Start Planning For 2012 With ICMI's Latest Research!
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Centers that are blending inbound and outbound calling today are in the clear minority — partly because they may not have had access to sophisticated tools that make blending feasible.
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Increasing customer satisfaction is a more motivating driver for blending than additional revenue alone.
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Most blended centers, and centers that would consider blending, are seeing or expecting a positive impact on both customer satisfaction and additional revenue generation.
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Inbound call centers that don’t account for (or aren’t even tracking) outbound calls may be experiencing drops in service level as a result.
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Centers have growing confidence that service agents could transition to a selling environment and vice-versa.
21 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
- Overview and Executive Summary
- Key Findings
- Study Results
- Respondents’ Background
- Key Components of a Successful Contact
- Challenges to Balancing Call Center Efficiency with the Customer Experience
- Key Metrics for Striking the Balance
- Barriers to Success – Efficiency
- Barriers Challenges to Success – Experience
- Enablers – Efficiency
- Enablers – Experience
- Impact of People, Process and Technology
21 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
- Respondents’ Background
- Customer Contact Channels
- Respondents’ Background
- Customer Contact Channels
- Self-Service Transaction Volumes
- Investment in Customer Self-Service Technologies
- Key Drivers for Customer Self-Service Implementation
- Customer Self-Service Channels and Offerings
- Services Offered Via Self-Service Channels
- Rating the Success Self-Service Channels In the Contact Center
- Operating Cost Reductions
- Increases in Customer Satisfaction
- Efforts to Educate and Encourage Customers to Use Self-Service
- Supporting Self-Service Channels
- Web Self-Service Support
- Customer-Centric Self-Service Development
- Impact of Self-Service on Service Level for Live-Agent Telephone Contacts
- The Multichannel Workforce
- Recruiting and Hiring
- Workforce Management
22 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
- Forecasting and Scheduling Practices
- Key Forecasting Practices and Strategies
- Forecasting for Email and Chat
- Use of WFM Technologies and Tools
- WFM System Purchasing Process
- WFM System Features and Functions
- Workforce Management Training
- Staffing/Scheduling Practices and Alternatives
- Permanent Part-Time Agents
- Seasonal Agents
- Outsourcing
- Alternative Full-Time Schedules
- Reserve Teams
- Home Agents
- Staff-Sharing Initiatives
39 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Operations Management, Sales in the Call Center, Inbound Sales, Blending sales and service
In June and July of 2011, 440 call center professionals from around the world shared with ICMI how – and if – they handle inbound and outbound as well as sales and service contacts in their centers. Our goal was to understand the industry’s practices around these activities: how centers account for resources and how their centers perform under current practices.
Key findings from the research include:
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Centers that are blending inbound and outbound calling today are in the clear minority — partly because they may not have had access to sophisticated tools that make blending feasible.
-
Increasing customer satisfaction is a more motivating driver for blending than additional revenue alone.
-
Most blended centers, and centers that would consider blending, are seeing or expecting a positive impact on both customer satisfaction and additional revenue generation.
-
Inbound call centers that don’t account for (or aren’t even tracking) outbound calls may be experiencing drops in service level as a result.
-
Centers have growing confidence that service agents could transition to a selling environment and vice-versa.
21 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Operations Management, Sales in the Call Center, Inbound Sales, Outbound sales
As customer service becomes more popular as a distinguisher among companies and products, organizations that strive to deliver a distinctive customer experience must do so while managing their resources to deliver the goods at the most reasonable cost.
In January and February 2011, 428 contact center professionals working in centers of all sizes and shapes around the globe participated in the study, sharing critical information about their centers’ ability to strike a balance between call center efficiency and the customer experience.
Key issues presented in this study:
• Overview and Executive Summary
• Key Findings
• Study Results
• Respondents’ Background
• Key Components of a Successful Contact
• Challenges to Balancing Call Center Efficiency with the Customer Experience
• Key Metrics for Striking the Balance
• Barriers to Success – Efficiency
• Barriers Challenges to Success – Experience
• Enablers – Efficiency
• Enablers – Experience
• Impact of People, Process and Technology
26 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Operations Management, Cost Performance, Reducing/Preventing Costly Contacts, Customer Satisfaction Measurement/Management
As customers demand more responsive and more convenient service, more and more call centers are turning to self-service and multi-channel technologies. While IVR (interactive voice response), email, chat, Web calls, and self-service interactions provide greater flexibility, these alternate channels, when not optimized, also create increased complexity for customers and call centers alike. So, how well are contact centers meeting their customers’ needs, as well as their own with these channels?
In October 2010, 404 contact center professionals working in centers of all sizes and shapes around the globe participated in the study, sharing critical information about their centers’ customer self-service operations. Results support that self-service and multichannel operations for most contact centers cannot be described as a “well-oiled-machine.” Discover the challenges and deficiencies other call centers face; identify potential issues within your own center. Use this report to further develop successful self-service and multichannel strategies within your call center.
