Engagement Employee engagement is a frequently tossed around term and priority, but executing on it is a different story.

With a mix of full-time and part-time employees, a variety of departments and higher turnover, engaging hourly employees remains a challenge for most businesses. While Canada does have higher engagement rates than other countries, a recent study from

Aon found that employee engagement in Canada actually declined in the last year3. As the interactions between contact centre agents and customers have evolved, engaged employees can make all the difference in customer service.

There’s a plethora of strategies for employee engagement, but a simple way to get started is to create more transparency within the business. Set up a communication channel to keep your employees informed and provide regular company updates. Depending on the size of your company, it can be as simple as bulletin updates in the breakroom, on digital displays or for companies with multiple locations, mobile-based feeds. Developing this sense of community and awareness within the company can help forge stronger connections with employees.

And updates don’t necessarily need to be company-centric: recognize a location’s team or individual employee accomplishments.

Taking small steps to increase predictability and flexibility can make a major impact in helping employees balance their professional and personal lives. They play pivotal roles across industries—especially contact centres—so it’s critical that employers retain and grow that talent.

Having a strategy to retain and foster your hourly workforce can lead to decreased turnover and increased productivity, ultimately boosting the bottom line. Especially as major companies are moving in this direction, incorporating changes now can help you stay ahead.

Atif Siddiqi is founder and CEO of Branch (www.branchapp.com), a mobile-first technology helping hourly employees grow financially.

1 Statistics Canada, “Employment, average hourly and weekly earnings (including overtime), and average weekly hours for the industrial aggregate excluding unclassified businesses, monthly, seasonally adjusted”, report, September 13, 2019.

2 Daniel Schneider and Kristen Harknett, “Consequences of Routine Work-Schedule Instability for Worker Health and Well-Being”, American Sociological Review, February 1, 2019.

3 Aon, “Aon survey: falling employee engagement in Canada is a “wake-up call” for employers”, press release, March 13, 2018.

Issue 3 • 2019

People

Courtesy NASA

Courtesy AccuWeather

Staying powered …and safe

By Jonathan Porter

W

hen more than 60% of the world’s economy relies on service-oriented organizations1, communication is crucial, especially when severe weather threatens. A myriad of consumerfacing companies from manufacturing to retail, financial services, computer technology and to telecommunications providers now rely on contact centre-provided services to connect and stay in touch with customers.

Direct communication between existing and prospective customers must remain seamless, especially when it happens at multiple touchpoints. In fact, a 2018 Serial Switchers report by NewVoiceMedia revealed that 67% of customers are willing to switch brands because of a poor customer experience (CX). Moreover, that same report indicated poor customer service is costing businesses more than $75 billion a year.

Weather risks and warnings But contact volume into contact centres can be affected by severe weather events, particularly for essential and key services such as transportation, utilities and insurance, Issue 3 • 2019

and for calls rerouted from severely impacted centres. With so much on the line with every incoming and outgoing call, e-mail and live chat message, downtime must be avoided at all costs to preserve a company’s reputation.

A reputation that can be tarnished with a single misstep, as one global insurance industry software firm’s contact centre found out when employees were allegedly told to continue working despite advanced warnings about an approaching tornado. The tornado came within a mile of the contact centre and put employee lives at risk, which resulted in multiple employees filing a formal complaint against their company for not allowing them to take shelter.

Having advanced warnings about approaching severe weather is critical

for making decisions regarding the safety of employees to reduce a company’s liability and ensure business continuity. And relying on generalized regional weather reports or government weather warnings doesn’t present an accurate and hyper-local picture of current or upcoming weather conditions specific to a company’s assets and operations.

Providing power Electrical power is a contact centre’s most serious resource to protect because when the power goes out, calls and contacts are not coming in, customers are not being helped and orders are not being taken. In fact, power outages result in customers being cut off from an organization or business: period.

If the power were to go out, how Contact management | 5

People long could operations be sustained and are remote agents in place to seamlessly pick up calls, records and data?

When blizzard-like conditions wreak chaos over an area with gusty winds, temperatures below zero and snow piling up, and when ice builds on power lines, it is hard to guarantee any power staying on.

Therefore, it is critical to have generators, paired with UPS (uninterruptible power supply) units to cover shorter outages and eliminate equipment-damaging spikes and surges. Also, that the generators and UPS systems are located in safe, secure weather-protected locations.

Ensuring that the generators are primed, and the UPS batteries are charged, ready to go and tested in advance when alerted about the potential for power to go out significantly reduces the potential for business disruption.

And that if you have home agents to have their systems connecting to affordable UPS systems.

Contact centres need to be ready for anything.

Having a site plan Every company needs a comprehensive emergency site plan, and site-specific, customized weather insights should be included in it. This plan helps to ensure that essential business functions and processes remain accessible during and after a power outage or impact from a storm. Without a plan, the impact of disaster recovery is heightened and makes contact centres more susceptible to the disruptive impact, ultimately, putting themselves at risk of losing customers, employees and business.

