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mplsystems, providers of contact centre and field service technologies, have recently announced their inclusion in Gartner’s 04 May 2016 “Magic Quadrant” - for the CRM Customer Engagement Centre.

This positioning follows their inclusion as a Visionary in Gartner’s 15 October 2015 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) Western Europe, making them one of two vendors to appear in both Magic Quadrants.

This is the second consecutive year that mplsystems have been recognised in the Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center by Vice President and Gartner Analyst, Michael Maoz and Research Director Brian Manusama.

As stated in the report, “This Magic Quadrant examines the global market for customer service and support applications designed to engage customers through whichever channel they are using when they require assistance.”

"We are extremely honoured to be included in Gartner’s CRM Customer Engagement Center Magic Quadrant 2016; we believe it is a reflection of our pioneering technology, which allows agents to deliver an exceptional experience, regardless of whether the customer contacts the company via phone, social media, website or mobile device.” comments Paul White, CEO of mplsystems.

“We feel our inclusion in both of these reports provides validation of our unique capability to create true Omni Channel solutions - bringing together CRM and multimedia, alongside automation and complex business process management.”

 

Gartner evaluated a number of vendors for the 2016 report, performing more than 150 online surveys and 50 telephone interviews with vendor references, as well as conducting over 1000 inquiries with Gartner clients, further evaluating the products.

The report states that; “at the heart of a CEC is a case management and problem resolution system. It requires a strong ability to create, split, federate, join, assign and escalate cases, if it is not to be of merely marginal benefit to a CRM initiative.

The functionalities evaluated in this Magic Quadrant include those for knowledge-enabled service resolution, social media/community management and offer management. Also evaluated, are interaction assistance tools and service analytics dashboards.” Gartner also reflected that, “to support customers, some interactions will remain human-assisted, while far more will be automated and some will require customer self-service through search tools or social media channels.”

mplsystems’ vision is to transform consumer experience and agent efficiency in the service center, by bringing together all multimedia communications with contextual customer data in a single unified agent desktop.

The software guides agents through complex business processes whilst removing the need to hand actions off to the back office for processing.

Alongside this, their innovative self-service module filters out simple interactions for automation as it seamlessly routes the remaining transactions for agent assistance. What makes mplsystems really unique is their ability to offer not only these customer service solutions, but also cloud contact centre and field service technology as part of a truly end-to-end Omni-Channel solution.

About the Magic Quadrant
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

As self-service technology experiences rapid growth in industries such as retail and financial services, research reveals that the field service industry have been somewhat slower to adopt writes Paul White of mplsystems. 

Given that the role of the consumer has largely changed over recent years due to the consumerisation of technology, customers are now expecting to be able to have more visibility and control when it comes to interacting with a business.

Within the field service industry there is a growing focus on improving communication between the service desk and field engineer teams.

However, businesses are slowly realising that technology can also be used to improve communications with clients, offering a low effort experience that not only increases visibility and loyalty but generates cost savings.

Research carried out by mplsystems and Field Service News reveals that the number of organisations implementing self-service technology for their customers is slowly growing, with 40% of organisations offering some element of self-service technology to their customers.

However, it is clear that although there is a trend for self-service arising in the industry, many online portals and self-service technologies are still very limited in functionality with only 6.7% of respondents providing their clients with total self-service functionality.

It is clear that customer self-service technology is starting to make an impact in the field service industry, however the functionality of these solutions are still quite restricted and often do not provide the customer with the control they require.

Businesses need to make sure, when implementing self-service technology that they are integrated with other key business systems. This will provide the customer with all the tools they need to be able to action, amend and view their service requests, profile and billing.”

Therefore the key to successfully implementing customer self-service portals it to ensure they integrate with existing systems such as ERP, scheduling and engineers mobile technology. Without this integration, customers are unable to access the information they need and often continue to use the service desk to perform updates, changes and requests.

The portal needs to be able to provide the customer with the same level of service as the over the telephone, otherwise, as recent research by Software Advice concludes, introducing an online portal can do more damage than benefit if implemented incorrectly.

It is suggested that, despite the current popularity of online self-service portals, mobile app technology will rapidly become one of the most popular self-service solutions in the industry.

Research suggests that over 50% of smartphone users chose apps over phoning a contact centre and this will continue to rise as the influence of generation Y and the proliferation and innovation of mobile devices continues. However, only 5% of organisations currently offer their customers mobile apps as a communication channel into the service desk.

Nicola Millard, Head of Customer Insight and Futures at BT Technology, comments “It is predicted that by 2020 web chat and messaging via mobile devices will account for 40% of customer interaction with the service centre, whilst channels such as phone and email drop to 38% and 4%. Businesses need to prepare themselves for this channel transition by equipping themselves with the right technology.”

