EXPAND YOUR CONCEPT OF SERVICE

SmartCustomerService.com aims to help organizations improve the speed, sophistication, accuracy, and relevance of customer service and support efforts. Offering expert advice, news, white papers, web events, buyer’s guides, and much more, SmartCustomerService.com is the best resource to find the tools needed to deliver exceptional customer service. Visit our site today to learn more about how to improve your customer support initiatives. @SmartCustServ smartcustomerservice.com ContentsVol. 20, No. 3

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COVER STORY 23 The 2016 CRM Service Awards The era of high customer expectations and personalized service continues unabated, and our 13th annual Service Awards issue salutes the vendors whose technologies—mobile, social, multichannel, analytics—are shaping this increasingly customer-centric landscape, as well as the companies that are putting those technologies to impressive use. The profiles of our Service Leaders, Rising Stars, and Elite not only highlight this year’s breakthrough solutions and innovative approaches but show what’s possible when pleasing customers is your top priority.

COLUMNS/DEPARTMENTS INSIGHT

2 Front Office 48 The Next Step 10 Data Scientist Is This 14 On the Scene: NFR’s Big Show Customer service advances CRM finally comes to Year’s Hottest Job Retailers Must Future- with mobile, cloud, and accounting—and not a Glassdoor rankings Proof for an Evolving analytics solutions. moment too soon. identify data scientist as Value Chain BY DAVID MYRON BY DANNY ESTRADA the best job in America. Customers will continue 4 Reality Check 50 Scouting Report 11 Voice Search Alters to gain power, and businesses must constantly Don’t miss the data The workforce the Content Marketing reshape themselves to nuggets that are right optimization market Landscape meet their demands. under your nose. is poised for big growth. Companies need to change BY JIM DICKIE BY DONNA FLUSS their content strategies to 15 Required Reading appear in voice search results. Social Customer Service: 6 Customer Experience 52 Pint of View Hug Your Haters Map our your digital future Warm feelings help 12 Return Policies Affect now—your competitors are. drive satisfying Companies should respond Consumer Behavior to their most vocal, critical BY BARTON GOLDENBERG interactions. Longer return windows customers, on their ground. 8 The Tipping Point BY MARSHALL LAGER make returns less likely. Which social customer 13 Print Is Still Important in service model should a Multichannel World your company use? Print catalogs are growing as BY IAN JACOBS an effective marketing tool.

www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 1 Front Office

Customer Service Advances with Mobile, Cloud, and Analytics Solutions

HERE’S BEEN a lot of activity among is no exception. Some of the most impressive moves customer service and support vendors in analytics were made by NICE Systems, which is over the past year, which is reflected in our on a warpath to build or buy analytical solutions. In 2016 CRM Service Awards issue. The issue the past 12 months, the company has made a slew Thonors several new vendors in our CRM Service of impressive analytics software announcements: Leader Awards, including [24]7, Alorica, Confirmit, The company released its Real-Time Fraud Pre- Mitel, and Zendesk. Additionally, five out of the vention solution, which identifies fraudulent callers eight Service Leader categories have within a few seconds; and its IVR Journey Analytics new category winners. Innovation, solution, which utilizes text and speech analytics to or lack thereof, is largely to blame identify caller behavior patterns and optimize the for the substantial shuffling. IVR accordingly. But perhaps the most impressive For example, in the Interactive move was its announcement, in January, that it was Voice Response (IVR) category, acquiring perennial speech and text analytics leader [24]7 scored well with our panel of Nexidia for $135 million. The move is expected to judges for partnering with Microsoft help NICE supercharge its cross-channel interaction to connect deep neural networks analytics capabilities. to enterprise IVR systems. This is Clearly, there’s a lot of change happening in the expected to significantly increase customer service and support industry. And this recognition accuracy, which should year’s CRM Service Awards recipients are driving improve phone self-service usage much of it. Congratulations to all of them. Their INNOVATION MARCHES ON. WILL and call containment rates. For these ­efforts confirm that innovation marches on. Will YOUR ORGANIZATION MARCH efforts, the company was also hon- your organization march with it, or be left behind? WITH IT, OR BE LEFT BEHIND? ored with a Rising Star award. Customer service vendors are **** also connecting to mobile devices For great insights on the latest CRM innovations, in meaningful ways. Confirmit, a new entrant to attend our annual CRM Evolution conference at the our Enterprise Feedback Management category, was Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. (May lauded for this. The company now enables people to 23–25, 2016). As in years past, this year’s event will take surveys on their mobile devices—a great way feature an impressive group of analysts, consultants, to engage those who might be sitting idly with a few and CRM practitioners covering a wide range of minutes to spare. CRM topics. CRM Evolution will coincide with our Also noteworthy is the interest in hosted contact Customer Service Experience and SpeechTEK confer- center technology. In our coverage of the Contact ences. You can gain access to more than 120 presen- Center Infrastructure category, DMG Consulting tations across all three events with an All Access Pass. notes that cloud-based contact center seats increased For more information visit www.CRMevolution.com. 49.9 percent from August 2014 to August 2015. And while Cisco Systems won this category, it lost its top spot in the IVR category because of its “slower-than-­ average” cloud migration. Instead, West won the IVR category for a variety of reasons, one of which was its acquisition of Magnetic North, a hosted con- tact center provider. David Myron It’s not enough to simply collect customer data; Editorial Director organizations must learn from it. This is why analyt- [email protected] ics continues to be a hot topic. Of course, this year @dmyron on Twitter

2 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com 2012 National 2012 Regional EDITORIAL DESIGN Gold Silver VIEWPOINTS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR David Myron [email protected] Read the following exclusive essays MANAGING EDITOR Chris Cronis [email protected] SENIOR NEWS EDITOR Leonard Klie [email protected] at www.destinationCRM.com SENIOR DESIGNER Laura Hegyi [email protected] ASSOCIATE EDITOR Oren Smilansky [email protected] 5 Ways to Fix Sales in ASSISTANT EDITOR Sam Del Rowe [email protected] High‑Tech Companies PROOFREADER Greg Edmondson Firms need to focus on keeping their CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jim Dickie, Danny Estrada, Donna Fluss, best people, updating their technology, Barton Goldenberg, Ian Jacobs, Marshall Lager and having it all work together. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD SAMI LUUKKONEN, GLOBAL MANAGING DIRECTOR, Lior Arussy, PRESIDENT, STRATIVITY GROUP; Barton Goldenberg, PRESIDENT, ISM, INC.; ACCENTURE’S ELECTRONICS AND HIGH- Paul Greenberg, PRESIDENT, THE 56 GROUP, LLC; TECH INDUSTRY Denis Pombriant, FOUNDER AND MANAGING PRINCIPAL, BEAGLE RESEARCH GROUP; Ray Wang, PRINCIPAL ANALYST AND CEO, CONSTELLATION RESEARCH Go with Good Customer ADVERTISING SALES/PRINT & ONLINE Data—Not Your ‘Gut’ VICE PRESIDENT AND GROUP PUBLISHER Bob Fernekees 1-212-251-0608 x106 [email protected] With certain things in life, you don’t WEST COAST AD DIRECTOR Dennis Sullivan 1-203-445-9178 [email protected] need anyone to tell you it’s working; EAST/MIDWEST AD DIRECTOR Adrienne Snyder 1-201-327-2773 [email protected] you instinctively know it. Sales is not one of those things. MARKETING KEVIN MCGIRL, PRESIDENT, SALES-I VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING Tom Hogan, Jr. [email protected] DIRECTOR OF WEB EVENTS DawnEl Harris [email protected] 5 Simple Ideas for Driving EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT Sales Success PRESIDENT AND CEO Thomas H. Hogan [email protected] Achieve—and surpass—your sales CHAIRMAN Roger R. Bilboul; VICE PRESIDENT, ADMINISTRATION John Yersak [email protected] enablement goals in 2016 by keeping VICE PRESIDENT, CONTENT Dick Kaser [email protected] these concepts in mind. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DUCAN LENNOX, COFOUNDER AND CEO, QSTREAM VICE PRESIDENT, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Bill Spence [email protected] PRODUCTION How Retailers Can Meet the PRODUCTION MANAGER Tiffany J. Chamenko [email protected] Need for Omnichannel AD TRAFFICKING COORDINATOR Jacqueline Crawford [email protected] Your customers are already there, so it’s past time for retailers to follow suit. CRM (ISSN: 1529-8728; USPS: 17233) is published monthly by CRM Media, including Dow Jones Factiva, LexisNexis, OCLC, STN International, CHANNIE MIZE, GENERAL MANAGER, RETAIL SECTOR, a division of Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, and Westlaw. PERISCOPE, A MCKINSEY SOLUTION NJ 08055 USA; Phone: (609) 654-6266; Fax: (609) 654-4309; Internet: Subscription Information www.infotoday.com. Registered in U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Free to qualified recipients within the U.S. Periodicals postage paid at Vincentown, NJ, and additional mailing offices. Subscription rates for nonqualified subscribers: U.S. subscription 4 Sales Trends to Follow in 2016 rate—$69.95; Canada and Mexico—$89.00; overseas delivery—$122.00 New technology, and a new Copyright 2016, CRM Media, a division of Information Today, Inc. © All rates to be prepaid in U.S. funds. Subscribe online at willingness to adopt and share All rights reserved. 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Box 3006, Northbrook, IL 60065-3006, or call LUKE WALLACE, CRM RESEARCHER AND STRATEGIST, SOFTWARE ADVICE Searchable archive of all articles with digital document delivery: 1-847-291-5213. www. iti-infocentral.com Editorial Office 237 West 35th Street, Suite 806, New York, NY Contents also available online under direct licensing arrangements 10001; (212) 251-0608; www.destinationCRM.com 4 Ways Engagement Analytics Can with EBSCO, NewsBank, ProQuest, and Gale and through CRM MAGAZINE’S MONTHLY PR EDITORIAL EMAIL UPDATE: Help You Sell Faster—and Smarter redistribution arrangements with information service providers Contact David Myron at [email protected] The need for efficiency and insights at every sales stage has never been greater. SURESH BALASUBRAMANIAN, CEO, LIVEHIVE Reality Check By Jim Dickie Data—the CRM Gold Mine We Continue to Ignore Don’t get so involved with system management that you miss the nuggets right under your nose

UPPOSE YOU OWN a plot of land, and unearth insights on their sales effectiveness, and, as you every day you go out and try to make a living from can see in the chart, the figure is only 15.9 percent. it. You do okay as a farmer; you feed your family, What’s the fallout from not uncovering these insights? and you have enough left over to sell at the market Here are three things you’re not doing: Sand make some money. Life is okay, right? Well, it may You’re not optimizing market segmentation. If you well be okay, but what you don’t understand is that it were to mine data on past wins, losses, and no-decisions, could be terrific. You see, right below the surface of your you would start to surface specific attributes of the pros- land is an incredibly rich vein of gold, and rather than pects that are most likely to buy from you. It may be that take advantage of that resource that could change your you are more successful at selling into certain industry life, you’re doing this about it—nothing. segments, or you more effectively engage certain stake- Where am I going with this story? As part of CSO holders, or your solution may be more highly valued for Insights 2016 Sales Performance Optimization, we found solving certain problems than others. If you have those that 79 percent of the 600-plus firms we surveyed had insights, you can more effectively target accounts where implemented a CRM system. That is their plot of land. your odds of winning a deal are higher than normal And what are sales organizations doing with their plot? before you even make your first sales call. Contact management, territory management, opportu- You’re not optimizing your sales process. If you were nity management, forecast management, and so on. The to dig deeper into what you are actually doing during the end result is okay; some deals get closed, but only 57.8 sales process, you would also start to understand which percent of salespeople end up making their quota. sales tactics really help advance the deal and which do But another, often overlooked result from utilizing a not. If you found that doing a custom demo generated CRM system over time? Lots of data. Data on your cus- a higher close rate than a canned demo, you’d find ways tomers, your sales process, the client’s buying process, to make that a part of every sales process. Conversely, if pricing/discounting trends, competitive activity, etc. That you found that shipping demo equipment to prospects is a company’s vein of gold. And how many companies had no impact on win rates and actually lengthened the are actually mining that? As part of our 2015 Sales Man- sales cycle, you would stop doing it. agement Optimization, we asked if sales organizations You’re not minimizing customer churn. Insights can be were actively leveraging sales analytics or Big Data to mined not only from sales data but also from other internal systems and from a myriad of external data sources. Look for factors that impact customer churn. If you started to Sales Organizations Using see early warning signs of changes in customer ordering Sales Analytics/Big Data patterns, for instance, you could take proactive action Do Not Know versus doing unnatural acts (like discounting) to minimize

4.4% reduced order sizes or outright customer defections after

a major shift in the sales ecosystem has already occurred.

Yes There are numerous other use cases I can name, but 15.9% the point is that in sales today, we need to leverage every advantage we can to be successful in the marketplace. No Continuing to not take advantage of the huge resource 79.7% you have right within reach is the wrong choice. It’s time to become a miner as well as a farmer.

Jim Dickie, a research fellow at CSO Insights, a Division of MHI Global, specializes­ in benchmarking CRM and sales transformation initiatives. He can be reached at

[email protected].

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Find out why more than 70,000 others have subscribed. destinationcrm.com/Newsletters Customer Experience By Barton Goldenberg Is Your Digital Strategy Ready? Map out your digital future now—your competitors are

MAGINE A WORLD where you have detailed, sale and make it easy for them to buy from you. E-com- near-real-time knowledge about how each customer merce typically includes customer journey mapping, next uses your product or service and where you can pro- best offer, and the infamous shopping cart. actively provide each one with the right support to Social media. More B2B, B2C, and B2B2C custom- Ioptimize their experience. Welcome to 2020! ers are joining public (Facebook, Twitter) and branded My January column (“Why Amazon’s and Uber’s Digital (invitation-only) social media communities. These com- Strategies Excel”) noted that a digital strategy should leverage munities, where expert advice can be found and peer- your knowledge of each customer’s requirements and pref- to-peer exchange can thrive, foster customer advocacy erences and use digital tools to customize their experience. and subsequent sales. Social insight from community Now, let’s describe what you need to do to prepare your com- discussions also provides valuable intelligence on why pany for the digital future—arriving sooner than you think. customers enjoy doing business with you. Mobile apps. Pricewaterhouse- ARE YOU READY FOR 2020? Cooper’s 2015 Global CEO Survey Companies poised to succeed in the found that 81 percent of CEOs see coming years will have a comprehensive mobile technology as one of their three- to five-year digital strategy that most important investments and crit- describes which customer segments use ical to customer engagement. While which channels and identifies the techno- enhanced versions of smartphones graphic footprint of each customer segment will remain the go-to devices for most, to determine their digital capabilities. A tablets and laptops will still be in use. digital strategy road map—which includes Customer experience. Digital cus- a description of digital enhancements to your current prod- tomers live in real time; your company needs to respond uct offering, a program to promote your strategy to both per- accordingly. For example, data from IoT sensors can let your sonnel and partners and customers, and a milestone-based company monitor how and when customers use your prod- implementation timeline—will be a necessary part of it. ucts. This data helps your company to proactively reach out Crucially, you’ll need to asses these two areas: to customers to ensure they have an excellent customer expe- Your cost-to-serve for each channel. Since you know rience—contacting a customer, for example, when an IoT (or should) which channels each identified customer seg- sensor sends a signal that a product is about to malfunction. ment prefers, your company can then maximize contribu- Underlying everything is your CRM system, which tion margin by configuring your digitized offering based on contains the enterprise customer profiles used to drive channel optimization. The goal: to secure the highest level engagement. Information flows into these profiles from of customer satisfaction while encouraging cus- a variety of sources—field sales and service personnel, tomers to use your lowest cost-to-serve channels. self-service options, e-commerce, social media, mobile DIGITAL CUSTOMERS Your digital technology options. How will apps, IoT devices, and more. Enhanced CRM modules LIVE IN REAL TIME; you ensure customers have outstanding customer analyze this data in near real time and provide meaningful YOUR COMPANY experiences regardless of channel? What will be recommendations (next best offer, the need for service, NEEDS TO RESPOND your mobile strategy; what kind of customer apps etc.) directly to the customer, to your partners, or to your ACCORDINGLY. will you offer? What will be your Web site and sales, marketing, and customer service reps. portal strategy? Will you create branded com- A comprehensive digital strategy is essential to retain munities? What role will the Internet of Things and grow your business. Readying your company for dig- (IoT) play? To determine your options, revisit the “hub ital success requires discipline as well as appropriate finan- and spoke” model I introduced in my January column. cial and personnel resources. Before you know it, 2020 will be here—and your competition isn’t standing still. THE FOUR PILLARS OF AN EFFECTIVE DIGITAL STRATEGY Your digital strategy will rest on these four pillars, with Barton Goldenberg ([email protected]) is president of ISM Inc., a strate- your CRM system at the base: gic consulting firm that he founded in 1985. ISM (www.ismguide.com) applies CRM/ social CRM, Big Data analytics and insight, and customer experience management E-commerce. The heart of an effective digital strategy. to build successful customer-centric­ initiatives. He is a frequent speaker; his latest All e-commerce activities should drive customers to the book, The Definitive Guide to Social CRM, is available at www.amazon.com.