Saving lives and minimizing damage should always be the number one priority during any severe weather incident. When creating your plan, consider features that AccuWeather’s customized solutions can provide, including: • Consultation from expert meteorologists who can help contact centres establish or upgrade emergency plans and/or provide minute-by-minute insights to support an existing plan whenever weather is a factor; • Working with existing employee notification systems (like room or desktop digital displays) to serve as activation points. Help craft the right messages to

6 | Contact management

communicate if the decision is made to quickly enact appropriate safety procedures to shelter employees when threatened by severe weather. Develop means to alert and inform evacuated employees, and those who are at home or in transit to the contact centres; • Helping to formulate necessary actions to ensure business continuity and prepare physical facilities and vital business data in the face of severe weather, such as automatic failover of contacts and data to contact and data centres well outside of the likely impact radii from the at-risk locales; • Determining actual risks and when to execute emergency plans. This avoids needless, costly shutdowns when severe weather is in the area, but will not impact the facility(ies), despite what public, wide-area warnings may indicate; • Anticipating potential power fluctuations and outages from severe weather to protect contact centres and ensure operating uptime; • Insights that can help ensure appropriate staffing levels to enhance the CX and reduce customer wait in stressful situations caused by severe weather. Plan also for automated messages and customer service options on the IVRs, web sites and social media; • Looking into the future via seasonal forecasts and advanced notice of ice, snowstorms, rain and other global weather factors to understand how clients will be impacted; and • Offering custom consultation in times of crisis with expert

meteorologists to explain the nuances of a forecast and to increase the likelihood of accurate decision-making.

From severe weather alerts and imminent storm warnings, to historical and seasonal weather data and short-, medium- and long-range forecasts, customized solutions are designed to minimize risk and maximize profits. Each of these weather-driven insights have a measurable operational impact and quantifiable value based on the specific logistical and systemic needs of individual contact centres.

As the storm approaches, contact centres need to be ready for anything.

Having a trusted advisor such as AccuWeather is critical for contact centres to minimize business interruptions and ensure they have adequate coverage to maintain productivity: even when weather prevents agents from physically being in the office.

Jonathan Porter is AccuWeather’s (www.accuweather.com) vice president of business services and general manager of Enterprise Solutions. In this key leadership role, Jon directs all aspects of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions’ continued global expansion across all industries, including retail, transportation, manufacturing, entertainment, financial, energy, emergency management and many others. He is committed to delivering the most accurate, actionable weather data, forecasts and intelligence to help business clients worldwide save lives, protect property, minimize risk and drive revenue.

1 Patricia Buckley and Rumki Majumdar, “The services powerhouse: Increasingly vital to world economic growth”, Deloitte Insights, article, July 12, 2018.

Issue 3 • 2019

People

Rewriting the customer experience

By Vala Afshar

Y

ou are caller number 8. Please stay on the line and a customer service agent will be with you shortly.”

A few years ago, this message was a standard part of the customer experience. However, today’s customers expect more. They not only expect callback options, but also the ability to open a chat window on your web site or send a text message or a Tweet that will receive an almost instant reply. They want you to already know who they are when they call, and most notably today, they definitely don’t want to wait.

This is the new normal for the customer experience today. Customers want more than just the right product at the right price: they’re looking for the complete package. In fact, according to the third edition of Salesforce’s report, State of the Connected Customer, 80% of Canadian customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services.

Today, providing an exceptional customer experience has become an essential component of staying competitive. Here are some tips to differentiate your experience from the rest.

users to choose from a range of educational courses that will equip them with the skills required for their roles today, and for their future growth.

Revisit impacting processes

Integrate technology and automation

“

Time spent responding to customer inquiries is one of the many processes that directly impact customer service.

Others include, as examples, time spent taking orders, delivery times, web site functionality, manufacturing processes, product development, integration issues and the sales process.

To help narrow down the priority processes for your customers’ experience, your customers are actually your best resource. They will be able to pinpoint the exact ones that have the biggest, most direct impact on their satisfaction. Once you have that information, brainstorm with your customer service team on ways that can make these processes faster, seamless and more customer focused.

Invest in employee training As with most things, it takes training and experience to know how to effectively provide a positive experience. That same level of training, which includes your company’s mission statement and how you want to handle different situations, should be provided across your employees regardless of their experience levels. The sessions could include lessons on: • Technology and tools; • Understanding and navigating the company web site(s); • Real-life customer service scenarios; and • Phone, Internet and face-to-face.

Another best practice is to provide training refresher courses regularly to ensure employees don’t forget your processes. This doesn’t need to be onerous, either. For example, Salesforce’s Trailhead allows businesses and Issue 3 • 2019

Every customer interaction represents an opportunity to deepen the relationship.