It is clear that the value of mobile app technology can be significantly increased when messaging capability is included. As traditional browser based web chat extends to messaging on mobile devices, it becomes possible to bring field engineers, the service desk and customers together in a virtual world, despite location or device.

When clients are speaking to a service desk agent and need further assistance, the agent can quickly open up a 3-way chat session with the appropriate expert or field service engineer from any location. Often client issues can be resolved in this way without the field service professional actually needing to visit the client site, proving cost effective and efficient for both the business and the customer.

After an award winning construction & property maintenance company implemented an integrated customer online portal, they experienced 100% business growth by being able to take on more business without having to increase resource and by providing differentiation when tendering for new business contracts.

The online portal now manages 75% of the businesses reactive job requests, significantly reducing the workload on the service desk whilst providing instant access for customers to report problems.

It is clear that the field service industry can gain many benefits from introducing self-service technology and with research suggesting that customers will continue to demand more control and visibility, implementing this solution is becoming essential to remain competitive.

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To find out more about customer self-service in the industry download mplsystems white paper: “Meeting customer demand: Evaluation of the top 3 customer self-service technologies for field service.”

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The contact centre remains an important asset to many field service organisations, but like field service itself the contact centre is rapidly evolving. Here Gregoire Vigroux, European Marketing Director, TELUS International looks at what the call centre of tomorrow may look like... 

2014 is already almost unrecognisable from the call centre of 1984, 1994, even 2004. It is hard to think of a sector which has been through more change. Yet within the next few years we will witness another revolution in the contact centre world.

This matters to anyone in business. As more and more business processes are outsourced to specialist contact centres so increasingly the ability to find the best contact centre provider and then manage that resource is becoming a key business attribute. Your parents may have been evaluated on their ability to provide customer service, but you are more likely to be appraised on your ability to manage a customer service provider.

It pays then to be aware of how the sector is changing, and to be certain that you are working with a contact centre provider that is at the cutting edge of 2015 or 2016, not stuck in what is rapidly seen as the prehistoric days of 2012. Here then are five key changes to the contact sector that we will see taking place in the next few years.

Contact centres will be multinational

In the contact centre industry, only global players will be able to serve the multinationals. Globalisation is in full swing: in the contact centre field, as in many others, market integration and increasing international competition are realities. Successful contact centres are choosing to internationalise and become stronger financially in order to adapt to the new demands brought about by their clients’ international development.

Only global contact centres with platforms capable of serving dozens of languages, preferably from a single site, will be able to provide the global multilingual solution major contractors desire. In addition to this, the management of call centres has become more professionalised. Nowadays, this sector attracts more and more graduate managers and career consultants, compared to a few years ago when the field was occupied by small entrepreneurs.

Staff attrition will be yesterday’s problem

Staff retention has been a perennial problem for the contact centre industry. According to a study this year by the Everest Group Research, entitled The Business Impact of Contact Centre Attrition, it is possible to quantify the operational costs and loss of revenue directly caused by staff departure.

According to the study findings, "a typical U.S.-based 500-person contact centre with a 30 to 50% annual attrition rate could suffer a net loss of US$1-2 million in business value across cost and revenue over one year.” The issue of contact centre attrition rates is obviously not new to our industry. What changes, however, is industry leaders’ awareness of this topic, and ability to address it.

Generation Y has arrived

Generation Y (Gen Y) – those born between 1980 and 2000 – is the new labour force for the sector. These individuals already account for 80% of the total number of employees in some contact centres. This generation is also on the "other side of the phone", because its members are keen consumers, accounting for almost US$200 billion in spending per year worldwide.

Excellent multi-taskers. Generation Y grew up surrounded by computers, mobile devices and video games consoles. This generation is confident with technology but it also has a shorter attention span. The Internet puts everything at Gen Y’s fingertips. As a result, Gen Y has grown accustomed to rapid shifts in attention, with focus tending to wane after about 15 minutes.

 

Gen Y makes decisions based on consensus – usually by checking social media. Gen Y members are team players and love helping to solve complex problems collectively. Finally, for Gen Y the pay is not the only thing that counts. Understanding and being recognised for their individual value is what matters to most of them. Hence the importance of building a corporate culture that reflects the characteristics of this generation.

Corporate culture will be the key to success

Building a corporate culture that reflects the qualities of Generation Y is a major challenge for most companies. In contact centres we find many examples of highly motivated employees who have managed to positively affect the curves of certain brands’ customer satisfaction. Implementing a strong and consistent corporate culture is now taken more seriously by managers, since studies have shown its impact on profitability. Experience also teaches us that culture, to be effectively implemented, must be disconnected from service levels and purely financial incentive methods.