6 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com Sponsored Content CRM Magazine | March 2016 WP7

Cloud Analytics for Dummies The ebook to help you leverage technology for advanced customer insight

Looking back at the beginning of existing sources of data, bringing them In today’s world, you can’t afford to this century, companies that wanted to together in the cloud and pushing it to not compete at the highest levels. These capture and analyze data about their various reporting systems. may be early days for some companies, customers had to spend a lot of money on while others have made significant expensive software, hardware, and people Based on a cloud analytics approach, investments in capturing and mining who specialized in getting business users consider the following customer insight data like never before. What steps does the insights they wanted. These requests use cases: your company need to take to be sure for data analysis would come from the your cloud analytics solution is ready business and take a wide-ranging amount • A chief customer officer for a web- to provide a competitive advantage? of time to fulfill. It would be a minor based service company who is in This ebook contains critical get-started miracle if a report was delivered in less charge of expanding the business from information, such as: than a week, since the specialized data existing customers and preventing folks were always understaffed. This realm attrition can now use analytics to • The business benefits to cloud was labeled “business intelligence (BI)” and track various early indicators for analytics is a fancy way of describing the world of customer happiness, such as customer getting metrics to business people so they satisfaction scores, online login • How to plan your analytics could make smart, educated decisions to information, and usage data, to infrastructure further benefit the business. create alerts if certain thresholds are surpassed or not met. • Ways other companies have Fortunately, times have changed. benefited from cloud analytics Although investing in a BI solution • A major grocery store chain can was historically an expensive endeavor, embed sensors in shopping carts and • Ten do’s and don’ts of evaluating the growing acceptance of cloud-based baskets to capture information about cloud analytics solutions applications along with digital and which aisles customers spend the mobile technologies has accelerated. Now, most time, using the aggregated data companies can aggregate data from CRM to help prioritize where new product systems, social, mobile, cloud, sensor, promotions should be displayed. machine data, and other sources to provide Download the ebook now and highly valued customer insights at a lower • A media company that used to have begin mapping your competitive price and gain a competitive advantage. fragmented customer data now intelligence strategy. can better target users by bringing By harnessing all existing sources of together their online consumption Visit www.informatica.com/cloudanalytics data in a timely manner, technology information with trade show and users can provide business users the webinar participation. Consolidating once-elusive goal of unified customer customer demographic and company information. Unified information information with engagement allows departments to pull data from preferences, content download history, one source of truth. Sales can now run event registration preferences, and reports off the same sales and lead data more provides visibility into how its as Marketing, and Finance can follow content was consumed during the the same bookings numbers as Sales. customer life cycle, which allowed Again, the time freed up for the technical an increase in lead volumes and open users can now be leveraged to harness all rates of targeted marketing emails. The Tipping Point By Ian Jacobs Social Customer Service: The Hype Gives Way to Practice But the model you choose will depend on who’s using it, and how

VER THE past few years, video game on, rarely numbered more than a handful of staffers. The giant Activision Publishing—publisher of the social service products built to serve these teams make absurdly successful Call of Duty game fran- sense in a marketing milieu: The tools monitor social chise—has experienced a marked change in networks and—either through an automated workflow Oits customer service operations. Day to day, its customers or with the assistance of an employee or team in a traffic still need help with the mechanics of game play and with cop role—place actionable posts in a work bin or queue. understanding error codes. But those customers have Agents then pull items from the work bin. increasingly shifted away from chat and voice channels This model makes sense when the social customer ser- and turned to social media to get support from the com- vice organization remains small. The pure pull model cre- pany. That trend has accelerated to the point where social ates an undifferentiated pool of work; all posts get lumped media ranks as the company’s most used together regardless of urgency. Compa- agent-assisted channel. nies can, of course, create best practices Companies across all industries have such as “first in, first out.” With or with- given some thought to the importance out those processes, smaller teams tend of social customer service; the infamous to be better at the collaboration required “United Breaks Guitars” incident back to ensure that all work gets handled in a in 2009, among other episodes, clearly timely manner. In addition, when social showed social’s ability to generate negative publicity. But service remains the province of marketing or PR, those customer service execs have started to explore the posi- employees expect a good deal of freedom and agency, tive benefits of social customer service; it’s no longer seen which the pull model provides. simply as a defensive posture from which to stem bad press. Even though social customer service accounts for only THE PUSH MODEL: SCALABILITY FOR THE CONTACT CENTER a small percentage of overall customer service volumes As traditional customer service organizations assumed today, the writing is on the wall—social service will soon a greater role in providing social customer care, many be truly mainstream. For proof, look no further than the tools began to use a work distribution model that mirrors Millennials: According to Forrester data, contact center routing. These tools distribute individual more than half of U.S. adults ages 18 to 34 pieces of work directly to specific teams or agents based OVER HALF OF U.S. who regularly go online have reached out to on the content of the post and the skills of the agents. This ADULTS AGES 18 TO a company on Twitter to receive customer model often makes sense when social volume rises, as the 34 WHO REGULARLY service in the past year. push model offers efficiency at scale. GO ONLINE HAVE So if you want to bring social customer A push-driven model works best when social service REACHED OUT TO A service into the mainstream flow of your cus- lives inside the contact center. Contact center managers COMPANY ON TWITTER tomer support organization, where should understand how to forecast and schedule voice calls and IN THE PAST YEAR. you start? The social support tools them- emails, and this model replicates the workflow of those selves provide two very different models channels. A push model also becomes more critical as the for work distribution. Understanding each volume of social traffic increases. Customer service teams model—and what and who it’s suited for—will give you a have to prioritize incoming customer interactions; more big head start on turning social media from a fringe chan- important customers, for example, may receive first dibs nel to one of your top tools for driving great experiences. on available agents. When social service volumes rise, the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff makes service THE PULL MODEL: CONVENIENCE FOR SMALLER TEAMS organizations more efficient and ensures that the compa- Social customer service started when marketing organi- ny’s desired business outcomes drive service processes. zations began using social media as a broadcast medium and customers began responding with questions and Ian Jacobs is a senior analyst at Forrester Research. He can be reached at concerns. These social marketing teams, especially early ­[email protected].

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WWW.CRMEVOLUTION.COM have nearly as much data—both struc- tured and unstructured—available to them, and so it’s no wonder that they now find themselves in need of someone to interpret and use it all to help guide business decisions. Based on current trends, Chamberlain expects data scientist “to continue to be a hot job for several years to come.” Shashi Upadhyay, CEO of Lattice Engines, a provider of business pre- dictive analytics applications, also isn’t surprised by the data science field’s pop- ularity. “Companies across verticals are recognizing the importance of acting on Data Scientist Is This data-driven insights rather than relying on gut decisions, and as such, we are see- Year’s Hottest Job ing a recruitment war in the data science field,” he said in an email. Glassdoor rankings identify data scientist as the best job in America Data scientists, he added, are being heavily recruited right now, particularly n 2012, The Harvard Business Review­ Glassdoor listed 1,736 available data as they play a more critical role in mar- dubbed data scientist the “sexiest job of scientist positions just prior to releasing keting, sales, and advertising decisions. Ithe 21st century.” Now it would seem its ratings. The median salary for the It also helps that the available talent that Glassdoor, an Internet site that rates position was listed at $116,840 per year. pool is so limited, with the national tech employers based on personnel reviews, The overall job score, on a five-point unemployment rate currently at less shares that enthusiasm for the job title. scale, was 4.7. than 3 percent. Glassdoor in mid-January released Data scientist was ninth in Glassdoor’s “Companies are now more willing its 2016 “Best Jobs in America” list, and 2015 ratings, with an overall job score to invest in data scientists by provid- data scientist was in the top spot, based of 4.4. Last year, the average base salary ing competitive salaries and benefits,” on the number of job openings, salary, was $104,476, and Glassdoor listed 3,449 ­Upadhyay maintains, noting that “busi- and the career opportunities ratings that job openings. nesses that understand the value in U.S. employees provided in the past year. “It isn’t a big surprise to see data sci- transforming data into actionable The job, which experts say employs entist at number one this year because insights will come out on top.” techniques and theories drawn from it’s one of the hottest and fastest-grow- Data scientists, he adds, are “part ana- many other fields, including mathemat- ing jobs we’re seeing right now,” said lyst, part artist, responsible for sifting ics, statistics, computer science, predictive Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor’s chief through large amounts of business data analytics, marketing, data mining, and economist, in an email. “Since all com- to spot trends and make informed con- many others, is one of the fastest-growing panies have an online presence these clusions that can then be used to shape career paths today. Data scientists, Glass- days, they all need people who know critical business decisions.” door reported, are now being hired in all how to manage and store data that helps A similar job title, analytics manager, kinds of companies, in all industries, and them make better business decisions.” also ranked high on Glassdoor’s 2016 in all cities across the United States. The According to Chamberlain, this is a Best Jobs list. It came in at number 11, field has just as much applicability in new development this year. A few years based on an overall job score of 4.5. agriculture and public policy as it does ago, “businesses didn’t have data man- Glassdoor identified 982 job openings in retail, marketing, fraud detection, risk agement at their fingertips” the way for analytics managers, with an average management, and advertising, they do today. Companies also didn’t salary of $105,000. —Leonard Klie

10 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com Voice Search Alters the Content Marketing Landscape Companies need to change their content strategies to appear in voice search results

oughly 56 percent of teenag- you need access to quick bits of informa- After all, voice searches might be initi- ers and 41 percent of adults tion on a small screen.” ated in the car while someone is driving. Rare using voice search on their Web sites, therefore, need to be Companies also need to consider how mobile phones every day, according to designed so they dynamically adjust to fit consumers ask for information through Northstar Research. Modern consumers whatever screen the consumer is using. voice search. More often than not, voice in Boston, for example, are much more In fact, Google in April started using search queries are phrased using the likely to ask Google Now, Siri, Cortana, mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor same types of who, what, when, where, or Amazon’s Alexa to find the nearest in its SEO algorithms, and Microsoft’s­ how, and why questions that are part of coffee shop than they are to type “coffee Bing is said to be working on a similar natural conversations. During these con- shops near Boylston Street in Boston” update to its algorithm. versational, natural language search que- into a search bar on Google’s homepage. Both Microsoft and Google now ries, consumers do not typically use the This truly creates a challenge for offer tools to help companies determine same keywords or metadata that are the search engine providers and for hallmarks of text-based searches. the providers of those personal For companies, using basic key- assistants. But as consumers words to set SEO parameters increasingly turn to voice search alone is no longer enough. on their mobile phones, those Experts suggest instead that Boston coffee shops will now have companies use long-tail keywords. to rethink their search engine Rather than relying on a single optimization (SEO) strategies if word or phrase, long-tail key- they hope to show up in voice words involve multiple keyword search results. phrases that are very specific to “Search is a science, and the whatever the company is selling. rules are different for text and Along with that, “companies voice search,” says wireless and need to teach their systems [and technology industry analyst Jeff Kagan. whether their sites are mobile-friendly. the search engines] a very specialized “There are so many SEO rules it would The tools look at factors like loading lexicon that corresponds to their prod- be astounding to the average user. speed, the width of page content, the uct and service names,” says Denis Pom- And the book keeps getting thicker readability of text on the page, the spac- briant, founder and managing principal over time.” ing of links and other elements on the at ­Beagle Research. For starters, it will only become more page, and the use of plug-ins. And when doing so, “phonics mat- vital that business data—such as store When it comes to voice search, ters,” Pombriant adds. “In English, our locations, hours, and contact informa- Web content that delivers the answers words are not pronounced exactly as we tion—on company Web sites is accu- consumers want, in the quickest way would spell them.” rate and up to date. Businesses will also possible, will ultimately win out. The Voice search isn’t universal just yet, need to make sure that they are information, therefore, should but that day is coming. In the meantime, portrayed accurately on local “Search is a be concise and to the point, look for the technology involved to get review sites like Yelp. science, and with more of an emphasis on better over time. “It is still brand new Companies also need to the rules are usefulness than visual appeal, and not very usable yet,” Kagan says. consider how and where con- experts suggest. “There are often more mistakes, and sumers are conducting their different for Experts also suggest that Web they can be frustrating. But they will voice-based searches. “When text and voice content should be presented continue to get better year after year.” using computer-based search, search.” in more of a natural, conver- The search engines “are always tin- it’s assumed you are sitting sational style and structured kering to maximize performance,” he at a computer, so there is more screen more like FAQs, answering the questions adds. “One problem with this tinkering space and more time to search,” Kagan consumers might pose in voice search is companies find it difficult to use search says. “When using a mobile device, it’s queries without requiring them to click engines to reach customers when the SEO assumed you are out, time is short, and on additional links or take other actions. rules keep changing.” —Leonard Klie www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 11 in this issue n CRM USER COMPANIES Return Policies Affect Hogsalt Hospitality ...... 44

Labor First...... 45 Consumer Behavior

Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency...... 46 Longer return windows make returns less likely

Rx Outreach...... 47 hen retailers give consumers money, effort, scope, and exchange. longer periods in which to First, retailers that offer longer lengths n ADVERTISERS Wreturn products they pur- of time for returns are considered more chased, they actually reduce consumers’ lenient. Second, more lenient policies CRM Evolution...... 9 tendency to make returns, according to provide refunds of the full purchase www.crmevolution.com researchers at the University of Texas’s price, while stricter policies refund only campuses in Dallas and Arlington. a portion of the original price. The effort CRM eWeekly...... 5 www.destinationcrm.com/newsletters/ While this might metric gauges how diffi- seem contradictory, cult a store makes it for Customer Service one of the researchers, consumers to return Experience �����������������������������������������back cover Ryan Freling, a doctoral products, by requiring www.custservexperience.com student at UT-Dallas’s original receipts, tags, or Naveen Jindal School of product packaging, for ITI Practical Books...... 49 www.infotoday.com Management, explains example. Fourth, some it this way: “Perhaps, retailers can restrict Smart Customer Service...... inside front cover because the urgency to which items customers www.smartcustomerservice.com make a timely return has can return. And finally, been reduced and con- some retailers offer n BEST PRACTICES SPONSORS sumers sit with the product only store credit or product for a while, that leads to an More lenient exchanges, not cash refunds. Cogito...... 21 www.cogitocorp.com endowment effect where the return policies may Policies that allow for cash utility of actually having this lead to better refunds are considered more Convergys...... 22 item outweighs the utility of lenient. www.convergys.com making the return.” outcomes for “We all understand from Or it could simply be a retailers. a firm’s perspective that they eGain...... 19 www.egain.com matter of consumers forget- want to encourage the pur- ting about the product, thus reducing chase—that’s intuitive,” Freling says. inContact...... 18 the importance of returning it relative Returns, he also notes, cost those firms www.incontact.com to other commitments in their lives, in time, money, and resources, so it’s not he says. surprising that they would want to mini- Informatica...... 7 www.informatica.com The research—which Freling con- mize the amount of returns. ducted with Narayan Janakiraman, “It was interesting to see that perhaps nanorep...... 20 a professor of marketing at UT-Ar- these different dimensions might be used www.nanorep.com lington, and doctoral candidate Holly strategically by the firm to either increase Syrdal—also found that different return purchases or limit returns,” he says. n WEB EVENTS policies have different effects on con- Businesses can influence these return sumers. This, Freling says, challenges the policy considerations to their advantage. Experian (2/24) ...... 42 assumption that all return policies affect “A key thing for businesses to realize is http://webinars.destinationcrm.com/experian/862 purchases and returns in similar ways. that they have to know their product

Microsoft (3/30) ...... 34 More lenient return policies, the category, and they have to understand http://webinars.destinationcrm.com/microsoft/867 researchers found, actually led to better their customers,” he says. “They might outcomes for the retailers and compa- manipulate [the dimensions of the Power Objects (3/9) ...... 16 nies involved. return policies], depending on their http://webinars.destinationcrm.com/powerobjects/866 The research identified five consider- understanding of the product category

Roundtable/Web Events ...... inside back cover ations that shape how lenient consum- they compete in and the consumers that www.destinationcrm.com/Webinars ers perceive a return policy to be: time, they’re targeting.” —Sam Del Rowe

www.destinationCRM.com Print Is Still Important in a Multichannel World Print catalogs are growing as an effective marketing tool

rint-based direct marketing is growing and playing an increas- Pingly important role in multi­ channel marketing, according to a study by market research and strategic consulting firm InfoTrends. The study identified a resurgence in the use of print catalogs and notes the continued effectiveness of direct mail in driving consumers to make purchases, both online and in retail stores. Marketers, it found, continue to use print catalogs to target a range of demo- graphics. Most notably, it found that younger consumers in the United States and Western Europe engage with print catalogs. Moreover, the study found no dramatic differences in catalog engage- ment when comparing age groups, income, gender, and parental status. The study also found that 62 percent role,” she says. “[The fact] that a Mil- locations is relevant regardless of the size of consumers receiving catalogs who lennial is just as likely to thumb through of the business.” made a purchase within the past three a catalog as a 60-something person [was Direct mail—such as letters, flyers, months were influenced by the catalog. a big surprise].” brochures, and postcards—has also “The catalog really drives people While many consumers showed proved successful. The study found that to other channels,” says Barb Pellow, strong interest in catalogs from big two thirds of direct mail is looked at, group director of InfoTrends’ Consult- brands such as L.L.Bean, IKEA, and and more than 40 percent of consumers ing Group. “One of the big Victoria’s Secret, there were have made purchases in the past three things that came out of the “That a Millennial also significant mentions of months due to the influence of a piece study was that the catalog is is just as likely to brands in niche markets of direct mail. Pellow also notes that 68 a reminder to go online to thumb through and online companies, percent of consumers surveyed either do something.” reflecting some important read direct mail more than email, or read Pellow also notes that the a catalog as a trends: Small and midsize them both at the same frequency. catalog acts as a motivator 60-something person businesses are also using Overall, Pellow says businesses should for going online and plac- [was a big surprise].” catalogs; online companies use multiple channels—including mag- ing an order or to visiting use catalogs to extend sales azines and direct mail—for the best a brick-and-mortar store. “The catalog reach and brand awareness; and the results. “The ultimate objective with all really helps people navigate across chan- market is shifting from general catalogs communications was to improve the nels,” Pellow says. to targeted, niche titles. customer experience,” she says. “The Pellow also notes the significance “It doesn’t make any difference what more channels [businesses] had turned of both older and younger customers kind of business you have,” Pellow says. on…the higher the response rate, and, of engaging with catalogs. “We thought “That ongoing reminder of the need to equal importance, the higher the conver- that age demographics would play a move online or to brick-and-mortar sion rate.” —Sam Del Rowe www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 13 ON THE SCENE: NRF’S BIG SHOW Karrikins Group. “The earlier you move, the smaller the risks you take.” Retailers Must Future-Proof Sheahan shared an example about a CIA-associated spy outsourcing organi- zation. Nine months prior to the Arab for an Evolving Value Chain Spring—a movement steered at least in Customers will continue to gain power, and businesses must part by activity on social media—execu- constantly reshape themselves to meet their demands tives within this organization proposed investing in technologies that would ompanies today need to antici- enable them to scour the Web for rel- pate a shifting consumer climate, evant information regarding political Cadapt quickly by leveraging landscapes across the world. The most sophisticated technology, and future- senior member of this firm dismissed proof their businesses, all with the goal the notion that social media would soon of accommodating evolving customer have geopolitical and national security expectations, speakers emphasized at the impacts and ignored his colleagues’ sug- National Retail Federation’s Big Show in gestions. “He said, ‘We’re not in the tech- New York in January. nology business; we’re in the business of Kees Jacobs, global consumer prod- spies,’” Sheahan said. “In that moment Are drones the future of customer service? ucts and retail engagement lead at Cap- Someday soon, your packages may arrive via they missed the opportunity to get ahead gemini, highlighted key findings from flying robot, as part of the modern value chain. of the curve and begin the process of Rethinking the Value Chain: New Real- transformation before the market.” ities in Collaborative Business, a recent them with new flows of information, Sheahan asserted that “the first funda- study by the Consumer Goods Forum. products, and transactions. “Consumers mental step in driving transformation at The study drew on current trends to [won’t] just buy stuff,” Jacobs said. They an organization is to redefine how you predict what urban megacities will be will be at the center of these networks, as see yourself and your role within the like in 2025, both from a consumer and they “pull the strings...on their dynamic marketplace and then begin the process an industry perspective. “One thing is paths to purchase.” of alignment as it relates to that.” clear,” Jacobs asserted, and that is by The modern value chain, Jacobs said, Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne, execu- 2025, “consumer behavior [will have] is about catering to “the quality of living tive director of marketing at U.K. retailer changed forever,” as customer demands for individual consumers in their com- Marks & Spencer, illustrated how an continue to rise and people begin to munities,” as well as their desires for con- established company can change direc- leverage new technologies venience and well-being. tion and adjust with the times. “It was and business models to By 2025, “consumer To be successful in this important for us to put into place more improve their lives. behavior [will have] new marketplace, compa- sustainable foundations to be much “Traditional stores [will nies will need to provide more nimble, more agile, and future- have] been repurposed, dis- changed forever,” as “relevant experiences to proof the business at a time when the tribution models massively customer demands rise consumers that will focus demands of the consumers are justifying transformed, and manufac- and people leverage on the context of their that we move faster,” he said. turing and sourcing [will new technologies lives,” Jacobs said. Marks & Spencer recently launched have] shifted,” Jacobs said. They will need to remove the Sparks loyalty program, which Consequently, companies and business models the constraints in their involves sophisticated methods of will play a different role to improve their lives. operations and take advan- engaging customers in a collaborative, in society, as the “current tage of business models ongoing two-way conversation. The value chains are profoundly disrupted.” enabled by new technologies. Among platform goes beyond traditional loyalty The retail industry, Jacobs explained, these are new means of transportation, programs by recognizing customers for will transition away from linear, sequen- like drones or driverless vehicles; 3-D attributes that are often ignored, includ- tial value chains—in which products are printing; augmented reality; and Big ing the frequency of purchases and their transferred through sourcing, manufac- Data analytics. level of interest in the company. “The turing, distribution, and retailing to the Organizations should be preparing idea is to convert customers into mem- customer—toward a new model. Com- to work around the customer and not bers,” Bousquet-Chavanne said. “As a panies will have to craft their operations waiting until it is too late, stressed Peter member, we ought to know you better around consumers, working to provide Sheahan, founder and group CEO of the than ­customers.” —Oren Smilansky