Key issues presented in this study:
- Respondents’ Background
- Customer Contact Channels
- Respondents’ Background
- Customer Contact Channels
- Self-Service Transaction Volumes
- Investment in Customer Self-Service Technologies
- Key Drivers for Customer Self-Service Implementation
- Customer Self-Service Channels and Offerings
- Services Offered Via Self-Service Channels
- Rating the Success Self-Service Channels In the Contact Center
- Operating Cost Reductions
- Increases in Customer Satisfaction
- Efforts to Educate and Encourage Customers to Use Self-Service
- Supporting Self-Service Channels
- Web Self-Service Support
- Customer-Centric Self-Service Development
- Impact of Self-Service on Service Level for Live-Agent Telephone Contacts
- The Multichannel Workforce
- Recruiting and Hiring
- Workforce Management
22 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
IVR based self-service, Web-based self-service, Self-Service, Operations Management
Effective workforce management (WFM) involves the totality of forecasting, staffing, scheduling, and making adjustments in real time when unexpected changes occur. The objective is to get the right number of people in the right places at the right times, doing the right things. No more, no fewer -- overstaff your center and profitability will deteriorate as costs increase; schedule too few agents and customers will abandon, handling times will increase and poor word of mouth will put your brand at risk.
In March/April of 2010 ICMI conducted its largest research study yet on workforce management. Participating in the study were 545 call center professionals -- representing a wide range of industries and geographic regions -- who shared their centers’ forecasting and scheduling practices, allowing us to evaluate and offer insight on how centers embrace workforce management technology and tools today, and to examine the various staffing strategies employed to manage a dynamic workload, including:
- Forecasting and Scheduling Practices
- Key Forecasting Practices and Strategies
- Forecasting for Email and Chat
- Use of WFM Technologies and Tools
- WFM System Purchasing Process
- WFM System Features and Functions
- Workforce Management Training
- Staffing/Scheduling Practices and Alternatives
- Permanent Part-Time Agents
- Seasonal Agents
- Outsourcing
- Alternative Full-Time Schedules
- Reserve Teams
- Home Agents
- Staff-Sharing Initiatives
Download Executive Summary 
39 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Operations Management, Technology, People Management, Strategic Value
ICMI’s 2008 People Management and Operations Survey is the largest such study in its 20-year history. Contact center professionals from around the world,representing various industries and center sizes, answered comprehensive questions on a substantial assortment of critical topics and challenges managers face today. Topics include recruiting, assessment, training, development, motivation and retention, workforce management, performance measurement, quality assurance, budgeting, and contingency planning.
Operations Management, E-support, Metrics/Performance Measurement, People Management
Research by the North American Telecommunications Association shows that 90 percent of customers on silent hold will abandon after 40 seconds. That means that you could lose those customers if they’re not hearing something. Playing music for callers who are on hold will increase the hold time by 30 seconds; however, the type of music played will have an affect on the caller’s perception of delay.
Customers want choices—and offering them options on how their time is used while on hold is key to satisfaction and loyalty. This ICMI special report will take you through 14 steps that will help you to develop effective delay messages that will keep your callers on the line. In addition, the report looks at several key issues involved such as the following:
- When Do Callers Abandon?
- Impact of Delay Messages on Customer Satisfaction
- The Seven Factors of Caller Toleranceli
- Impact of the Queue on Average Handle Times
13 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Successful contact centers are highly customer-centric, and the specific technologies they have in place reflect that. Few tools have a bigger impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty (as well as on operational costs/efficiencies) than do those with which customers interact directly—i.e., interactive voice response (IVR) systems, email/chat applications, and Web self-service tools.
To help uncover common trends and highlight best practices with regard to the utilization of customer-facing technologies, ICMI conducted a comprehensive survey on the topic in August/September 2006, with responses coming from 276 contact center professionals who collectively manage small, medium, large and enormous centers in a variety of industries.
The 2006 Contact Center Customer-Facing Technologies Survey Report includes findings on the following tools:
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
- Virtual Queuing Tools
- Email
- Web-enabled Tools
7 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
The contact center represents the ears of the organization, collecting invaluable customer data that can lead to overall business improvement and increased revenue. Consequently, companies don’t want to hand over their contact center operations to just any agency. Nor do many want to hand over the entire operation.
To get a better glimpse of what’s happening today in contact center outsourcing—including what percentage of organizations currently outsource customer contacts, what types of contacts they are outsourcing and the biggest outsourcing benefits and challenges they’ve experienced—ICMI surveyed 279 call center professionals. Most were from North America, but managers around the globe also responded in late-March/early April 2006.
The 2006 Contact Center Outsourcing Report includes the following:
- Contact Center Outsourcing Survey Results
- Foundations of Effective Call Center Outsourcing
- The Truth about Global Outsourcing: 10 Lessons Learned about the Difficulties of “Getting It Done”
- Call Center Recall: Bringing Outsourced Operations Back In-house
16 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Telework initiatives are nothing new to the contact center world; centers started experimenting with home-agent models/pilots in the late 1980s. However, with major advances in telework-enabling technology coupled with increased contact center growth/competition and the impact on the availability of quality labor, telework has become a rather hot topic in our industry.
While numerous studies and telework proponents have touted the big potential benefits of a well-implemented home-agent initiative, ICMI wanted to gather our own current data on this late-blooming staffing trend. In June 2006, ICMI conducted a focused survey on contact center telework programs, with 265 contact center professionals representing a wide range of industries and sizes participating in the survey.
The 2006 Contact Center Telework Report includes the following:
- 2006 Contact Center Telework Survey Results
- Telework Hitting Home in Customer Contact
- Companies and Agents Benefit from Work-at-Home Program for Disabled
- How to Maximize the Success of Your Telecommuting Program
16 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
