The Future Customer-centric Organization: Best Practice And New Strategies For Improving Customer Service

The Future Customer-centric Organization Executive summary

The importance of customer satisfaction

The role of IT in improving customer service

Know your market

The IP platform

Mobility

Virtual contact centers

Making outsourcing a success

The vendor landscape

Chapter 1 Introduction

What is this report about?

Who is this report for?

Definitions

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)

Customer service automation

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC)

Hosted applications

IP-PBX

IP telephone

Mobility

On-demand applications

Service-oriented architecture (SOA)

Software as a service (SaaS)

Unified communications

Voice/data convergence

Chapter 2 The importance of customer satisfaction

Summary

Why customer service matters

Customer service in the utilities market

Understanding customer satisfaction in this market

Measuring customer satisfaction

Customer service in financial services

The key goal of the financial services provider is to meet or exceed

its customers’ expectations

Customer service initiatives play a crucial role in maintaining

customer loyalty

Measuring customer satisfaction

The customer-centric enterprise

Evolution of the customer-centric enterprise

IP-based communciations

Contact center virtualization

Multi-channel communications

Selling solutions to the contact center market

Short term challenges

Medium term challenges

The end game

Chapter 3 The role of IT in improving customer service

Summary

Introduction

Drivers behind the CRM market

Contact center optimization technologies

Improving customer satisfaction is a top priority

Supporting the customer-centric enterprise

Barriers to the deployment of customer-centric technology

Scheduling and forecasting in a distributed environment

Monitoring agents anywhere

Providing performance management irrespective of location

The role of workforce optimization

WFM vendors extend their reach into the enterprise

Speech analytics and quality monitoring

eCoaching modules help to eliminate customer frustration

Contact center analytics

Unified agent desktop applications

Efficient and effective interactions lead to greater customer

satisfaction

Developing customer-centric optimization technologies

Targeting non-traditional customer service agents

Speech analytics and eCoaching will continue to grow in QM

Contact center analytics need to be open and flexible

Unified agent desktop tools

Chapter 4 Know your market

Summary

Introduction

Managing diverse regional markets for contact center technology

A growing emphasis on customer service in the Middle East

The market opportunity

Various industries and geographies are influential in the customer interaction industry

Customer service learnings

Outbound capabilities open channels for commercially orientated customer care

Workforce optimization applications will gain traction

Vendors must educate end users about competitive opportunities provided by better customer service

System convergence

Vendor strategies for targeting the Middle East

Chapter 5 The IP platform

Summary

The IP era

Both end users and customer experience driving convergence solutions

Cost and confusion inhibit convergence

IP telephony

The voice/data convergence market is growing steadily

Unified communications

Future outlook for voice/data convergence

IP-PBXs will eventually replace traditional TDM systems

Price pressure will increase as solutions mature and the market slows

Interoperability with mobile devices and enterprise applications will increase

The market for IP contact centers

IP contact center growth

IP technology spending

The future of IP contact centers

Distributed contact centers and remote workers

Offshoring

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)

Small and Greenfield contact centers

Hosted IP contact centers

Implications for vendors

Chapter 6 Mobility

Summary

Introduction

The role of speech in mobile field services

Spending on speech-enabled mobile field services applications

Speech is gaining momentum in field services

Successful strategies for deploying speech in mobile field services

The growing role of mobility in unified communications

The availability of UC solutions for mobile devices is increasing

Mobility will help drive investments in unified communications

FMC and ‘one number’ solutions will become a reality

Greater security implications and demand for mobile management

Changing lifestyles and flexible working

Chapter 7 Virtual contact centers

Summary

Contact center virtualization in the customer-centric enterprise

The need for a central platform and multi-directional communication

Drivers of virtualization

Customer-centric business SMBs

Inhibitors to virtualizing contact centers

Employee unwillingness to engage in customer contact

Lack of central visibility

People and process issues

Risk behind virtualization

Costs associated with virtualization

Take-up of contact center virtualization

Unified communications in virtual contact centers

Challenges for unified communications in a virtual environment

All-in-one solutions may not be best for larger enterprises

The promise of presence may not be essential

Vendor actions

Educating the market and delivering flexible solutions

Overcoming the people and process issues

Virtualization growth not dependent on regional and vertical markets

Develop strong partnerships with global systems integrators

Invest in switch independent contact center solutions

Pricing contact center seats

Chapter 8 Making outsourcing a success

Summary

Introduction

Vertical market opportunities

Emerging markets

Travel and hospitality firms look for a commercial edge

Concentrate on price sensitivity

Focus on commercialization

Look for opportunities from new contact channels

Hotels as a source of hidden value

Demand for improved customer service in healthcare outsourcing

Emphasis on customer service levels

Automated service options

Partnership with existing healthcare non-contact center BPO providers

Sell offshore as a niche solution

Opportunities for public sector outsourcing

Emphasize agent quality and lower costs

Engage government procurement specialists

Target key government agencies for outsourcing business

Embrace eGovernment opportunities

Utilities’ demand for outsourced customer service

Emphasize opportunities to build customer satisfaction

Cost management potential

Product / service integration services

Outsourcing strategies for success

Shifts in horizontal requirements from outsourcing investors

Adopting new agent models and leveraging self-service technology

Chapter 9 The vendor landscape

Summary

Leaders and challengers

Market leaders: Oracle and SAP

The challengers: Chordiant, Infor and Salesforce.com

Future vendor strategies for success

Emerging players

Microsoft

Apple, Google and Yahoo!

IBM

More collaboration between vendors but increased competition

Index

List of Figures

Figure 2.1: Changing emphasis on customer service

Figure 2.2: Evaluating customer satisfaction

Figure 2.3: Different types of customer service

Figure 2.4: Financial services firms acknowledge the importance of customer service

Figure 3.5: Planned use of technology to enhance business growth

Figure 3.6: Top 3 technology investment priorities over the next 12 months

Figure 3.7: Top 3 technology investment priorities over the next three years

Figure 4.8: Spending on contact center technology in the Middle East, 2005 - 2010 ($m)

Figure 5.9: IP telephony investment strategies

Figure 5.10: Enterprises take a staged migration to IP telephony

Figure 5.11: Global voice/data convergence market revenue, 2006-2012 ($m)

Figure 5.12: The convergence of voice and data systems provides the opportunity for unified communications

Figure 5.13: Total IP APs (000s) and IP APs as a percentage of total

Figure 5.14: Global IP vs TDM inbound routing spending

Figure 6.15: Common mobile applications in the enterprise

Figure 7.16: Customer service silos in the contact center

Figure 7.17: Unifying disparate systems into one enterprise-wide communications system

List of Tables

Table 5.1: The importance of objectives to the convergent communication investment strategy in 2007

Table 5.2: Issues preventing your organization from investing in voice/data convergence technologies

Table 6.3: Global spending on speech-enabled mobile field services applications, 2005-2010

Table 7.4: Remote workers as a percentage of total APs globally, 2005-2010

Table 7.5: Remote workers components, 2005-2010