14 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com REQUIRED READING the phone and emails is not enormous; it’s just expected at this point. The opportunity is [with] the onstage haters. Social Customer Service: What are the obstacles prevent- ing companies from being more responsive online? And how do you Hug Your Haters overcome them? The hug-your-haters recipe is to Companies should respond to their most vocal, answer every complaint in every chan- critical customers, on their ground nel every time. And that almost never happens online. Online, most companies he Internet has granted the private—offstage—expect a response answer some complaints, some of the masses freedom to publicly dis- 90 percent of the time. However, the time, in channels that they prefer. You Tplay their opinions in a variety onstage haters—the people who com- can’t get away with that on the telephone of forums. This has been both a bless- plain online—expect a response a little or through email. You can’t say, “Look, ing and a curse to businesses, as they’ve bit less than 50 percent of the time. That we’re going to answer the phone calls been forced to confront a new kind of presents an enormous opportunity for that are positive, or we’re going to answer customer—“the onstage hater,” as Jay businesses of all types and sizes to actu- only emails that are shorter than 200 Baer calls the type in his ally hug their haters—to words.” Yet online we have convinced new book, Hug Your Haters: answer the onstage com- ourselves that this haphazard approach How to Embrace Complaints plaints. Because when you to customer service is totally fine. and Keep Your Custom- [answer] and people don’t Online customer service is a specta- ers. Associate Editor Oren necessarily expect it, it tor sport. Ironically, we do it less com- Smilansky recently caught makes a tremendous impact prehensively, less strategically, and in up with Baer for wisdom on customer advocacy. a less organized fashion online, when on how to respond quickly The core of our research everybody’s looking, than we do offline, and effectively to those who project was to measure when nobody’s looking. So you see the make their voices heard— advocacy both before problem there: We are operating this loudly—about your busi- and after a complaint was totally backward. ness online. answered, if it was answered The reason most companies don’t CRM: Can you tell me about the at all. What we found is that you could hug their haters is that online there’s a research that went into this book, and have up to a 30 percent increase in cus- lot of chatter—a lot of people are using some of the key findings? tomer advocacy just by answering a sin- social media, review sites, discussion Jay Baer: We partnered with Edison gle onstage complaint, which is a huge boards, et cetera, to talk about compa- Research [and] interviewed more than opportunity for businesses. nies, and it’s much more difficult to find 2,000 customers [to find out] who com- Of the two groups—the offstage that chatter [online] than it is offline. If plains, where they complain, how they haters and the onstage haters—which somebody calls you, you know they’ve complain, and why. We found lots of is more important to called—your phone rings. interesting things in that data, but per- focus on? “Online customer If somebody emails you, haps most relevant, [we found] there I wouldn’t say “more service is a [the message] shows up in are two main types of complainers. important.” One has more spectator sport. your inbox. It’s not quite There are offstage haters—the people opportunity than another. Ironically, we do it less that simple online, so there who complain in private (telephone Right now across all com- comprehensively... are some logistical hurdles and email primarily now). And onstage panies, about two thirds [of to hugging your haters. haters—the people who complain in those making complaints when everybody’s There’s also the problem of public. Those folks tend to use social are] offstage, and one third looking, than we channel proliferation. media, review sites, discussion boards, [are] onstage. Because the do offline, when Fundamentally, you and forums to interact with companies. offstage haters expect a reply nobody’s looking.” have to interact with your What are the biggest differences at a 90 percent level, you customers in the ground of between these two groups? really have to [answer them]. The advice their choosing, not the ground of your The biggest difference between in the book is certainly not to ignore preference. You will never be a great them is actually [in] what they phone calls or emails. That’s not a good company if you only interact with cus- expect. The people who complain in idea. But the opportunity in answering tomers in the way that you prefer. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 15

inContact Best Practices Series PAGE 18 HOW WORKFORCE INTELLIGENCE CREATES A BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

eGain PAGE 19 HOW INTELLIGENT CONTACT CENTERS DO BETTER IN CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

nanorep PAGE 20 SHIFTING CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM “COST CENTER” TO “VALUE CENTER” Intelligent Cogito PAGE 21 BUILD AN EMOTIONAL Contact Centers CONNECTION WITH for Better Customer Experiences YOUR CUSTOMERS Convergys Wow. The past several years have been a super-productive period in the field of PAGE 22 customer service delivery, especially as it relates to call centers and the integration HOW TO TURN DISJOINTED of all the other channels that are available to consumers today. INTERACTIONS INTO SATISFYING CUSTOMER In the following five previews into the intelligent uses of technology to improve the JOURNEYS customer experience, you’ll get an excellent inside view of what is possible today— and where the future of customer service is headed.

Reducing call handling times will always be important, but customer service executives and CEOs now have greater ambitions, leading to analytical approaches that far exceed the simple metrics that were so important just a few years ago.

Bob Fernekees VP/Group Publisher, CRM Media Information Today, Inc.

SPONSORS

7 Water Street 201 East Fourth Street 1252 Borregas Ave. Bob Fernekees, Boston, MA 02109 Cincinnati, OH 45202 Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Group Publisher 617-580-3101 Phone: 1-800-344-3000 Phone: 1-800-821-4358 212-251-0608 x13 [email protected] www.convergys.com www.egain.com [email protected] www.cogitocorp.com Adrienne Snyder, Eastern/Midwest Account Director 201-327-2773 [email protected]

7730 South Union Park Avenue [email protected] Suite 500 www.nanorep.com Dennis Sullivan, Salt Lake City, UT 84047 Western Account Director Phone: 1-866-965-7227 203-445-9178 www.incontact.com [email protected]

Produced by: CRM Media WP18 March 2016 | CRM Magazine Sponsored Content

How Workforce Intelligence Creates a Better Customer Experience

Contact centers face many challenges, data is through adopting a Workforce or chats a few different ways. They can from difficult agents to unanticipated call Intelligence (WFI) system. Many contact have the customer fill out a survey about volumes to unexpected crises. Although centers are manually analyzing their data, how the interaction went. They can also data can be overwhelming and itself can be wasting countless hours and getting lost listen to or read back the interaction itself a challenge, it is one of the most valuable in the data. These systems, which take and analyze what went well and what weapons in any contact center arsenal. automatic action on behalf of a contact could be improved. If a customer reaches There are many ways in which data can center manager or supervisor, are the out again, and the supervisor knows a help any contact center. Not only can it engine of your contact center automation. previous interaction with a specific agent mitigate customer churn, but also improve With WFI, you can build certain went well, he or she could then route the customer response time and decrease thresholds into the system and then let repeat caller back to the original agent to operational costs. it take over. This frees up supervisors to replicate that positive interaction again. focus on what they do best. Mitigate customer churn CRM Integration Things can turn on a dime in a contact For example, you can use WFI to identify With WFI, contact centers can directly center, creating unexpected spikes in calls agents who have longer call-times than link to other data sources, such as their and online chats. This can bog down is average. Through having access to that CRM data which enable agents and contact center agents and lead to longer data, you can take proactive steps to help supervisors to better serve the customer wait times for customers. The result is often these agents improve their efficiency, such base. For example, if customers are increased abandon rates as customers get as assigning them an e-learning course, consistently calling about a certain type of impatient and decide to not to wait any scheduling a meeting with their supervisors issue, you can run reports and see which longer for help. to discuss what might be holding them issues they are reaching out about most back or lowering their proficiency level. frequently. With that information, you With access to real-time data, contact can make sure to assign agents specific centers can implement a proactive Rather than relying on quality control to types of trainings that will arm them with approach to these busy times. Data see a pattern, WFI can seamlessly analyze the information they need to better help can empower them to allocate calls real-time data and identify these patters customers who call in. differently or change how agents respond on its own, reducing response times. It to customers. Spikes are always going to works dynamically to recognize if there CONCLUSION happen, but with better data access and is anything occurring that you want to Data is paramount to the success of any analysis, contact centers are able to plan, change. Along with reducing response contact center. Through using tools, like predict and prepare for the spikes rather times, it can simultaneously improve the Workforce Intelligence, contact centers can than simply react when they occur. customer experience, the overall efficiency take control of this data and become of the contact center and agent service empowered, proactive respondents, Improve customer response time levels. There are many broad implications improving both the customer experience Real-time data can also speed up to what this can do for the industry. and the bottom line. customer response times. This can be vital to industries that rely on speed and Workforce Intelligence gives managers accuracy, such as the healthcare industry, information about how employees are doing where any delay could lead to a life- so they can better understand their agents threatening crisis. By making real-time and the contact center as a whole. This data available, agents and supervisors improves overall efficiency and directly inContact is the cloud contact center can respond to changing conditions impacts the bottom line. software leader, helping organizations around dynamically. the globe create high quality customer Dynamically route customers experiences. For more information, visit WORKFORCE INTELLIGENCE Workforce Intelligence can also www.inContact.com or call 1-866-965-SaaS. EMPOWERS CONTACT CENTERS. dynamically route customers to the best One of the best ways to leverage agents to respond to their questions. With facebook.com/inContact the vast potential of contact center this data, supervisors can analyze calls twitter.com/inContact Sponsored Content CRM Magazine | March 2016 WP19

How Intelligent Contact Centers Do Better in Customer Engagement

eGain has been enabling omnichannel lifetime value and tactical factors such guided interactions, and virtual customer engagement for blue-chip as the value of goods in the customer’s assistant interfaces to maximize user companies around the world for more than 15 online shopping cart. adoption and knowledge ROI. A years. Over time, we have compiled innovation • Make sure your customer engagement broad set of access methods makes and best practices that intelligent contact system integrates easily with your it easy for agents and customers to centers leverage to stand out from the average ERP, CRM, and eCommerce systems. find information based on their own ones. Here are some popular examples. preferences, experience level, and 3. LEVERAGE DIGITAL CHANNELS AS problem type. A key capability called 1. TAKE A PROACTIVE APPROACH PART OF A UNIFIED CUSTOMER eGain Multisearch™, embedded in With “time to competitive advantage” ENGAGEMENT HUB our knowledge management solution, shrinking, businesses no longer have the Adoption of digital channels continues aggregates all these options behind a luxury of taking a wait-and-see approach to increase, fueled by increased adoption of simple search box. in customer engagement matters. Whether the mobile and social web, and generational • Do not ignore ongoing content it’s responding to customer trends or preferences. Moreover, industry studies over maintenance. Automating content competitor moves, adding and unifying the years have shown that interaction costs performance management tasks will engagement channels, making it easy for through these channels are significantly lower make it easy to keep the content customers to buy from you, or addressing than the phone channel. So it makes eminent fresh and relevant. issues before customer queries pile up, you sense to add digital to the omnichannel mix. have to act now! First-mover advantage in 5. ALIGN METRICS WITH BUSINESS customer engagement is sustainable and Best Practices GOALS AND STRATEGY often irreversible. • Implement a customer engagement If you intend to compete in your market hub to avoid creating channel silos based on high-touch service and you’re Best Practices and provide a unified and consistent running your contact center exclusively • Add next-generation web self-service, customer experience. Start with the on throughput metrics, there’s a clear chat including video, SMS, and most important channels first, then misalignment that will defeat your cobrowse. And, make sure they are simply plug in other channels when business intent. integrated. you are ready for them. • Reduce inbound customer queries by • Make sure your traditional channels Best Practices providing proactive service through such as phone and face-to-face • Consider metrics such as “the outbound notifications. interactions are integrated with your number of issues covered per • Go beyond one-size-fits-all digital channels. Look for solutions interaction” and Customer Sat proactive chat to intelligent proactive that have been built on a unified instead of Average Handle Time if engagement through contextual customer engagement hub platform. you want to develop deeper customer content and sales and service offers. • Establish and track service levels that relationships. This will help you accelerate the appropriate for each channel. • Choose metrics that make sense for customer engagement process end your business and industry. Sales- to end. Leverage analytics from 4. EMPOWER YOUR AGENTS AND related metrics are appropriate if past interactions to help make the CUSTOMERS WITH KNOWLEDGE your goals include revenue best offers. Contact center agents struggle to keep generation. Compliance up with their company’s offerings due to conformance may be more important 2. PROVIDE VALUE-BASED increased product proliferation and the than handle time if you are in a CUSTOMER SERVICE broadening scope of customer queries. highly regulated industry. Your business needs to excel in customer Ever-changing processes and government service without compromising profitability. regulations add to this challenge. Businesses Intelligent contact centers provide the right must arm agents with knowledge-guided About eGain service level by using robust frameworks interactive processes that are compliant eGain customer engagement solutions to define customer value. They nudge with best practices and government power digital transformation for leading low-value customers to self-service, while regulations, as well as knowledge base brands. Our top-rated cloud applications making it easy for high-value customers to content and flexible access methods that for social, mobile, web, and contact centers get access to any kind of service they need. help agents sell and serve better. help clients deliver connected customer journeys in a multichannel world. To find out Best Practices Best Practices more, visit http://www.egain.com. • Define customer value based on • Provide flexible access methods such strategic variables such as customer as Dynamic FAQ, search, browse, © 2016 eGain Corporation. All rights reserved. WP20 March 2016 | CRM Magazine Sponsored Content

Shifting Customer Service from “Cost Center” to “Value Center”

While we all understand and seem sensible that brands would fully VALUE IN THE PROCESS appreciate the importance of good embrace a new approach to the way they Customers have grown comfortable with customer service, the fact that it doesn’t interact with clients, and traditional technology and in finding answers on their often contribute to direct profits for systems are simply not designed own, but it is not always enough to simply the company, has led many to view with the capability to provide a truly offer information at every touchpoint. Most customer service as a cost center. personalized experience. companies today offer responsive websites Though this may be the case in some and mobile web portals, information for organizations, it doesn’t have to be, nor TECHNOLOGY WILL LEAD THE WAY every question, and each of them align should it be. Now more than ever, with The internet has brought forth the across multiple channels. Technology has the proliferation of connected devices, digital era, where information can be also raised customers’ expectations. Today, social networks and online communities, accessed in seconds and we are only customers want intelligent systems that customer service should be seen as a limited by our imaginations. Make no recognize them and deliver information potential value center. mistake about it, in this new era, the that is accurate and relevant to them. They customer will be king and personalized want all this and they want it at a time and Cost centers are generally associated information will be available on demand, place that is convenient for them. with having a negative financial impact whenever and wherever the customer because they are perceived as having no requests it. Every interaction and tiny bit This is where the true value lies. For as direct contribution to company profits. of information provided by the customer much as technology has shifted the power in In some ways they are viewed as a will be recorded, analyzed, and processed favor of consumers in their relationships with “necessary expense”, fulfilling a required into data which will be used to deliver brands, it has given companies the ability to function or purpose for the company, but a “tailored” experience for every client. reach their customers in a variety of new and this also implies that they only generate With all of the insights and information more direct ways. By learning more about expenses. Customer service often gets that can be gathered across the customer customers’ wants and needs, companies can associated in this matter, but it does a journey, the new technology can deliver nurture these relationships to foster brand disservice to the value that it can provide, optimized experiences using automation, loyalty, and with today’s technology they especially now that we’ve entered the where each customer receives the can deliver their message instantly. “age of the customer”. optimal digital cue at the exact moment they need it. A NEW GENERATION OF About nanorep: CUSTOMER SERVICE SHIFTING TOWARDS PERSONALIZATION nanorep provides a personalized guidance In recent years there has been a The biggest adjustment that companies channel, accessible at any moment of need shift in the way many enterprises have will need to perform is in relation to their during the customer digital journey. Our approached the customer experience. focus. Where most companies are built solution is powerful, yet simple enough Technology has ushered in a new era with a brand-centric approach, this new to make digital service your customers where consumers are in control and they digital era demands an approach that puts preferred experience. With nanorep’s Digital expect convenience, personalization, and the customer front and center. Brand image Experience Guidance (DEG) SaaS solution, accurate information that is contextually and reputation are important for investors your customers’ questions render continuous relevant to them. Many enterprises and shareholders, but to customers, the intelligence that delivers actionable and have been trying to rekindle positive primary concern relates to their personal personalized guidance to what they need. sentiments surrounding their brands and benefit from the interactions they have with Give your customers a personalized channel have made noticeable efforts to advance a company. We can already see a significant to connect with you anytime, anywhere into this new frontier of customer push towards intelligent solutions to and on any device. Let them find answers service, but success has been limited. provide customers with access to company to any question and resolve specific issues This may be due, in part, to poor information, and this is especially true for immediately, without passing them off to direction within these organizations. digital interaction points. The companies another channel. Provide ubiquitous help Instead of making comprehensive that will be successful in the coming and assistance with on-demand guidance long term strategies, customer service years are those who’ve embraced the throughout their digital journey. often just receives “quick fixes” that shift, providing an experience that offers never really solves the larger problem. personalization and one which empowers For more information In an age where social media gives them with the ability to easily find the Visit our website: www.nanorep.com power to even a single voice, it would information they are seeking. Email us: [email protected] Sponsored Content CRM Magazine | March 2016 WP21