 

No longer a "sub-contractor", but a "value-adding partner"

To survive, contact centres can no longer limit themselves to being mere "suppliers" or "sub-contractors". Today, they must fully understand the processes of their clients and be able to evaluate and improve them. The goal is to deliver real economic levers to their clients, acting positively on costs, as well as on the quality and productivity of their work.

In addition, contact centres need to know their clients’ business and what their strengths, competitive advantages, weaknesses and challenges are so they can effectively serve and help them. Contact centres of the future will no longer be simple platforms mechanically applying procedures. A handful of companies in Europe have already anticipated this development, shaping their entire supervisory staff using Six Sigma methodology.

Welcome to the contact centre of the future, a multilingual and global player in which Generation Y will be the main driving force. Contractors’ search for a low-cost service and immediate gain will gradually fade, giving way to a more strategic model of outsourcing.

Based on the developments that we are gradually seeing taking place, the contact centre of the future will no longer be a "sub-contractor", much less a "mere executant": it will be a true strategic partner and an authentic brand ambassador.

With a fully integrated product across the two companies customers are set to benefit from one integrated contact centre solution based on Intelecom Connect and Verint Impact 360 workforce management Software. The offering is available in one flexible cloud-based deployment model.

Intelecom Group AS, a provider of cloud contact centre technology, have announced the availability of  Verint Systems's Impact 360 workforce management and optimisation software as a cloud-based solution integrated into Intelecom Connect. This follows the organisations commencing their relationship earlier this year in May 2013 and is impressive in the speed at which they have ben able to collaborate as well as the depth of the proposition. Adding to Intelcom's contact solution, Verint are prominently placed in a field they define as "Actionable Intelligence" solutions and their product line already includes a suite of award-winning workforce optimisation software as well as an analytics tool Voice of Customer Analytics.

The closer alignment of service to other divisions within an organisation is one that is often cited as a critical steep in moving from cost centre to profit centre, or at the very least in increasing efficiency and reducing costs simultaneously. Of course one of the most obvious and simplest divisions for alignment to the service centre in in many cases is the contact centre as often they fulfil many similar if not overlapping functions.

An integrated, cloud-based solution will help multi-site, multichannel contact centres capture a full range of customer interactions for quality, compliance and customer intelligence that can be used to enhance operations, improve performance and heighten the customer experience. It also opens the doors wide to operational transparency which is key to the successful operation of an efficient service division.

When we then add in the more standard service management-esque elemeents to the solution which can help organisations automate workforce management, including staff forecasting and scheduling, and the ability to track agent adherence, while providing performance management we are starting to see yet another example of the more holistic platform approach to software that Sergio Barata referred to in his recent feature .

Torkel Engeness, CEO of Intelecom comments, “An increasing number of our customers using our cloud-based contact centre are placing more focus on enhancing the customer experience. There are clear benefits in using a robust and well-known workforce optimisation technology, deployed in the same flexible cloud model as our core product. Verint, with its proven portfolio of WFO and VoC Analytics solutions, makes it an ideal partner for Intelecom.”

Nick Nonini, Senior Vice President Sales, Verint Enterprise Intelligence Solutions^™adds, “Verint is committed to working with select partners to deliver our portfolio of solutions in the cloud. Our customers and the industry at-large continue to recognise Verint as the market leader and innovator in deploying WFO applications in a variety of environments, from on-premises to the cloud. With this partnership, Intelecom’s customers have access to a fully-integrated, cloud-based WFO solution.”

Intelecom Connect is at the time of writing as close as any other offering to being the complete contact centre solution available in the cloud.  Of course the fact that it follows the SaaS model also provides a number of other benefits including being affordable to those companies for whom such technology may previously been prohibitively expensive to obtain.

The flexibility of the Connect application programming interface and Web Services allows seamless integration into third-party software environments. This partnership not only provides Intelecom customers with advanced workforce management technology typically associated with on-premise licensing, but also makes it available on an integrated in-the-cloud, pay-as-you-use basis from a single supplier. Offering customers flexibility in deployment, it also can help them meet their business requirements as they evolve.

Verint’s Impact 360 Workforce Optimisation suite enables organisations to capture, analyse and act on customer, business and market intelligence, and gain a complete multichannel view of customer interactions and experiences. Again the type of technology at the top of a lot of field service managers wish lists currently.

Using tools like this companies can identify opportunities to refine and enhance products and services; maximise information and workflow across functions; learn about competitive and other changing market dynamics; fine-tune internal business processes; enhance staff sales/service delivery; reduce operating costs; and realise new revenue opportunities. All extremely commendable in its own right.

Brought together these options certainly make for a compelling package and it's good to see such strong collaboration yielding impressive initial results.