In today’s business landscape, there are plenty of technology tools that help with everything from improving customer service to automating processes. Companies that have yet to incorporate technology as part of their customer service strategies risk lagging behind their competition.

Today’s customers expect 24/7 service, which is why businesses need to leverage artificial intelligence (AI).

AI chatbots, for example, can operate 24 hours a day and be taught to respond to basic customer inquiries.

This allows your customer service representatives to focus on the issues that require a more significant degree of attention and support.

Beyond the service AI tools can facilitate, they can also help mine through massive amounts of data to help detect patterns and trends, enabling you to better predict what customers will need, and when.

For example, this data can help you determine your success metrics as it relates to customer service. Some of the most popular metrics include Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Effort Score (CES). There are many

more to choose from, so this will come down to what’s common in your industry and what ties back most directly to your business.

Success examples If you’re still unsure of where to start, take a look at other success stories for inspiration. Indochino, a Vancouver, B.C.-based, digital-first menswear business has disrupted an industry by creating a seamless shopping experience that allows customers to order completely custom garments online. Digital service applications, like chatbots and marketing automation, have spurred their success and ability to manage complex orders, while staying in close contact after an order has shipped.

Beyond the service tools, Indochino also tracks key metrics like outbound interactions per hour, which has helped boost productivity by 300%.

Best Buy Canada, a historically more traditional bricks-andmortar retailer, has also embraced technology to provide a more personalized experience for each of the 280 million visits in-store and online each year. Customer service tools have enabled customer service agents to have visibility into customer interactions across phone, chat and e-mail, resulting in a 10% NPS increase year-over-year since 2017.

Impressively, the company’s first call resolution rate has also increased by 16% year-over-year in that same period. Every customer interaction now represents an opportunity to deepen the relationship and build brand advocacy and loyalty.

Honing your customer experience is crucial to differentiating your company from your competitors. Use these tips and business examples to find the customer service strategy that’s right for you, evaluate it regularly and finally, pay attention to how the quality of your customer service impacts your sales.

Vala Afshar is chief digital evangelist, Salesforce (www.salesforce.com).

Contact management | 7

People

Agent automation technology that works!

By Debbi Gillotti

M

any of today’s robotic process automation (RPA) technologies claim a speedy return on investment (ROI), but the reality can be markedly different. It is not uncommon for RPA deployments to require over six months to show any substantial ROI, if at all.

Customers are finding RPA technologies cumbersome to implement, difficult to maintain and a poor fit for the agent workflow. Ultimately, this makes it difficult for RPA projects to attain the ROI originally envisioned.

There is a better way: agent-driven shortcuts.

Agent-driven shortcuts are attended desktop automations focused on the most common tasks that contact centre agents perform each day. Some example tasks that are good candidates for automation are: • Finding and fetching customer information; • Creating and updating customer accounts/profiles; • Navigating to online tools and resources; • Researching processes and procedures; and • Annotating accounts and filling templates and forms.

How to optimize shortcuts Automating just a few of these steps can save significant time, improve compliance and enhance the customer experience. By mapping in the incremental time savings for each automation (see Illustration 1) and factoring in the number of uses by agent, it is easy to drive substantial savings in short order.

For example, in a modest 100agent contact centre, implementing shortcuts that save five minutes per contact, assuming 15 contacts handled/day multiplied by 100 agents, one could save 7,500 minutes a day.

Over a month that would equate to 3,750 production hours of savings (see Illustration 2).

Here’s how to make those steps.

1. Keep it simple. The key to any successful agent shortcut programme is to keep the automations as simple as possible. Those that span just a few steps are easier for agents to find and manage when actively engaged with customers. Also, by focusing on just of couple of steps in the workflow, these automations can be designed, tested and deployed in a matter of hours (not days or weeks).

2. Agent involvement. Another great positive with shortcuts is end user adoption. We have

Courtesy nVoq

Illustration 1

8 | Contact management

Issue 3 • 2019

People

Courtesy nVoq

Illustration 2

Courtesy nVoq

Illustration 3

seen that agents have much greater ownership and usage of solutions when they are actively involved in their design and creation. Also, we have seen that if the shortcuts are simple to update, adjustments can be made by the operations team making their usage—and stickiness—that much stronger.

Net result: faster ROI The bottom line is that automation simplicity, through Issue 3 • 2019

shortcuts, allows for a much faster ROI (see Illustration 3). Instead of going after a 100-step process that may take six months to design, build and then deploy (only to be used 3x a week), we look to start by automating the most common tasks that the agents perform on every call or contact.

By focusing on these incremental tasks rather than the entire workflow, agents can be up and running with new automations within a week and see tangible ROI within a few weeks.

Debbi Gillotti is chief operating officer, nVoq, Inc. (www.nvoq.com).

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