Build an Emotional Connection with Your Customers

Companies have recently focused on speaking behavior; on average, they likelihood of agent and customer churn, improving customer service delivery by subjectively evaluate a low percentage of and a customer’s receptivity to buying more. investing in omni-channel connectivity, any given agent’s phone calls, with an agent This new category of analytics offers service improving compliance and developing and a supervisor meeting infrequently to organizations a way to evolve their insights policies and procedures for agents, but they review performance. That insufficient beyond those provided by traditional continue to underinvest in one of the most level of measurement and feedback leaves post‑interaction surveys. critical elements of service delivery—making agents wanting more objective guidance an emotional connection with customers. on their speaking style and supervisors UNIFY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY torn between using their limited data to TO ENHANCE INTERACTIONS Call centers should be places where meet management’s efficiency goals and The study of psychology and human genuine, human conversations happen, where providing agents the coaching they need to interaction is nearly as old as humanity. customers and agents build rapport and make better serve customers. This limited analysis The amazing acceleration of technological emotional connections. Customers frequently often focuses on flagging certain spoken advancement, combined with the study of complain about the communication style of words and compliance with procedure, not psychology, has enabled us to develop best call center agents. (According to Consumer with the agent’s communication style. practices for enhancing phone interactions. Reports, rude agents are one of customers’ Service organizations can benefit from biggest complaints.) Too often, agents seem Service organizations need to consider this unification of science and technology, to lack confidence, sound apathetic or employ new metrics that can provide agents the enabling agents to improve their speaking a robotic communication style. Until now, in-the-moment feedback they need to behavior, demonstrate empathy and customer service leaders have lacked the ability consistently demonstrate empathy and build build rapport. to effectively measure and improve agents’ rapport on calls, as well as judge customer emotional connections with customers. reactions and dynamically adjust their Applying real-time behavioral signals and communication style accordingly. They voice analysis technology in the call center CREATE A MORE HUMAN CONNECTION need to enable agents to more effectively can help deliver the empathy and rapport it For customers, emotions are a big deal. engage the customer in a well-orchestrated has long been missing. With behavioral Customer-experience expert Bruce Temkin exchange to solve problems. The agent signals analysis, every call becomes an exercise cites emotion as the most important element and the customer need to see the call as in real-time, soft-skills training. Agents have of the customer experience. In his report, a partnership. When they do, both leave the feedback they need to foster all-important ROI of Customer Experience, 2015, fulfilled, satisfied and loyal. emotional connections with customers, Temkin asserts that happy customers are supervisors have the comprehensive insights better, more loyal customers. Call center metrics need to evolve to they need to effectively coach large include information that can measure, in real populations of agents, and management has What many companies don’t understand time, the emotional experience of both agents the real-time customer experience measures it is that emotions are a big deal for agents, too. and customers. They need new sources of requires to continuously improve—making Gallup data shows that 70 percent of service information such as those generated from agents more productive and creating more employees are “disengaged,” meaning they behavioral signals applications. These advocates for the brand. aren’t invested in their jobs and don’t take applications are firmly grounded in behavioral them very seriously. Disengaged agents leave science. They translate human “honest customers feeling helpless and frustrated, as if signals” communicated through intonation, About Cogito: agents are just anonymous, narrated versions fluctuating pace and amplitude of voice, Cogito enhances customer relationships through of the company’s website and databases. among other “non-linguistic” behaviors, to caring and empathetic conversations. Our lead That’s what happens when organizations do effectively measure empathy and rapport application Cogito Dialog improves agent not have a scalable way to improve the “soft within a call. They leverage how people are performance by presenting them with real-time skills” of agents—the key skills required to speaking, not the words they are saying, to behavioral guidance. The Cogito Experience connect with customers on a human level. provide novel interaction metrics. They give Score provides an objective and reliable When agents lack the ability to build rapport, supervisors and agents objective feedback on measure of customer experience on 100% of they deliver stiff, factual answers to questions, speaking behavior and provide the guidance selected phone interactions a company has with which leave customers feeling ambivalent, required to improve soft skills. its customers. Cogito is increasing customer dissatisfied and potentially disloyal. engagement and improving employee Behavioral signals analytics can shed a productivity in the world’s leading organizations. EVOLVE MEASUREMENT TO more accurate and comprehensive light on IMPROVE THE EXPERIENCE the quality of the customer’s experience For more information, please visit Service organizations are currently across 100 percent of phone conversations. www.cogitocorp.com quite limited in their evaluation of agent It offers predictive insights on the Follow us on: LinkedIn and Twitter WP22 March 2016 | CRM Magazine Sponsored Content

How to Turn Disjointed Interactions into Satisfying Customer Journeys

Cross-channel communication is on the context of that interaction. It pressed—as the customer interacts one of the most challenging aspects of also lets business owners determine with the website. customer service. Customers view their what processes and rules apply to a journey as one conversation, regardless given channel, while at the same time 3. Identifying the customer in the IVR of the channels they use, but siloed maintaining the cohesiveness and context based on credentials, such as phone enterprise data forces them to repeat of the conversation. Business owners number, and tying it to the web ID, information as they move from channel are free to modify, add, and delete rules then providing the option to speak to channel, leading to frustration and based on customer experience strategy to an agent. lost opportunities. changes, etc. 4. Passing the routing information BREAKING DOWN SILOS CROSS CHANNEL ORCHESTRATION and routing the call to the Channels are based on different A utility company wants to take an appropriate agent. technologies and often evolve over a omnichannel approach to alleviating period of time, trapping data in silos. its customers’ “bill shock”. The utility 5. Providing the agent desktop This siloed data is difficult to exchange offers its customers the option to review application with the information or transfer, and it may be contextually and pay their bills through their website gathered from the web and IVR irrelevant or incomplete. To make or smartphone application. A large so the agent can continue exactly matters worse, it is difficult to find percentage of the company’s calls are where the customer left off. channel-independent mechanisms from customers seeking clarity on rates, that provide insights into customer pro ration, overages, and surcharges. SUMMARY behavior. Your organization can have an For example, when a customer has immediate impact on your customers Human conversations are context- questions about the bill he is viewing as you understand their conversations sensitive and contain inputs, outputs, past on the company’s website and a late and intent as one seamless interaction. references, and comparisons. Consumers charge he/she received, he calls an agent, Your customers will have a more want enterprises and their non-human anticipating that the agent will be able personalized and seamless experience channels to understand and react to these to explain the charges—and perhaps that is less demanding on them. And conscious and subconscious inputs and give him a credit. In a silo-ed data your agents will be more efficient by references in the same way as in human environment, the agent is not aware of resolving issues the first time, driving conversations. Contextual interactions the customer’s online activity, so the down costs and churn. can provide that understanding. customer must explain their intent. Compounding this delay, the agent has ENABLING CONTEXTUAL to look at multiple screens to gather INTERACTIONS all the relevant interactions around Contextual interactions capture the customer’s services, products, and Why Convergys? interaction intent in a flexible data model recent history. For over 30 years, Convergys has provided that can be easily integrated with any industry-leading technologies and services IVR, desktop or other communication With cross channel orchestration that balance customer satisfaction with channel, such as chat, social media and and context, the conversation that the cost reduction. We combine omnichannel mobile applications. This provides cross customer started online seamlessly technologies and award-winning channel orchestration and continuity continues with the agent. Professional Services to deliver effortless, to customer conversations and also personalized interactions. Our solutions increases an enterprise’s ability provide 1. Identifying the key areas on the support over 7 billion interactions each year, personalization and improve the website that result in calls to the agent. and 98% of our clients would recommend omnichannel customer experience. For example, Review Bills, Service our solutions. Plans, and Review Features. An enterprise can define and deploy To learn more about Convergys’ business rules that determine how to 2. Capturing the business intent— omnichannel technologies, visit handle customer interactions based not just mouse clicks and buttons http://bit.ly/1RNseL7. BY THE EDITORS OF CRM MAGAZINE

he era of high customer expectations and personalized service contin- ues unabated, and our 13th annual Service Awards issue salutes the vendors whose technologies—mobile, social, multichannel, analyt- ics—are shaping this increasingly customer-centric landscape, as well as the companies that are putting those technologies to impressive use. TThe profiles of our Service Leaders, Rising Stars, and Elite not only highlight this year’s breakthrough solutions and innovative approaches but show what’s possible when pleasing customers is your top priority. Service Rising Service Leaders Stars Elite 24 35 43 www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 23 THE 2016 CRM SERVICE AWARDS

BY THE EDITORS OF CRM MAGAZINE

here have been a lot of developments over the past 12 months in the customer service and support industry—advances in mobile, cloud, and analytics technologies, as well as some deep neural network and cognitive computing capabilities. Fortunately, our 2016 CRM Service Leader Awards have captured nearly all of them. As in years past, these awards recognize the seasoned and emerging customer service Tand support vendors and outsourcers for their industry contributions. In fact, this year’s Service Leaders welcome five new vendors. Additionally, out of the eight Service Leader categories, we crown five new category winners. Clearly, it has been a busy year. To learn more about the latest industry trends and developments and the vendors that are driving them, read our 2016 CRM Service Leader Awards coverage on the ensuing pages.

The editors of CRM magazine would like to extend their appreciation and thanks to those who spent time and effort evaluating the candidates for this year’s CRM Service Awards. This issue, and the awards themselves, would not be possible without the generous contributions of the following judges: Leslie Ament, senior vice president and principal analyst at Hypatia Research; Aphrodite Brinsmead, principal analyst on the Customer Interaction team at Ovum; Dick Bucci, chief analyst at Pelorus Associates; Donna Fluss, founder and president of DMG Consulting; Ian Jacobs, senior analyst, Forrester Research; Esteban Kolsky, principal and founder of ThinkJar; Mitch Kramer, senior vice president and analyst, Patricia Seybold Group; Kate Leggett, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research; Brian Manusama, research director at Gartner; Sheila McGee-Smith, founder and president of McGee-Smith Analytics; Natalie Petouhoff, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research; John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research at the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA); Paul Stockford, president and chief analyst at Saddletree Research; Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research; Rebecca Wettemann, vice president at Nucleus Research.

24 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE CUSTOMER Microsoft Dynamics CRM CASE Microsoft Parature MANAGEMENT Oracle Salesforce.com Zendesk CONTACT Aspect Software CENTER Cisco Systems INFRASTRUCTURE Genesys Interactive Intelligence Mitel INTERACTIVE [24]7 VOICE Aspect Software RESPONSE Cisco Systems Interactive Intelligence West WEB Microsoft SUPPORT Oracle Service Cloud Salesforce.com Service Cloud TouchCommerce Zendesk WORKFORCE Aspect Software OPTIMIZATION Genesys inContact NICE Systems Verint Systems CONTACT Coveo CENTER SEARCH IBM Watson Kana, a Verint Company Oracle Service Cloud (Knowledge)—Inquira Salesforce.com ENTERPRISE Confirmit FEEDBACK IBM MANAGEMENT MaritzCX (Allegiance) Medallia Vovici (Verint)

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF SERVICES COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE CONTACT Alorica CENTER Convergys OUTSOURCING Sykes Enterprises Teleperformance TeleTech

CATEGORIES AND CRITERIA CRM magazine’s 13th annual Service Leader Awards names one winner and four leaders (listed alphabetically) in each of eight categories,­ using a proprietary selection formula. The overall award rating is based on a composite score of company revenue and analyst ratings for ­deployment costs, customer sat- isfaction, depth of functionality (or services, in the case of outsourcing), and company direction. (These ratings are based on a five-point scale, with 5 being the highest.) In addition, each category cites one “one to watch”—companies deemed worth tracking for their potential to appear on that leaderboard in the future. The chart above collects winners and leaders across all eight categories. The category winners are the eight bold names highlighted in red type.

www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 25 SERVICE LEADERS Customer Case Management

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE TOP 3 MARKETS Financial Services, Public Sector, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Manufacturing Technology and Software, Microsoft Parature Education, Gaming and Media Oracle Financial Services, Government Financial Services, High-Tech, Salesforce.com Manufacturing and Retail High-Tech, Government and Zendesk Education, Retail

THE MARKET Oracle regains its spot on the board after being bumped to As customers increasingly expect personalized, high-quality, One to Watch last year. It posted a healthy score in depth of and consistent interactions, and with channels such as social functionality (3.9), and its Service Cloud offering, Jacobs notes, media, community pages, forums, chat services, and con- does well for “B2C organizations that offer robust Web self-ser- nected devices becoming more prominent, companies must vice and omnichannel customer services, as well as with com- be equipped to handle multichannel interactions. Investments panies that emphasize the value of customer experiences.” The in customer case management technologies will ultimately vendor posted its lowest score in customer satisfaction (3.2), reduce costs, boost agent productivity, drive customer satis- but Jacobs says that clients benefit from a maturity model that faction, and reveal opportunities for further growth. enables them to “plan out investments in a sensible and pur- Yet John Ragsdale, vice president of technology and social re- poseful way.” Ragsdale lauds its industry-specific versions that search for the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), cater to the needs of different verticals, with prepackaged fields notes a lack of differentiation among this year’s leading vendors: and capabilities that can cut implementation time and cost. “Functionality is [now] pretty much on par across solutions, Zendesk makes its debut on the leaderboard, helped by its and they all tend to look alike.” Success, he notes, is coming to transition upmarket. The company scored weakest in depth Customer Case Management depend more on customer processes than the technology itself. of functionality (3.0), but analysts agree that recent moves will help. “Although Zendesk still has a way to go in core case THE LEADERS management, it has pioneered the very promising idea of em- Microsoft Dynamics CRM steps down from the top spot this beddable technology, including integration into Facebook Mes- year, but high scores indicate that its direction remains strong senger,” notes Ian Jacobs, senior analyst at Forrester Research. and its customers satisfied. (The 4.1 for company direction The company has also been “introducing more sophistica- comes despite the resignation of the company’s top CRM ex- tion, while keeping [its] user interface highly intuitive,” Rags- ecutive, Bob Stutz, late last year.) Jacobs notes the company’s dale adds. High scores for cost (4.3) indicate that affordability strong focus on usability and its “reputation for a better cost continues to set this company apart. structure than much of the competition.” Esteban Kolsky, principal and founder at ThinkJar, says that the company’s THE WINNER support product is still incomplete but “lots of work is being Salesforce.com reclaims the CCM title this year after a two-year done” to change that. Ragsdale adds that “embedded search, hiatus, amply demonstrating that it’s heading in the right direc- knowledge, and social capabilities are putting Microsoft on tion—it scored a 4.5 in that area. “Salesforce.com has the most the short list for more major enterprise deals.” comprehensive vision and is able to paint the art of the possible,” Microsoft Parature remains a leader this year, largely Leggett notes. Salesforce.com “is one of the few players that pro- thanks to Microsoft’s dedication to preserving the brand’s vides strong support for both B2B and B2C business models” and identity. Despite acquiring the smaller company early in 2014, offers a “full omnichannel lineup especially strong in…social cus- “Microsoft has maintained the core Parature development tomer service and chat tools,” Jacobs adds. Customer satisfaction and marketing [teams],” Ragsdale says. Other analysts are has been boosted as a result of newly added capabilities, Ragsdale skeptical. Kate Leggett, vice president and principal analyst points out: “Salesforce continues to push into hot new areas, one at Forrester Research, for instance, comments on the “mixed example being [the Internet of Things], which is emerging as a messaging” Microsoft has sent on Parature’s future. critical element of case management.” —Oren Smilansky Still, Microsoft has enabled Parature to expand its reach; last year Parature had its largest release yet when it updated ONE TO WATCH its customer care solution. No surprise, then, that it earned Kana (a Verint Systems company) fell off the leaderboard this year, and according to Kolsky, it hasn’t benefited from Verint acquiring it in 2014. a high mark for direction (3.8). “Customers have not had “The Kana product has had some negative reference from very large any disruption in releases or support levels” and “their customers,” Leggett says. And Jacobs says that while “Verint delivers comprehensive case and channel management capabilities that guide community-­oriented support platform continues to impress,” agents through process flows,” there “have been some grumblings from Ragsdale says. customers about complexity and stability.” —O.S.

26 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com SERVICE LEADERS Contact Center Infrastructure

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE TOP 3 MARKETS Financial Services, Telecom, Aspect Software Travel/Hospitality Cisco Systems Utilities, Government, Healthcare Retail, Financial Services, Genesys Telecommunications Financial Services, Insurance, Interactive Intelligence Telecommunications Healthcare, Telecommunications, Mitel Travel

THE MARKET company’s 4.0 in this area was a little lower than some of its The past few years have been tumultuous for the con- competitors, but analysts point out that its portfolio remains tact center infrastructure industry, as a number of market among the industry’s broadest and is backed by strong pro- Contact Center Infrastructure ­dynamics have altered the landscape, among them vendor fessional and business consulting services. “The company is consolidation; greater centralization among companies that executing well to help its customers transition to a digital have operated multiple contact centers; and higher demand interactions world,” says Sheila McGee-Smith, founder and for multichannel integration. president of McGee-Smith Analytics. In light of these changes, incumbent vendors are look- Interactive Intelligence led its competitors in company ing to expand their capabilities in areas such as interactive direction (4.2) and also scored well in depth of functional- voice response systems, outbound dialers, contact center ity (4.0). The company made a big splash with its release of workforce management, recording, e-learning, Web chat, PureCloud Engage in the summer, and that has some analysts email response management, live and prerecorded video, concerned. Interactive Intelligence is “throwing all in with the desktop collaboration, analytics, workflow, and mobility. cloud, probably forgoing a large percentage of the market in Many more vendors are also bundling their offerings to the future,” Stockford suggests. simplify the purchase, configuration, and implementation Mitel’s far-better-than-average scores in all of the judg- of their products. ing criteria position it on the leaderboard for the first time. But even more dramatic has been the impact that cloud While its focus has traditionally been the unified communi- deployments have had on the entire industry. According cations market, it is expanding its reach in the contact center to DMG Consulting, the total number of cloud-based con- space, according to Aphrodite Brinsmead, principal analyst at tact center seats jumped 49.9 percent between August 2014 Ovum. Add to that the appointment of a new contact center and August 2015. Worldwide adoption now stands at 11.1 general manager and McGee-Smith predicts “great execution percent, up sharply from 2.2 percent in 2008, DMG’s data in 2016 against a solid strategic plan.” reveals. Flexibility, agility, scalability, and cost benefits of this implementation model are largely responsible for the growth, THE WINNER the firm maintains. New seats are coming from replacements As it has for many years, Cisco Systems scored the best in of dated on-premises solutions and a growing number of depth of functionality in 2016 (4.1), and its company direc- first-time users, not only from among the small to midsize tion score (4.0) was just a hair off the lead. “Cisco is break- early adopters but a growing number of larger enterprises ing down barriers and leading the industry into the future,” as well. Stockford says. “They continue to offer a solid product with a reputation for stability, reliability, strong customer relation- THE LEADERS ships, and a clear vision of company strategy as it relates to the In the past year, Aspect Software acquired LinguaSys, an evolution of the customer care industry.” And it doesn’t stop inter­active text response and natural language user interface there, according to McGee-Smith: “There is every expectation provider, and introduced Aspect Managed Services. Its cloud that a multitenant contact center offer will be added to the business this year also surpassed its on-premises business, Spark platform in 2016.” —Leonard Klie but Paul Stockford, president and chief analyst at Saddletree ­Research, says the company’s migration path to the cloud is sensible. “Aspect doesn’t do anything haphazardly,” he says, “and the stability they offer in their infrastructure, both cloud and on-premises, is proof.” That’s also reflected in its scores ONE TO WATCH for depth of functionality (4.0) and company direction and Selling its agent services business to Alorica in January 2015 has freed customer satisfaction (both 3.8). West to concentrate more on its contact center technology business, and analysts have taken notice. Still, analysts this year approached the Depth of functionality has always been one of Genesys’s company with cautious optimism, demonstrated by its low score of 3.3 strongest attributes, and this year was no different. The in company direction. —L.K. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 27 SERVICE LEADERS Interactive Voice Response

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE TOP 3 MARKETS Travel, Financial Services, [24]7 Education Financial Services, Retail, Travel/ Aspect Software Hospitality Cisco Systems Utilities, Government, Healthcare Financial Services, Insurance, Interactive Intelligence Telecommunications West Healthcare, Utilities, Government

THE MARKET well incorporating mobile functionality from its acquisition While consumers are increasingly turning to other chan- of Voxeo” in 2013, says Sheila McGee-Smith, founder and nels—such as mobile apps, texting, and Web chat—to reach president of McGee-Smith Analytics. companies, interactive voice response (IVR) systems remain Cisco Systems, last year’s category winner, suffered a the workhorses today that they were 15 years ago. In fact, setback this year because of its slower-than-average cloud for most companies, inbound call volumes continue to rise, migration. However, it still managed to post a score of 3.8 which has prompted continued interest in the very mature in depth of functionality. Stockford maintains that Cisco’s IVR technology. IVR products are “highly functional and seamlessly integrated Research firm Technavio has forecasted the global IVR into a comprehensive contact center solution.” But McGee- systems market to grow at a rate of 27.4 percent per year Smith says the company has some catching up to do. “Cisco through 2019. Growth is being fueled by increasing consumer has a solid solution and is working on a stronger proactive acceptance of speech technologies, thanks in large part to engagement story across channels,” she says. technological advances in natural language understanding, Interactive Intelligence scored an industry-leading 4.0 this Interactive Voice Response machine learning, and IVR analytics, as well as the integration year in company direction. Its high marks in customer satis- of self-service and assisted service. faction and depth of functionality (both 3.9) make it a strong Challenging this growth, however, is that many companies contender. As with its contact center infrastructure, analysts are still reluctant to spend money on their IVR systems. When touted Interactive Intelligence’s strong stable of new products it comes to upgrades and improvements, many businesses and different options, many of them built in house. prioritize newer channels over IVRs. Or, in many cases, IVR plans are integrated into a broader self-service and assisted-­ THE WINNER service strategy. West, a newcomer to the leaderboard in 2015, moves up even On the technology front, some industry analysts foresee a further to take the top spot this year, bolstered by a score of continuing expansion of IVR capabilities as they evolve into 4.0 in depth of functionality and 3.9 in customer satisfac- more full-featured voice portals. “The differentiating factor tion. Its overall performance, analysts say, was made possi- in this market will be the application of self-service in other ble by the January 2015 sale of its agent services business to channels. IVR-like automation in other channels is the future Alorica. Since then, the company has pushed the envelope of contact center self-service,” says Paul Stockford, president with its speech recognition systems, which it continues to and chief analyst at Saddletree Research. bolster with natural language capabilities. It’s also looking to advance its portfolio further through acquisitions: In the THE LEADERS fall, it acquired ClientTell, a provider of automated notifica- [24]7 already has a strong IVR technology portfolio, evi- tions to the healthcare industry, for $38 million; and Mag- denced by its score of 3.9 in depth of functionality. But this netic North, a provider of hosted customer contact center and portfolio, highlighted by the Customer Engagement Plat- unified communications solutions, for $39 million. “These form, will only get richer as the company integrates deep highly strategic acquisitions enhance our solutions in growing neural networks with IVRs following a deal with Microsoft markets and demonstrate our commitment to investing in last summer. The company is also winning over its custom- leading technologies,” said Tom Barker, chairman and CEO ers, as demonstrated by its 3.9 in customer satisfaction, which of West, in a statement. —Leonard Klie put it in a three-way tie at the top.. Aspect Software rebounded from last year’s One to Watch and returned to the coveted leaderboard this year. As it has ONE TO WATCH for years, it led the industry in depth of functionality (4.2), Convergys has been long absent from any kind of leadership position and it also did comparatively well in company direction (3.5). in the IVR market—until now. The company has a strong stable of solutions, developed in house, that it can use as a competitive “Their vision of the future puts them solidly in front of the differentiator, according to Ian Jacobs, a senior analyst at Forrester market,” Stockford says. Additionally, it “continues to do Research. The company also posted a top mark in cost (3.6). —L.K.

28 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com SERVICE LEADERS Web Support

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE TOP 3 MARKETS Financial Services, High-Tech, Microsoft Retail Retail, Telecommunications, Oracle Service Cloud High-Tech Financial Services, High-Tech, Salesforce.com Service Cloud Manufacturing Telecommunications, Financial TouchCommerce Services, Hospitality Zendesk Retail, Telecommunications, Travel

THE MARKET On the leaderboard for the first time—it received One to Smaller vendors continue to push the envelope in the Web Watch honors last year—Zendesk has impressed analysts over support category, but big vendors aren’t slacking. With the past two years. The vendor made a big move in 2015 by in- Web Support mobile and self-service increasing in importance, vendors tegrating with Facebook Messenger, and Forrester analyst Ian of all sizes are making strides through new technologies and Jacobs describes the vendor as having “a pioneering approach acquisitions to provide customers with the experience they to embeddable technology.” Ray Wang, founder and princi- want. Leaders in Web support have developed new solutions pal analyst at Constellation Research, says Zendesk “keeps in key areas such as chat support and mobile app support. gaining momentum as it goes upmarket,” and described the vendor’s BIME analytics acquisition as a “boom for customers THE LEADERS seeking more native analytical capabilities.” Oracle Service Cloud impressed analysts with its Web self-service capabilities, which helped the company earn its THE WINNER high depth of functionality score (4.2). Jacobs says that Oracle Since acquiring Parature and jumping onto the leaderboard “has a flexible, easily configurable customer service solution,” for the first time in this category last year, Microsoft has con- and praised the vendor’s omnichannel capabilities for B2C tinued to impress analysts with its integration of Parature businesses. He also says that Oracle has a “strong cobrowse technology. The company unveiled a number of updates for component,” which he attributes to its 2014 LiveLOOK Parature over the past year, including improvements to its acquisition, and provides “solid chat, email response manage- engagement portal, its knowledge base search tools, and its ment, social customer service, and knowledge management.” language capabilities; it also made a foray into wearable apps Updates to Service Cloud included Community Self-Service, with the introduction of its Parature app for Apple Watch. an approach to Web self-service that enables businesses to According to Jacobs, the cloud-based Parature solution is connect Web service and community interactions. particularly well suited to departmental teams that need a Salesforce.com continues its year-after-year strong perfor- service they can quickly deploy; he notes that this quick de- mance, with analysts praising both its B2B and B2C customer ployment ability is “critical for resource-strapped teams.” At service solutions. According to Jacobs, Salesforce.com has this point, Parature lacks comprehensive mobile support, “pushed itself into a leadership role in the customer service Jacobs says; however, the introduction of the Parature app world over the past several years.” Jacobs described Salesforce. for Apple Watch suggests that Microsoft is making moves com’s ability to provide strong support for both B2B and B2C to ameliorate this shortcoming. Wang notes the importance as a “tricky feat,” and says that the vendor is “especially strong of pairing Parature with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, saying in emerging channels such as social customer service and chat that the latter “takes advantage of all the advanced technology tools.” Additionally, the Sales Wave Analytics App and the goodies from Microsoft.” Microsoft was particularly strong Service Wave Analytics App contributed to the company’s in depth of functionality (4.1) and company direction (4.4). strong depth of functionality score (4.3), but Salesforce.com’s Look for Microsoft to continue refining Parature’s capabilities highest score, 4.4, came in company direction. and integrating it with its other products. —Sam Del Rowe Analysts like TouchCommerce’s actionable analytics and real-time customer targeting, which Jacobs says “makes the company a strong player in the prepurchase world.” Jacobs ONE TO WATCH also notes the vendor’s expansion into the social realm, as After placing on the leaderboard last year, Moxie Software dropped to well as its announced partnership with Nuance, which he the One to Watch slot this year. Wang calls Moxie’s shift in focus to believes will eventually deliver some form of virtual assis- digital engagement a “smart move,” but he says, “Customers would prefer more capabilities out of the box instead of relying on custom tance. TouchSocial, one of the company’s important recent services.” Analysts noted that Moxie is particularly lacking in company launches, enables businesses to embed short links into social direction. According to Jacobs, Moxie “provides strong mobile-first, omnichannel, and knowledge capability,” yet lacks “a comprehensive media posts that enable customers to initiate live chat sessions network of global delivery—sales and support partners to extend its with product or customer service specialists. penetration much beyond North America.” —S.D.R. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 29 SERVICE LEADERS Workforce Optimization

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE TOP 3 MARKETS Healthcare, Telecommunications, Aspect Software Financial Services Retail, Financial Services, Genesys Telecommunications Healthcare, Government, Financial inContact Services Financial Services, Insurance, NICE Systems Healthcare Financial Services, Insurance, Verint Systems Telecommunications

THE MARKET InContact struggled this year more than any other vendor to Growth for contact center workforce optimization (WFO) satisfy its customers, evidenced by its comparatively low score in stagnated in 2015, as the major IT market segments—quality customer satisfaction (3.5). Eighteen months after its 2014 acqui- assurance and recording—have been substantially penetrated. sition of cloud-based contact center services provider Uptivity, According to DMG Consulting’s 2015 “WFO Mid-Year the company “has gotten better at market segmentation between Market Share Report,” revenue for the first half of 2015 to- its Verint-based offer and its own offer (based on the Uptivity ac- taled $712.7 million, a dip from the $720.3 million tallied quisition),” Jacobs says. Stockford says that this makes inContact during the same period in 2014. hard to judge, as Verint “is state of the art,” whereas inContact’s Optimizing staff performance remains key within contact cen- native offerings are “basic at best.” Dick Bucci, founder and pres- ters, but the market is shifting toward a desire for analytics-driven ident of Pelorus Associates, notes that “the attempt to transition solutions that enable companies to improve and personalize each legacy customers to the cloud model has met with resistance, customer interaction. The coming years are expected to be slow particularly among Uptivity channel partners.” Workforce Optimization in WFO, both for established leaders and up-and-comers, with NICE Systems posted the lowest cost score (3.1), which most of the growth originating from the back-office sector. the vendor made up for with a high score in functionality (4.2). More than one analyst referred to NICE’s technology as THE LEADERS “sophisticated,” with Jacobs noting that the company’s “full While Aspect Software has been busy expanding into market slate of WFO functionality” has scaled up to the very largest areas outside of WFO, analysts agree that the vendor contin- of contact centers. McGee-Smith notes that the company is ues to provide a solid offering in this department. Introducing missing a strong cloud offering, which has prevented it from user interface updates and improving usability last year, Aspect reaching small to midsize businesses. Jacobs adds that the posted its highest score in customer satisfaction (4.1). But as Ian company is “working on overcoming its ‘customer-friendli- Jacobs, senior analyst at Forrester Research, sees it, some cus- ness problems,’ but this change will be a slow process.” tomers are “getting a little impatient” waiting for the company’s “transformation.” He does note that enhancements to Aspect THE WINNER ZipWire show promise, and Aspect’s partnership with LiveVox Verint Systems continues to hold the title, scoring highest among shows “a willingness to tackle the cloud from numerous angles.” the leaders in depth of functionality (4.7). Stockford says that the Paul Stockford, principal analyst at Saddletree Research, notes vendor is “leading the market in the evolution of WFO to customer the company’s reliable reputation in the market, remarking, service management and customer experience optimization.” “No one will ever get fired for recommending Aspect WFO.” Jacobs agrees, saying that Verint “has been a leader in showing Genesys—a “longtime innovator,” according to John the future direction of the customer service technology market in Ragsdale, vice president of technology and social research for which WFO, routing, and customer service apps vendors will all the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA)—has be converging.” The company “continues to strengthen its already landed back on the leaderboard after dropping off last year. robust product line and has recruited and maintained partners The company’s highest score came in customer satisfaction that add real value to customers,” Jacobs adds. —Oren Smilansky (3.8), yet like many of the category’s leaders, Genesys still struggles with cost (3.3). Another issue has been functionality ONE TO WATCH (3.3)—Stockford laments some of the company’s acquisitions, Calabrio may have been bumped from its spot on the board this year, but it is on the right path, analysts maintain. “Calabrio is…undergoing as they are “pushed into the same portfolio without any real rapid growth, much of it due to their innovative approach to WFO,” thought behind how they will work together.” Jacobs, on the Stockford says. Analysts say that Calabrio has benefited from close other hand, commends the company’s direction, noting that ties to companies like Cisco, Avaya, and Interactive Intelligence. “They provide their WFO solution to Cisco on an OEM basis as well as linking WFO and routing solutions “shows huge promise.” offering it as a Calabrio-branded solution,” Stockford points out; this Also important, notes Sheila McGee-Smith, principal analyst has lent the company extensive market reach. The company earned its lowest score in depth of functionality (3.7), but Jacobs notes that its at McGee-Smith Analytics, was the company’s investment in “unified suite approach has helped it in competitive displacements of a knowledge management system last year. the big boys in several key accounts.” —O.S.

30 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com SERVICE LEADERS Contact Center Search

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE TOP 3 MARKETS High-Tech, Financial Services, Coveo Manufacturing Financial Services, Professional IBM Watson Services, Telecommunications Financial Services, Insurance, Kana, a Verint Company Communications and Media Retail, Telecommunications, Oracle Service Cloud (Knowledge)—Inquira Financial Services Financial Services, High-Tech, Salesforce.com Manufacturing

THE MARKET says that “Kana has always had very satisfied and very loyal To effectively resolve customer service calls, it is as vital as customers,” Leggett notes that some of them have “recently ever that contact center agents are equipped with tools that expressed dissatisfaction with the product.” Contact Center Search allow them to conveniently find the right information at the Oracle Knowledge and Inquira share a spot on the leader- right time. Fortunately, the leaders in this year’s category board this year, as Oracle has incorporated much of the tech- are helping agents do exactly that. Though the cost of main- nology it acquired from the smaller vendor in 2011. Offering tenance remains a problem for these top vendors, analysts strong on-premises and cloud-based products, Oracle pro- suggest that the price of not having the appropriate tools on vides what Leggett calls a “high-powered solution for com- hand is far greater. plex contact center search.” This is reflected in its scores—the company posted a 4.5 in depth of functionality. But while THE LEADERS there is a lot to work with, customers are often aggravated Coveo is back on the leaderboard again, after spending a by the elaborate nature of the tools, Kramer notes, and the year as One to Watch. No surprise, given its emphasis: Mitch dedication required to get the most out of them. “Customers Kramer, senior vice president and analyst at the Patricia Sey- love the power and hate the complexity of Oracle Knowl- bold Group, considers the company to be a specialty “search edge,” Kramer says of the cloud-based solution. Nonetheless, engine company, focused on search technology.” “Oracle Knowledge is getting a lot of visibility and showing The company posted its highest score—and higher than up on more short lists,” Ragsdale adds. any other vendor in this category—in customer satisfaction (4.2). John Ragsdale, vice president of technology and social THE WINNER research for the Technology Services Industry Association Salesforce.com reclaims the top spot after losing it last year, (TSIA), praises the company’s “impressive customer results” scoring an impressive mark in direction (4.6). The high cost and ranks it as the “top unified search platform,” noting that still “annoys customers,” but “they deal” with it, Kramer says. its machine learning features will “introduce a new paradigm While the product is robust, customers must license an as- for proactive support.” While the company didn’t score as sortment of add-on pieces from the app store to get the depth high as others in functionality, Kate Leggett, principal an- of functionality they require. Fortunately, the company is alyst at Forrester Research, lauded Coveo’s performance in continually improving the Service Cloud in significant ways, that regard. Kramer says. “Search in Service Cloud can help agents find Perhaps a controversial pick, as the company still hasn’t any Salesforce information,” Kramer adds, and while the declared itself a contact center search provider, IBM Watson company doesn’t provide the most powerful search engine, made it on the list for the second straight year. IBM posted it addresses contact center search requirements. “Automatic, exceptional scores for depth of functionality and direction. contextual search within case creation facilities suggests According to Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of Nucleus knowledge items that may address the reason for creating a Research, the company has great potential in this space. The case and avoiding it,” Kramer says. —Oren Smilansky challenge, she notes, is “to productize the technology.” Leg- gett points out that at this point the company is involved in a “very limited number of implementations.” Fortunately, Wet- ONE TO WATCH temann predicts more partnerships in the company’s future. eGain returns as a One to Watch, after falling off the board altogether Kana (a Verint Systems company) stayed on the leader- last year. The company scored highest in functionality (3.5). “I applaud board after making its debut in the category last year. The eGain for creating their own intelligent search platform instead of company earned its highest score for functionality (3.8); OEM’ing a partner solution,” Ragsdale says. The company, he adds, provides a “one-stop shop” for a full-fledged knowledge management, Kramer commends its support for various types of search customer service, omnichannel platform. Esteban Kolsky, principal and and navigation, and its “contextual capabilities are very nice, founder at ThinkJar, is more critical, however, noting that the product is dated and needs revamping. Indeed, the company earned a low especially implied search from case creation.” However, ana- mark for direction (2.8). “They’re introducing a new version in March,” lysts are not without criticisms for the vendor. While Kramer Kolsky says. “We will see.” —O.S. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 31 SERVICE LEADERS Enterprise Feedback Management

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF FUNCTIONALITY COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE TOP 3 MARKETS Insurance, Travel and Confirmit Transportation, High-Tech Retail, Financial Services, Travel IBM and Transportation Financial Services, High-Tech, MaritzCX (Allegiance) Retail Travel and Transportation, Medallia Financial Services, Insurance High-Tech, Telecommunications, Vovici (Verint) Retail

THE MARKET Esteban Kolsky, founder and principal analyst at ThinkJar, Enterprise feedback management vendors need to provide praises the vendor’s technology and innovation. solutions that accurately analyze different kinds of data, such Vovici has analysts divided. According to Wang, the vendor’s as speech and text, and synthesize that information into co- tangential acquisitions “are bringing a good set of options to herent, real-time insights. Predictive analytics remains par- existing clients who want richer integrated solutions.” Leslie amount in this category, and the move to mobile devices Ament, senior vice president and principal analyst at Hypatia continues to have an impact on vendors’ solutions. Research, says the vendor “has developed a portfolio of offerings that enable organizations to act upon and operationalize voice- THE LEADERS of-the-customer insights,” noting that Vovici provides speech, Confirmit scored a 3.7 in five-year cost, and analysts were text, and engagement analytics solutions. Other analysts were pleased by the vendor’s voice-of-customer and voice-of-­ less impressed, resulting in disappointing scores in company di- employee programs. Manusama emphasizes that the com- rection and customer satisfaction. According to Kolsky, “Little pany’s enterprise feedback management platform is available was done post-acquisition by Verint...therefore wasting a lot of on-premises or via software-as-a-service and can be used for ­potential value from a great product.” Nevertheless, Vovici’s solid market research. According to Wang, “Customers like the depth of functionality score (3.8) is unchanged from last year. mobile experience,” and the vendor “gets good marks for Enterprise Feedback Management great customer satisfaction.” But the company particularly THE WINNER struggled in depth of functionality and company direction. IBM earned strong scores across the board, with a 3.9 in depth According to Kolsky, Confirmit “continues to focus on of functionality, a 3.7 in company direction, a 4.0 in customer services over software,” and although the product works satisfaction, and a 4.1 in five-year cost. The vendor won this for late adopters, he says that it “works better in different category two years ago, but it struggled somewhat in last year’s geographic regions.” assessment. According to Ament, IBM’s “predictive analytics, MaritzCX became a competitor in this category once it text analytics, and data mining provide operational decision ­acquired Allegiance in 2014. And even though the acqui- support for an organization’s ability to act on consumer in- sition happened less than two years ago, MaritzCX scored a sight.” Ament also says that “external data such as attitudinal, strong 3.9 in company direction—an area in which compa- behavioral, transactional, and demographic are easily incorpo- nies can struggle shortly after being involved in an acquisition. rated as part of the data capture process.” According to Wang, It scored an even higher mark (4.1) in depth of functionality. early adopters of IBM Watson “are using cognitive services and Unfortunately, MaritzCX’s customer satisfaction score, 3.4, seeing significant results.” The vendor’s strong scores this time is down from a strong 4.0 last year. According to Kolsky, the around indicate a return to form; but according to Kolsky, while company has a “good vision” and “good direction,” but “ex- IBM has acquired good products, it has not integrated them ecution is faltering a tad and needs to be tightened.” sufficiently. Manusama agrees, noting that IBM does not offer a After winning the top spot last year, Medallia has fallen unified voice-of-the-customer package, and that customers “will slightly this time around. According to Ray Wang, founder and need to buy multiple parts of the portfolio to create a virtual VoC principal analyst at Constellation Research, “Some customers hub.” Nevertheless, Manusama says that many of these compo- are now complaining about the lack of focus on customer nents come equipped with built-in connectors. —Sam Del Rowe requests,” although he adds that Medallia’s product contin- ues to improve. Brian Manusama, research director at Gart- ONE TO WATCH ner, notes that Medallia’s implementation and configuration InMoment is One to Watch for the second year running. According can be complex and take between 10 and 16 weeks. “Because to Wang, clients find everything from the company’s predictive analytics to its voice-of-the-customer offering a “more cost-effective Medallia is woven into the processes and operating model of alternative to multiple tools.” Wang also says that “clients often short- an organization, it can create high switching costs that may list InMoment when seeking [customer experience] optimization.” However, according to Manusama, the company needs to improve its compromise long-term pricing leverage,” he says. Neverthe- brand awareness and “re-educate customers on their vision, position, less, Medallia received a 4.1 for depth of functionality, and and differentiation in an increasingly competitive market.” —S.D.R.

32 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com SERVICE LEADERS Contact Center Outsourcing

REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR REPUTATION FOR 5-YEAR COST FOR DEPTH OF SERVICES COMPANY DIRECTION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SOFTWARE/MAINTENANCE TOP 3 MARKETS Retail, Healthcare, Financial Alorica Services High-Tech, Telecommunications, Convergys Financial Services High-Tech, Telecommunications, Sykes Enterprises Financial Services High-Tech, Telecommunications, Teleperformance Financial Services Financial Services, Healthcare, TeleTech Retail

THE MARKET excellent BPO capabilities, but their internal research organi- Third-party outsourcing, a market valued at roughly $75 bil- zation provides fantastic insight for customers on improving lion, accounts for roughly 25 percent of all contact center operations, driving [customer satisfaction], and increasing Contact Center Outsourcing spending globally, according to research from the Everest service revenue,” he says. Group. While demand is still robust in Latin America and Sykes Enterprises made it on the leaderboard again this Asia, adoption in the United States and the United Kingdom year largely on its reputation for customer satisfaction, where flattened. A big reason for the slowdown was a decline in it earned a score of 3.9. Ragsdale calls it “the most relation- contract renewal rates, particularly as companies start to look ship-focused provider I know.” The Tampa, Fla.–based com- at vendors for more than just service performance. Compa- pany, which employs more than 50,000 people at 67 facilities nies are also approaching the outsourcing issue a bit more in 21 countries, is particularly strong in the technology sector, cautiously, starting at a smaller scope at the beginning of an where Jacobs says it has remained “top-of-mind” for many engagement and expanding the contract over time. rapidly growing companies. Company requirements have also changed, with greater TeleTech, a One to Watch for many years, has finally taken demand for onshore delivery, multichannel solutions, its place on the leaderboard by virtue of an industry-leading and business intelligence tools. But despite the challenges, score of 4.4 in company direction. The Englewood, Colo.– ­MarketsandMarkets expects the adoption of advanced tech- based company garnered a score of 4.2 in depth of services, nologies to fuel industry growth as these solutions become and a 3.9 in customer satisfaction. Jacobs also credits the com- more complicated for all but the most technologically pany with impressive analytics and strategic consulting offers. advanced companies. The company employs 44,000 people across 80 countries.

THE LEADERS THE WINNER Since acquiring West’s agent services business for $275 mil- Paris-based Teleperformance has by far the largest global lion in January 2015, Alorica has emerged as a serious con- footprint of all outsourcers, operating 270 facilities in 62 tender in the contact center outsourcing space. “Alorica has countries and employing more than 175,000 people, but size strengthened its brand positioning, brought further scale, and alone does not make a leader. For that, Teleperformance can raised the company’s competitiveness and market visibility,” thank industry-leading scores of 4.4 in depth of services and said Michael DeSalles, principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan, 4.3 in customer satisfaction, and a strong 4.1 in company in a statement. “The benefit of this acquisition clearly moves direction. Of particular note is its multichannel capabili- Alorica into a leadership position within the industry.” The ties. “Teleperformance’s ability to track customers as they Irvine, Calif.–based company, which has more than 48,000 move across channels, including chat, voice, email, social employees in 73 locations, also benefited from an overall score media, and even mobile apps, adds real value for its clients,” of 3.9 and analyst scores of 3.9 in company direction and Jacobs says. —Leonard Klie customer satisfaction. Ian Jacobs, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, points out that Alorica’s “strong and expanding near-shore strategy provides customers maximum flexibility in terms of siting and cost strategies.” ONE TO WATCH Convergys, which returned to the leaderboard last year, In December, LiveOps sold its cloud contact center technology platform found itself in the same position again in this year’s ratings. to Marlin Equity, leaving it with more room to operate its outsourcing The Cincinnati-based company, which has 125,000 employees business. That business, which employs more than 20,000 independent working at 150 locations in 31 countries, scored 3.6 in depth work-at-home agents, handles over 100 million interactions a year on behalf of more than 400 clients in a wide variety of sectors. The of services and 3.7 in company direction, but John Ragsdale, Scottsdale, Ariz.–based company averaged a 4.0 in cost and a 3.9 in vice president of research at the Technology Services Industry depth of services and company direction, but it still has a way to go to challenge its much larger competitors. LiveOps “still needs to execute Association, says its real strength lies in its ability to create on a move beyond the telethon, infomercial, and one-off campaign partnerships with customers. “Not only does Convergys offer business,” Jacobs says. —L.K. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 33

THE 2016 CRM SERVICE AWARDS

BY THE EDITORS OF CRM MAGAZINE

hile the 2016 CRM Service Leader Awards honor the leading ven- dors in eight customer service and support categories, the industry is much broader in scope. That’s why, each year, we select a hand- ful of innovative companies across the entire customer support industry and crown them CRM Service Rising Stars. This year, Wthere are six honorees. Among them, you’ll find innovations in IVR; in social, mobile, and video; and in analytical customer support solutions that are breaking new ground. Although varied in their approaches, each one of this year’s Rising Stars has succeeded in raising the bar in customer service and support. And in doing so, each vendor has firmly established itself as either an up-and-comer or a seasoned veteran with a penchant for innovation. For their exemplary efforts, we recognize them here.

www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 35 RISING STARS

[24]7 [24]7 Adds Deep Neural Networks to IVR Systems Technology improves speech recognition accuracy in the [24]7 Customer Engagement Platform

eep neural networking entered the consumer space to [24]7. As part of that deal, the two firms also agreed to with applications such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s a shared technology road map and a long-term intellectual Cortana, but the technology’s use in business contexts property licensing agreement that provides broad cover- was limited until [24]7 brought it to the interactive age under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for speech-related voice response (IVR) realm. technologies. D[24]7, already an innovator in applying advanced predic- And though [24]7’s IVR is the first to roll out deep neural tive modeling and data analytics to customer engagement, networking, Nguyen expects such technology to be the future in August integrated Microsoft’s Deep Neural Networks of IVR systems. “With the improvements in performance and (DNN) into its Customer Engagement Platform. That move accuracy we’re seeing, it will increase people’s comfort using has reportedly increased speech recognition accuracy to better speech self-service,” he says. “People will be much more will- than 95 percent, a 25 percent gain for some clients. ing to use IVRs when dealing with companies.” Pairing IVR with deep neural networking was “long over- The same can be said of intelligent virtual assistants— due,” says Patrick Nguyen, chief technology officer at [24]7. another technology where [24]7 brought a great deal of inno- Microsoft’s DNN technology trains with analyses from vation in 2015. Using technology it gained in its November more than 10 billion speech utterances collected by Micro- 2014 acquisition of IntelliResponse, the company in June soft’s Bing search engine, Xbox gaming console, and Windows launched the [24]7 Virtual Agent solution. [24]7 Virtual phones and applies that training to IVR interactions, helping Agent combines digital self-service technology and live-agent to overcome challenges like assistance in a single integrated solution, ensuring that cus- background noise, accents, tomers who cannot complete their journeys in self-service can and dialects. escalate to live agents in real time. As a consumer, you’ll For customers dialing Like its IVR technology, [24]7’s Virtual Agents are auto- find that the IVR into the IVR, deep neural mated customer service tools that can understand the intent understands you more networking will decrease of customer questions, using machine learning and natural reliably [with deep the number of out-of-gram- language processing technology to map questions to the one, neural networking].” mar errors, mismatches, and accurate answer. no-matches, Nguyen says, Jeff Kagan, a wireless and technology industry analyst, calls which should reduce the need the fusion of neural networking with IVR and virtual assistant to zero out or ask to speak to an agent. “As a consumer, you’ll technologies “one of the hottest areas of development today,” find that the IVR understands you more reliably,” he says. noting that these modalities “will be the mainstream way we “DNN will make the experience much better for the customer.” communicate with the world all around us.” Avis Budget Group was the first company to use [24]7’s The technology, he adds, is more effective and easier to speech solutions with DNN technology across Europe. Gerard use today than it was just a few years ago. “This kind of tech- Insall, Avis’s chief information officer, is excited about the nology will grow and let us use it in an increasing number of prospect of clearer IVR interactions. “Our customers call things we do every day,” he states. —Leonard Klie from all types of noisy environments, and IVR systems have struggled in the past to make out the customer intent over and above the cacophony of airports and other busy public spaces,” he said in a statement. “This new platform will help [24]7  CEO: PV Kannan us to counter many of these issues and enable our customers  Founded: 2000 to effortlessly complete their transactions in the IVR.”  Headquarters: Campbell, Calif. The integration of the two technologies continues the close  Projected Revenue in 2015: N/A relationship between Microsoft and [24]7. In early 2012,  Employees: 12,000 Microsoft turned over most of its enterprise IVR business Kannan  Customer Count: N/A

36 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com RISING STARS

FRESHDESK Freshdesk Simplifies Customer Service for Growing Businesses With additions to social, video, and mobile functionality, the SMB specialist begins its move upmarket

reshdesk was founded in 2010 by Zoho alumni Shan Over the past year and a half, the company has continued Krishnasamy and Girish Mathrubootham, after Math- to widen its scope. In June 2014, the company introduced rubootham ordered a new TV only to have it deliv- MobiHelp, a software development kit that enables organi- ered broken. Resolving the issue proved difficult, but zations to create customer support applications for mobile FMathrubootham realized something: He could create devices. In 2015, Freshdesk enhanced those capabilities with a software solution himself. Out of that, Freshdesk was born. the acquisition of Konotor. “Konotor takes us to a different In 2011, the young company won Microsoft’s BizSpark level because [the company offers] more of an [end-to-end] award for best cloud-based start-up and gained its initial mobile engagement,” Berkson says. “It allows you to do push funding, thus enabling it to launch its flagship product. Five based on where people are, from a marketing point of view, years and several rounds of funding later, Freshdesk has and also get context from a customer service point of view.” emerged as a viable company in the help desk space, distin- “For companies that do commerce through their mobile guishing itself from competitors such as Zendesk and Desk. apps, this is really critical,” Jacobs says. “Customers expect ser- com by offering fun, easy-to-use tools to smaller outfits that vice at [every] touch point, and if you’re selling stuff through lack the time and budgets to extensively train their service an app, it’s really important to have assistance built in there.” agents. Alan Berkson, Freshdesk’s director of community out- Freshdesk made two other acquisitions in 2015. The first of reach, says that customers tend to “find that the user interface these was the October purchase of 1Click.io, a video chat and is modern and intuitive instead of cobrowsing platform. According to Jacobs, the tool stands out clunky and old-school.” by reducing the number of steps agents and customers must And accessibility is not some- take before initiating a cobrowse session. If you’re selling thing to take lightly, especially when Also in October, the company acquired Frilp, whose offer- stuff through an small businesses are the parties in ings will enable Freshdesk to further its peer-to-peer support app, it’s really question, industry experts agree. efforts. “Frilp is going to give us some interesting things in important to The product has “a great look terms of machine learning and community-based knowledge have assistance and interface,” Ian Jacobs, senior management and customer service—getting people you know built in there.” analyst at Forrest Research, says. to answer questions,” Berkson says. “It’s just very simple to use from “They’ve really grown leaps and bounds in terms of cus- the agents’ point of view.” tomers, number of employees, and funds they’ve raised,” “A lot of companies that are on the smaller side, and fairly Leary says of the company. new to customer support platforms, may feel like Zendesk Berkson estimates the company brought on about 25,000 net and Desk is too [complex] for them,” adds Brent Leary, new customers last year alone—not too shabby, considering that cofounder and partner at CRM Essentials. Freshdesk appeals its current customer base is around 50,000, and as recent as 2013, to those teams—typically with 10 or fewer employees—that it tallied only about 8,000 customers. In light of recent moves, are attempting to break away from email and Excel spread- Freshdesk expects to move upmarket. —Oren Smilansky sheets and into something more sophisticated by making “it a bit easier to on-board and use,” Leary says. But simplicity is not the company’s sole focus. This year FRESHDESK it launched new features for mobile apps and support for  CEO: Girish Mathrubootham social media to enable companies to address customer service  Founded: 2010  Headquarters: San Bruno, Calif. (With offices issues that surface on Twitter. Likewise, Freshdesk integrated in London, Sydney, and Chennai) its offerings with those of Box, allowing customers to share  Projected Revenue in 2015: N/A business documents with agents so that they could more easily  Employees: 520 resolve queries. Mathrubootham  Customer Count: 50,000

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NICE SYSTEMS NICE Invests Heavily in Advanced Customer Support Analytics The company unveils real-time fraud prevention, voice-of-the-customer solutions, predictive analytics, enhanced routing intelligence, and more

ICE Systems is a 30-year-old company, but it’s not That same thinking was a driving force behind NICE’s spring resting on its laurels. It made headlines in January 2015 release of IVR Journey Analytics, which presents a visual when it announced plans to acquire Nexidia, a lead- map of everything that happens within IVR system interac- ing provider of advanced customer analytics, for $135 tions. IVR Journey Analytics, which combines customer jour- million. The move cements NICE as the largest, most ney mapping, speech-to-text technology, and text and speech Nadvanced provider of cross-channel interaction analytics. analytics, can identify patterns of behavior and then optimize John Willcutts, CEO of Nexidia, acknowledges that the deal the IVR accordingly. IVR Journey Analytics also shows how creates “a true analytics powerhouse.” many callers stayed within the IVR and how many transferred Barak Eilam, CEO of NICE, called the acquisition “an to agents or hung up without completing their tasks. important step in our mission to deliver the power of cus- “NICE’s IVR analytics solution enables organizations to revi- tomer data and insight beyond the contact center.” talize the way they engage with consumers over this channel and The move also positions real-time analytics as central to NICE’s create a more efficient and gratifying customer journey from strategy going forward. But even prior to the acquisition, NICE start to finish,” Miki Migdal, president of the NICE Enterprise had begun placing a greater emphasis on helping companies Product Group, said in a statement at the time of the release. improve operations with real-time and predictive capabilities. Also launched in 2015: the NICE Complaints Management Last summer, for example, it released Real-Time Fraud Pre- Suite, which helps manage customer dissatisfaction, prevents vention. Combining voice biometrics with speech and desktop complaint escalation, and proactively addresses issues leading analytics, Real-Time Fraud Prevention flags fraudulent callers to customer grievances. It can even guide agents on handling within the first few seconds of a call. If a call is suspicious, contact interactions it flags as being at risk. center agents are alerted and provided NICE also equipped existing applications with greater real- with real-time guidance about how to time and predictive capabilities, including its Fizzback voice-of- NICE’s Real-Time proceed. A suspicious call can be halted the-customer solution, which now draws on recommendations Fraud Prevention or forwarded to a fraud department for from active Fizzback users to provide deeper visibility into the flags fraudulent investigation almost immediately. customer experience and uses real-time and predictive analyt- callers within NICE also released Adaptive Work- ics to help identify hot topics among customers. the first few force Optimization (WFO), which can In updating its Engage Platform, NICE extended its video and seconds of a call. personalize customer interactions in real voice recording and playback capabilities and added one-click time based on agent personas. These interaction management, intelligence-driven automated scoring, personas, formed using factors such as and do-it-yourself system management. NICE also integrated the customer satisfaction scores, average handle times, first-contact Engage Platform with Vidyo’s VidyoWorks video collaboration resolutions, and work experience, can be used in decisions about platform and Microsoft’s Skype for Business. —Leonard Klie routing, scheduling, forecasting, on-boarding, and coaching. NICE Journey VoC, released earlier in 2015, enables com- panies to use voice-of-the-customer feedback with predictive analytics and journey mapping to positively shape the customer journey in real time. Using key indicators, such as customer sat- NICE SYSTEMS  CEO: Barak Eilam isfaction, Net Promoter Scores, and customer effort, companies  Founded: 1986 can evaluate how their customer experience stacks up against  Headquarters: Ra’anana, Israel what they consider an ideal journey. They can also identify high-­  Revenue in 2015: $1.1 billion effort/low-satisfaction experiences in real time and proactively  Employees: 3,600 engage with customers to create immediate improvements. Eilam  Customer Count: 25,000

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SUPPORT.COM Support.com Revolutionizes Customer Support in the Digital Age The company fine-tunes its Nexus system with new functionality—particularly when it comes to mobile

upport.com had a banner year in 2015, particularly initiate a separate process—such as a phone call—to receive with new additions to its Nexus tech support system. live assistance is not practical in the fast-paced digital age. The cloud-based software is designed to improve Support.com also enhanced Nexus Guided Paths, a fea- customer interaction by integrating with companies’ ture that provides step-by-step guidance and ongoing ana- existing customer service suites and providing features lytics and optimization of customer support interactions, Ssuch as step-by-step guidance, remote access, and analytics— and introduced Nexus Self-Support, an embeddable solu- all of which are part of a larger mission to revolutionize cus- tion that enables self-service directly from mobile apps, tomer support. Web sites, and software programs. Self-Support is linked to “Our vision is to play a role in changing the nature of sup- Nexus cloud support for agents so that self-service customers port so that it’s effective all along the customer journey,” says can request live support when they run into obstacles. In Elizabeth Cholawsky, president and CEO of Support.com. addition, data is collected from both Nexus Guided Paths Chris Koverman, vice president of product and engineering and Nexus Self-Support, and so a complete record of all the at Support.com, agrees: “In order to generate the brand loy- steps a customer takes can be made automatically available alty that product manufacturers are going to need, support to support reps. is going to play a huge role in that.” “The Nexus platform they have created is very impressive,” The past year saw Support.com launch mobile improve- John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research at TSIA, ments to Nexus, including told CRM magazine via email. “It automates repetitive tasks, a remote video support moving beyond what you can get with a knowledge base, to feature, SupportCam, and actually automate agent activities and solutions so very min- Our vision is to play an advanced mobile func- imal training is required for new employees to be productive. a role in changing tionality package, Nexus I’m very excited about the possibilities in this platform and the nature of Connect SDK. Support- look forward to it being adopted outside of their consumer support so that it’s Cam is designed to make devices and PCs sweet spot. There are some great opportuni- effective all along the the troubleshooting pro- ties even within enterprise support.” customer journey.” cess quicker and easier by Overall, Support.com sees improving access to customer enabling tech support teams support as having myriad benefits beyond the practical one of to remotely view what users simply keeping customers happy. “As more products become are seeing onscreen, through the camera of the user’s iOS- connected—and we’re not talking about necessarily electron- or Android-powered smartphone or tablet. Nexus Connect ics and traditional things that we would call a device today SDK, meanwhile, brings advanced Nexus functionality to that you might imagine would be connected, but eventually both iOS and Android applications, allowing developers to everything is going to be connected—the opportunities to provide users with direct access to Nexus support systems know what’s going on with the product, how it’s being used, et such as SupportCam, as well as remote diagnosis, repair and cetera, are going to explode,” Koverman says. —Sam Del Rowe configuration management, remote control and cobrowsing, and live chat. These new features all share an ambitious aim: to make customer support a seamless process across all devices. “What SUPPORT.COM  CEO: Elizabeth Cholawsky we see is really support…playing a role in the entire customer  Founded: 1997 life cycle and the whole relationship with a product, from the  Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif. time they first get aware of the product all the way through the  Revenue in 2014: $83 million time where they’re ready to upgrade to the next version of it,”  Employees: 1,625 Cholawsky says. She notes that the old model of needing to Cholawsky  Customer Count: N/A www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 39 RISING STARS

TOUCHCOMMERCE TouchCommerce Bridges Gaps Between Traditional Ads and Digital Engagement Channels Releases from the vendor give brands more opportunities to engage customers in two-way conversations

ouchCommerce was founded in 1999, but according The company’s TouchSocial capabilities, introduced in to CMO George Skaff, it wasn’t until 2005 that the November, give brands the option of attaching short links to company began to really define itself. That year, Ber- their social media posts so that customers can initiate con- nard Louvat came on board as CEO and from his retail versations with a brand. TouchSocial works on such sites as background brought the notion that online service Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn and can direct customers to Texperiences must compare to the ones customers get at the the company’s Web site or a direct chat. store. “As you walk into a store, you don’t necessarily want Kate Leggett, vice president and principal analyst at For- to be asked immediately, ‘How can I help you?’” Skaff says. rester Research, who’s been following the vendor for roughly “You want to be left alone to walk through the aisles and look four years now, notes that the work it is doing with chat is at an item. Then, if you’re looking around, puzzled, is when becoming increasingly important as that channel gains you would like to be helped.” legitimacy. “They offer a great combination of technologies Similarly, TouchCommerce’s mission has been to provide that are absolutely applicable and very topical right now,” companies with the tools to engage the consumer “at the right Leggett says. time and in the right place,” Skaff says. “Regardless of where Though TouchMedia has only about 100 clients, they the consumer is looking at a product or brand—whether include several of the largest providers in the telecom it’s online, [via] the call center, or the store; whether they’re market—AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Comcast, DirecTV, and watching a TV program and Verizon. TouchCommerce also serves big names in retail, see an ad; or are walking in technology, travel and hospitality, and financial services. an airport and see a bill- To better serve these Fortune 500 companies, TouchCom- Regardless of where the board—we want to connect merce partnered with Nuance in early December to incorpo- consumer is looking at all the dots and make sure the rate natural language understanding into its platforms and a product or brand...we consumer is getting a consis- improve its IVR. want to connect all the tent message,” Skaff states. “We’re in the process of getting the product ready for dots and make sure the Over the past year, the market, and that announcement will come out later in the consumer is getting a company has moved closer year,” Marina Kalika, senior director of product marketing consistent message.” to making this vision a real- at TouchCommerce, promises. ity with a handful of product The vendor also plans to dive deeper into the SMS and releases. social media platforms. “If you think about it—we all sub- In May, the company released its TouchMedia product, scribe to these services. Whether your flight has been delayed, which aims to link traditional, offline advertisements to live your order has been shipped, or you’re paying for some- chats where customers can learn more. The solution enables thing—all this stuff is done via SMS,” Skaff says. “And SMS customers to get more information about the products they in the future will be a two-way communication where you’ll see on billboards, print ads, and broadcast TV, for instance, be engaging with the brand.” —Oren Smilansky by scanning content or texting a code through their devices to link directly with service agents. The vendor also enhanced its Conversation Platform in September, adding to it an integration framework and appli- TOUCHCOMMERCE  CEO: Bernard Louvat cation programming interfaces (APIs) that make it compat-  Founded: 1999 ible across more channels. With these added capabilities,  Headquarters: Agoura Hills, Calif. customer service professionals can also do more with text-  Projected Revenue in 2015: N/A based chat services, including accessing third-party customer  Employees: 275 information and referring to engagement metrics and reports. Louvat  Customer Count: 100

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ZENDESK Zendesk Builds Closer Relationships Between Businesses and Customers The company improves the way businesses engage with customers through apps and messaging services

uilding on a strong 2014, which led to a Rising Star talk to multiple customers at once in different Messenger award in last year’s Service Awards issue, Zendesk chats and more easily collaborate with each other to resolve had several key advancements in 2015—particularly customers’ issues. Furthermore, the ability to access a cus- when it comes to apps. Noting a disconnect between tomer’s chat history enables agents to easily pick up conver- the traditional avenues of communication companies sations after a break. Buse to reach customers, such as email, and customers’ pre- “We strongly believe we’re seeing a shift that begins in Asia, ferred methods of communication, such as messaging apps, that begins with Millennials…shifting most of their commu- Zendesk has focused on improving businesses’ app presence nication away from traditional messages into messaging,” for a smoother customer experience. McDermott says. “In China, for example, the majority of Adrian McDermott, senior vice president of product customer interactions happen over WeChat. [Providing inte- development at Zendesk, cites the Zendesk Embeddables gration with Facebook] Messenger is a first-rate move towards suite as an especially important development. The embed- opening up a messaging platform for real customer service dable features enable companies to build customer service use, and allowing brands to establish a long-term interaction and engagement directly into their mobile and Web apps, between themselves and the consumer.” as well as on their Web sites, games, and other online expe- The company’s moves have drawn notice from analysts. riences. Zendesk Embeddables is a response to the ever-in- Zendesk’s carefully considered product road map centered creasing importance of on predictive analytics and rapid revenue growth earned it using mobile apps to con- praise from a Forrester report. The report notes that though nect with customers, and the company is looking to move upmarket, it works best We’re seeing a shift it also enables customer for small and medium-sized customer service teams seek- that begins in service agents to gather ing a mobile-first multichannel solution, as the software is Asia, that begins important information easy to configure. Forrester also lauds Zendesk’s embed- with Millennials… about where exactly in an dable technology and benchmarking service and says that shifting away from app a customer encoun- the company may be preparing to move into the federal traditional messages tered a problem. government market. into messaging.” “You don’t want to have For his part, looking ahead, McDermott sees Zendesk con- consumers experiencing tinuing to improve communication and enrich the relation- this disjointed experi- ships between businesses and their customers. “We like to see ence where they live their entire life in the app and then the ourselves as providing tools that are incredibly flexible, both moment that they need to get support, they have to break agent- and developer-friendly, and that can provide proactive the Brechtian fourth wall of the app and step out into a Web guidance when deployed to really give a great customer experi- browser and go look at your help page and go to the support ence and build a long-term relationship between a brand and tab,” McDermott says. “We help our customers bring that their consumer,” McDermott says. —Sam Del Rowe support into the app.” Another noteworthy move by Zendesk was integrating with Facebook’s Businesses on Messenger product, which enables businesses to communicate directly with customers ZENDESK  CEO: Mikkel Svane through Facebook’s messaging service, using the built-in  Founded: 2007 functionality of Zendesk’s Zopim Live Chat app. Instead of  Headquarters: San Francisco businesses relying on email and customer calls to interact  Revenue in 2014: $127 million with and assist customers, they can engage customers directly  Employees: 1,100 to solve problems faster and build rapport. Service agents can Svane  Customer Count: 64,000

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THE 2016 CRM SERVICE AWARDS

BY THE EDITORS OF CRM MAGAZINE

f there is a common thread in today’s business climate, it is voice response (IVR) system that let clients more easily test the importance of pleasing the customer—because thanks their eligibility, check their order status, refill prescriptions, to technology, your customers are more than accustomed and more. As a result, costs are down and customer satisfac- to getting what they want, when they want it. But this tion is up. year’s Service Elite winners were rewarded for their efforts New Jersey–based Labor First, which manages retiree ben- Iat doing something more basic, though every bit as essential: efits, prioritized short hold times for clients calling about helping customers in need. their benefits, but the sudden growth of its client base put And for some of our winners, the stakes were high. In this service mandate in jeopardy. New contact center software Michigan, the state VA agency was charged with developing increased its efficiency tenfold, allowing it to take on more a customer service model to assist veterans and their families, calls, and more customers. as the area’s veterans were having trouble getting benefits, And on a lighter note, some Chicago-area consumers were emergency assistance, even information. By leveraging Sales- being deprived of a good meal. Potential patrons of Hogsalt’s force Service Cloud’s case management features, agents could popular group of restaurants would call for dinner reservations more easily coordinate services for veterans and stay on top of during the day and be greeted by endless ringing, as the com- their cases until they were resolved. pany had no off-hour call strategy in place. With a new IVR For Rx Outreach, building a more efficient contact center solution, neglected customers were turned into happy diners. had healthcare implications. The St. Louis–based nonprofit Congratulations to this year’s Elite winners, who in each mail-order pharmacy, which offers low-cost prescription med- case solved a business problem that, in ways large and small, ications to underinsured clients, deployed a new interactive helped make the lives of their customers easier.

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HOGSALT HOSPITALITY DialogTech Helps Chicago Restaurants Capture Lost Revenue Call center technology makes sure that reservation calls aren’t missed, even during off hours

amed Chicago restaurateur Brendan Sodikoff opened Before one of the agents picks up a call, DialogTech’s his first Chicago restaurant, Gilt Bar, in 2010. Since system lets that agent know which restaurant the caller dialed then, Sodikoff’s company, Hogsalt Hospitality, has in to. The agent can then deliver the appropriate greeting, take expanded its portfolio to include 10 other Chicago eat- the reservation, and enter it into a central reservation system. Feries offering everything from French and Japanese cui- In the event a caller can’t get through to an agent, he can leave sine to chops, seafood, coffee, and doughnuts. The company a voicemail message that the system transcribes and emails to serves thousands of guests each day across all of its locations. the respective restaurant manager. As the restaurants grew in popularity, many potential And when one restaurant can’t accommodate a guest at patrons were having a hard time getting in simply because they the requested time, the agent can sell the caller on one of couldn’t get through to make reservations. At some locations, Hogsalt’s other properties. As a result, “we’re seeing positive as many as 120 or 130 phone calls per day could be missed. trends in sales at all our restaurants,” Wagner says. Because several of the company’s more popular restau- Hogsalt’s two reservation agents currently work from a cen- rants only serve dinner, employees don’t usually show up tral office, but DialogTech’s cloud-based technology would for work until the early afternoon. “We were getting a lot of enable them to work remotely if necessary. calls that went unanswered because no one was there,” says When he was researching IVR and call routing solutions, Ryan Wagner, director of operations at Hogsalt. “Or people Wagner found that many vendors would have required Hog- would leave messages and then when the managers arrived, salt to purchase new and costly hardware. DialogTech won they’d get busy and the calls would not get returned.” out because it allowed Hogsalt to keep its phone system in The company wanted to change that quickly. “As our place. “We liked [that] there’s no hardware associated with restaurants became more popular, we wanted to accom- it,” Wagner says. “We didn’t have to change anything. We just modate more people without having to hire a huge staff to called them up and the lines were ported over.” DialogTech’s answer the calls,” Wagner says. initial setup cost was another big reason the company won So in January 2015 Hogsalt began rolling out the account. an interactive voice response (IVR) and call It took roughly two months to get there, but by March distributor solution from fellow Chicagoans 2015, the DialogTech system at Hogsalt was “a well-oiled DialogTech in four of its restaurants: Bav- machine,” Wagner says. ette’s, Gilt Bar, Maude’s, and Cocello. Cocello “Now Hogsalt is equipped with the tools needed to receive has since closed, so only three restaurants are and book every reservation requested,” DialogTech’s Shapiro currently on the system. says. “We’re proud of the contribution DialogTech has made “We’re seeing positive “Just because your doors are closed doesn’t toward Hogsalt’s continued success.” trends in sales at all mean your phones have to be,” says Irv Shapiro, If the boost in business leads to the opening of more restau- our restaurants.” CEO of DialogTech. “The customer buying jour- rants, Wagner says Hogsalt will certainly add them to the —RYAN WAGNER ney doesn’t have hours of operation, which is why ­DialogTech system. “We’ve been very happy with the solution DialogTech empowers our customers to properly so far,” he says. —Leonard Klie track, route, and manage phone calls at any time of day.” DialogTech’s voice-based technology is helping Hogsalt capture an additional $75,000 in revenue monthly from reser- SINCE DEPLOYING DIALOGTECH’S IVR AND CALL DISTRIBUTOR, HOGSALT HAS SEEN: vation calls that it previously missed. The system fields about  12,500 calls per month handled that previously went 12,500 calls per month. unanswered; Now, all calls that come in during regular business  approximately $75,000 in additional revenue each month; and hours get routed to a central location that is staffed by two  positive sales trends across all 11 restaurants it owns. hourly employees.

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LABOR FIRST NewVoiceMedia Helps Labor First Put Customers First By revamping its call center technology, the retiree benefits company boosts customer service efficiency

ince its inception in 2006, Labor First, an organization This last feature has been particularly helpful, Zawrotny says, that manages health benefits for retirees, has made it in lifting the call response rate. “A lot of the time retirees a priority to have callers on hold for no more than screen their phone calls, so they wouldn’t answer the call and about 15 seconds. But with a significant increase in just listen to the voicemail and pick up when they realized it membership, these high standards are increasingly wasn’t a telemarketer,” Zawrotny says. Sharder to meet, according to David Zawrotny, Labor First’s Additionally, the system knows when recording an out- president and chief operations officer. bound call is legal by state and automatically disables the Beginning in 2009, the Morristown, N.J.–based company feature when it is not. began seeing annual “exponential growth,” Zawrotny says, as The more robust system has enabled Labor First to expand the number of members rose from 250 to eventually more than beyond the Northeast and offer its services to more than 25,000. “When we started bringing on so many 30 labor unions across the United States. It helps that the new members, we knew we would not be able technology is cloud-based and gives agents remote access to to handle the new call volume that would be NewVoiceMedia’s productivity tools. coming in,” Zawrotny told CRM magazine in an Zawrotny estimates that Labor First can now handle 250 to interview for its October 2015 Real ROI section. 500 calls per day, and the outfit can take on additional clients If the firm wanted to honor its early pledge of that it previously had to reject. Leveraging the system, the customer service excellence, it had two options. company has created separate call paths for different member “In three days, we “One option was to hire new people,” Zawrotny classes: Those who pay lower fees have a slightly longer call went from using said. “The other was to deploy new technology.” wait time, access to a reduced number of member advocates, an old system to a Labor First opted for the latter route, and in and restrictions on after-hour calls; those who pay a premium new system.” August 2014 it swapped its old phone system, receive higher-quality services. —DAVID ZAWROTNY courtesy of Broadview Networks, for NewVoice- Labor First also can now save seven years of call records for Media’s ContactWorld for Service software. each customer; prior to the upgrade, the company’s records “It’s crazy how fast it happened,” Zawrotny were limited to a year. “We decided to just extend it so that recalls. “In three days, we went from using an old system to a if in two years we have to go back to somebody’s recording, new system.” And following the adjustment, the company was it’s a much easier task.” immediately able to save nearly $200,000 in staff costs. “That’s In light of such improvements, Labor First continues what we would have needed to spend every year to bring on its steady expansion. “We should be moving into the new new people to support all the new members,” Zawrotny says. [corporate headquarters] by March if construction goes all Zawrotny says that other benefits of the new system were right,” Zawrotny says. “We’re going from a 2,400-square-feet also immediately tangible. With NewVoiceMedia, he says, office to 6,000 or 7,000 square feet, and are pretty excited Labor First was able to improve its customer service efficiency about it.” —Oren Smilansky tenfold. Using the old methods, agents typically set aside 5 to 10 minutes after each call to log their notes into the system.

But since NewVoiceMedia’s technology automatically records BY IMPLEMENTING NEWVOICEMEDIA’S CONTACTWORLD FOR SERVICE customer calls, tags them, and syncs them into Salesforce. SOLUTION IN AUGUST 2014, LABOR FIRST HAS SEEN:  $197,600 saved from not having to make new customer com’s CRM system, agents can move on to the next conver- service hires; sation without much additional work.  5 to 10 minutes saved per call, as agents no longer have to “We’ve been able to pull some good data from the call logs log notes manually; and use it to tweak our customer service,” Zawrotny added.  a tenfold increase in employee efficiency; and The deployment’s other features include dynamic rout-  new client segments opened up. ing, callback, dashboards, reporting, and outbound caller ID.

www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 45 SERVICE ELITE

MICHIGAN VETERANS AFFAIRS AGENCY Salesforce Service Cloud Lets Michigan’s VA Agency Give Veterans a Boost Thanks to the new platform, the MVAA establishes the Veteran Resource Service Center and connects with nearly 10 percent of the state’s veteran population

he Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency (MVAA) was Since integrating with the statewide 211 system through created by the state in 2013 to coordinate federal, state, Salesforce Service Cloud, the MVAA has connected with and local veteran’s programs and services, as well as nearly 10 percent of Michigan’s veteran population, assisted to develop a customer service model to assist veterans over 1,200 veterans who called after hours, completed over and their families. When the agency was created, the 6,000 discharge document requests, and placed over 3,300 fol- Tstate was last in geographic distribution of VA expenditures, low-up calls. Salesforce’s case management tools let the agency and veterans seeking information, emergency assistance, remain with a veteran’s case until it is fully resolved. or benefits ran into difficulty finding the help they needed. “The MVRSC is integrated with [Michigan’s] 211 through a In response, the MVAA established the Michigan Veteran shared knowledge base and a CRM platform, Salesforce, that Resource Service Center (MVRSC) as a central coordinating allow agents to capture information as it is gained, craft con- point for all veteran services. In order to compile important sistent and stronger responses, and provide 24/7 wrap around resources and provide case management, the MVRSC imple- care,” said Suzanne Thelen, director of strategic communi- mented the Salesforce Service Cloud and integrated it with the cations and veteran engagement of the Michigan Veterans Michigan 211 system. Affairs Agency, in an email. Thelen also noted that Salesforce The MVRSC is accessed through a toll-free number and enables MVRSC agents to connect veterans with 211 agents is manned by live call center agents who are either veterans in a single click, without requiring the veteran to place yet themselves or relatives of a veteran. By leveraging another call. the state’s 211 system, the MVRSC has become According to Thelen, the Salesforce Service Cloud has the nation’s first statewide program to offer enabled the program’s call volume to grow from fewer than 24/7/365 assistance to veterans. Furthermore, 200 per month to more than 2,200 calls per month in one every conversation with an agent includes a year’s time. Looking ahead, the platform will allow the addi- discussion of benefits eligibility and a referral tion of key features such as fillable Web forms and case man- offer to a nearby accredited veteran service agement through a “Web-to-case” tool. officer. These referrals can take into account “Salesforce allowed a very small, nontechnical team, with “Salesforce allowed where the veteran lives in the state, informa- a limited budget for integration services, to build a fully func- a very small, tion gleaned using the 211 database. tioning call center operation in a very short period of time. nontechnical team, The veterans who call into the system are The reliability of the system ensured that our high-profile with a limited budget often undergoing challenging circumstances— launch with the Governor of Michigan was successful and that for integration including homelessness (for which they receive we could scale rapidly as our call volume increased,” Thelen services, to build a fully functioning call immediate help) and mental health issues— told CRM in an email. —Sam Del Rowe center operation in and the ensuing casework can be compli- a very short period cated—coordinating in-patient care, taking care of immediate family and financial needs, of time.” SINCE IMPLEMENTING SALESFORCE SERVICE CLOUD, THE MICHIGAN —SUZANNE THELEN handling referrals outside the agency. Using VETERAN AFFAIRS AGENCY HAS BEEN ABLE TO: Salesforce’s case management tools, including  build the Michigan Veteran Resource Service Center, which took less than 16 weeks; Milestones, agents can manage these issues  connect with 65,100 veterans in its first year—nearly 10 while meeting service protocols and staying on task with percent of Michigan’s veteran population; and the more complex cases. In addition, the system’s tools can  increase call volume from fewer than 200 calls per month to accommodate email and Facebook direct message queries, more than 2,200 calls per month. creating cases from them that can be tracked as well.

46 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com SERVICE ELITE

RX OUTREACH VoltDelta Aids Medical Nonprofit Improved voice self-service and scheduled campaigns help a mail-order pharmacy connect with customers

x Outreach is a nonprofit mail-order pharmacy that personal information in order to be prequalified for accep- supplies deep-discount and no-cost prescription med- tance, and the company was experiencing issues processing ications to clients who have restricted insurance cov- callers’ responses. The new system had to offer an easy combi- erage or no insurance, or who are underinsured. Until nation of speech recognition and keypad entry, create a feed- recently, the company, based in St. Louis, had busy back loop, and allow Rx Outreach to expand existing channels Rcall centers whose operation needed an upgrade: Frequent of communication and add new ones, such as text messaging, phone outages were frustrating Rx Outreach’s customers and as the company grows. costing the company money. VoltDelta’s IVR provided a speech recognition solution This was no small problem. Its 40 to 50 call center agents that yielded greater accuracy. “People [have] different accents, handled 60,000 to 70,000 calls per month, and the company they’re from different parts of the country, they have different made 50,000 outbound calls every month to remind patients speech patterns, et cetera, and we were really having trouble about prescription refills and notify them when their orders with some of the voice recognition pieces, and that led to ship. Rx Outreach needed a platform that could more transferred calls to agents. One of the things that we improve efficiency and address problems with noticed immediately with the Volt solution is that we were speech recognition, and it needed to be robust having less of those types of issues.” and highly scalable. Rx Outreach also chose to implement VoltDelta’s Delta- It found its solution in VoltDelta’s system, Cast as a new outbound/inbound solution. DeltaCast gen- which combines speech with a voice user inter- erates automated campaigns and has cut down on inbound face design. The deployment, customized for call volume by notifying customers when they need to refill Rx Outreach, included VoltDelta’s inbound or renew prescriptions. Now, Rx Outreach deploys five “What I liked most and outbound interactive voice response (IVR) different campaigns on a daily basis, including one noti- about VoltDelta was system, automated call distributor (ACD) with fying customers that their program enrollment is about to [that] the technical skills-based routing, call and agent screen expire and another telling them when their prescriptions resource they brought in really was recording, a surveying tool, real-time report- will be mailed. focused on process ing, and content management, which allows “What I liked most about VoltDelta was [that] the tech- improvement.” Rx Outreach to modify IVR prompts and dia- nical resource they brought in really was focused on process —JEFF CLARK logues to quickly adapt to customer inquiries. improvement,” Clark says. “What we like to do as we’re Customers can use the IVR to enroll, test their approaching anything is, how can we do this more efficiently, eligibility, check their order status, refill pre- how can we make this easier to use, how can we increase cus- scriptions, and more. A separate line lets them connect to tomer satisfaction by what we do, and Volt was really focused staff pharmacists for questions about specific medications. on process improvement and really gave us great suggestions VoltDelta was chosen because of its expertise in offering in terms of improving our flow.” —Sam Del Rowe solutions that would integrate well with Rx Outreach’s sys- tems and help it realize significant cost savings. The system has saved Rx Outreach about $10,000 a month in phone SINCE IMPLEMENTING VOLTDELTA’S CLOUD CONTACT CENTER costs alone. SOLUTION, RX OUTREACH HAS SEEN: And it has yielded other immediate results: Calls completed  a savings of $10,000 a month in phone costs; without agent assistance have increased 5 to 10 percent, with 32  a 5 to 10 percent increase in voice self-service usage, with 32 to 36 percent of calls handled entirely through to 36 percent of all calls completed entirely through automation. automation; and According to Jeff Clark, chief information officer at Rx  customer satisfaction increase from 88 percent to Outreach, speech recognition was particularly problematic. 93 percent. Customers calling into the contact center need to provide

www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 47 The Next Step By Danny Estrada

CRM in Accounting: The Tide Turns? An industry begins to accept it has to work harder to find and keep customers—and CRM can help

N THE North American marketplace, where 90 climate where consolidation is rampant and growth chal- percent of businesses with more than 10 employees lenges are similar to those of non-accounting businesses. have adopted CRM, there remains a lone holdout But significant barriers to traditional CRM technol- industry—accounting. Fewer than 10 percent of ogy platforms remain. Among the biggest: The structure Iaccounting firms nationwide have taken on a CRM ini- of CRM technology is foreign in both terminology and tiative. But the tide may finally be turning. The entire process to how many firms operate. Ultimately, firms will evolution of “client relationship management,” as it is need to change how they think about clients and how they called in the accounting world, has been fascinating to interact with them. say the least. A recent study commissioned by Wolters Kluwer, one To understand why accounting has been so slow to of the major players in accounting firm solutions, noted embrace CRM, you need to look at how accounting firms that more than 80 percent of clients leave a firm because are set up and how they differ from your typ- of lack of attention and the feeling that ical corporate environment. Business devel- a firm does not understand their needs. opment and growth have been traditionally Employee turnover within accounting left to a firm’s partners, with staff and senior firms isn’t helping, either. The lack of staff executing services. And as partners also continuity and relationships has helped have other responsibilities, many firms have accelerate the churn. been built on a referral network. So today’s environment is ripe for the So what has changed? Well, a little bit accounting community to begin to accept of everything. The competitive landscape there are tools to help them reach their began to change with the Sarbanes-Oxley goals. When tax season comes to a close in legislation, and from there client churn took a drastic leap the next month or so, many firms will be looking at what forward. Years ago it wasn’t uncommon for a client to stay they can do differently to make a significant impact on with the same firm for 15 to 20 years. Today, the reality is their bottom line, and there are many reasons to believe that many companies switch accounting firms every three that CRM will be a part of their evaluation. to seven years. Add to that the challenge that many services We have recently seen firms deploying vertical CRM organizations are dealing with: the public perception of ser- solutions that are built for how accounting firms operate. vices being a commodity. Others are generating proposals and managing pipeline. Buyers have also changed significantly. With the advent The most advanced are integrating their specialized time of the Internet of Things and access to seem- and billing and practice management solutions for better ingly limitless amounts of information, buyers analytics and cross-selling campaigns. YEARS AGO IT can do their own research—the referral net- As Malcolm Gladwell put it in his book The Tipping WASN’T UNCOMMON works are not quite what they used to be. As a Point, “The tipping point is that magic moment when an FOR A CLIENT TO result, many CPA firms over the past 10 years idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, STAY WITH THE have begun to invest heavily in their Web sites and spreads like wildfire.” We may finally be reaching that SAME FIRM FOR 20 and are employing full-time marketing profes- point. Those of us who’ve worked with these firms for the YEARS. THAT’S NO sionals for the first time. past 15 years are reminded of when CRM originally took LONGER THE CASE. Some of the larger firms have even tried off just after Y2K. It will be interesting to see how fast employing full-time sales reps for business CRM spreads once it is seen among accounting firms as development, and it’s fairly common for firms mission-critical and not an option. to track pipeline and cross-sell initiatives in spreadsheets to get a sense of where the next client or project is coming Danny Estrada has worked in CRM for the past 20 years. As a practice leader, he from. We also have firms tracking Net Promoter Scores has guided teams through the implementation and development cycles of more than 500 CRM projects. He is the author of the Practical CRM blog (http://blog. for customer satisfaction and other metrics around con- practicalcrm.net) and a speaker on real-world application of CRM concepts. You version and cross-sell. The net result? A competitive can reach him at [email protected].

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Look for these titles wherever books and ebooks are sold, or order direct from the publisher i n f o t o d a y . c o m For more information, call (800) 300-9868; outside the U.S. call (609) 654-6266. Visit our website at infotoday.com or email [email protected]. Write to Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055. Scouting Report By Donna Fluss Workforce Optimization’s Winners and Losers As the market moves toward analytics, many solutions will see their growth rev up—but a few will stall

HE WORKFORCE optimi- zation (WFO) market is transi- tioning from products dedicated to optimizing agent performance Tto solutions optimizing staff performance and providing engagement and enterprise analytics, and this change is having a major impact on the sector’s revenue and growth. The traditional contact center WFO market is still attracting substantial investment, but the growth rate for some of the applications, par- ticularly the mature ones, is slowing down. At the same time, adoption of newer analytically oriented applications is expected to pick up. The back-office and branch WFO market is under-penetrated; in some cases, new appli- cations are being built from the ground up to meet back-office and branch needs. Also, many applications that were developed for contact centers either have been or are being retrofitted by WFO vendors to meet the needs of this sector. DMG estimates that there are 2.5 times recording market to grow at a rate of 1 percent each year as many back-office employees as front-office ones in for the next five years. the United States alone, based on the U.S. Bureau of Quality assurance (QA)/quality management (QM). Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics This market is expected to take a hit as companies migrate Survey, from May 2014. (The total number of back-office to analytics-enabled QA (AQA). DMG expects many employees in other developed countries could be even companies to continue to purchase traditional QA/QM larger.) The challenge for WFO vendors is to learn how solutions. Unfortunately, vendors are not breaking out to sell to this market. AQA revenue from other speech and text analytics reve- In the long term, the contact center WFO market has nue, so there’s no way to determine how much of revenue great potential, but the next few years may be challeng- to attribute to AQA. DMG expects to see the traditional ing due to the continued slowdown in sales of traditional QA/QM market contract by 2 percent in each of the next contact center WFO applications. As a result, DMG has five years. reevaluated the market projections for the next five years; Workforce management (WFM). This remains the here is what we project for the various segments: most important productivity tool in the contact centers Recording. Innovations in recording are making it where it’s used, and it’s starting to find use as a tool for compelling for companies to replace outdated solu- employee engagement. The newer WFM solutions have tions. Since the cost of recording solutions continues to a variety of self-service capabilities that allow agents to decrease, and voice recording is highly penetrated, this manage their own schedules, including time off and is not expected to be a growth market. Video recording, schedule swaps, features especially important with Mil- on the other hand, remains a growth area, but near- lennial employees. WFM is highly penetrated in contact term adoption is expected to be low. DMG expects the centers with more than 250 agents, and now back offices

50 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 www.destinationCRM.com Scouting Report

are slowly starting to use WFM; this represents a large benefits. DMG expects this sector to grow by 16 percent sales opportunity. DMG expects the WFM market to in 2015, 17 percent in 2016, and 18 percent in 2017, 2018, grow at a rate of at least 8 percent each year for the next and 2019. five years. eLearning. Considered a part of WFO suites, eLearn- Contact center performance management (CCPM). ing does not attract a significant amount of investment CCPM is both a strategic and a highly tactical tool that dollars, and in fact many open- gives managers visibility into all aspects of their operat- source eLearning tools are quite THERE ARE 2.5 TIMES ing area. Since the revenue base for CCPM remains low, good, so it’s hard to build a AS MANY BACK-OFFICE it will be easier, relatively speaking, to pick up momen- strong business case for it. DMG tum. Also, back offices are showing growing interest in expects eLearning to continue to EMPLOYEES AS FRONT- these tools. DMG expects this sector to grow by 12 per- grow by 3 percent per year for OFFICE ONES IN THE cent in 2015 and 2016, and by 14 percent in 2017, 2018, the next five years. UNITED STATES. THE and 2019. Coaching. Though agents CHALLENGE FOR Speech analytics (SA). These solutions structure and need continuous feedback, many WFO VENDORS: HOW find insights in phone conversations and have attracted enterprises are not willing to pay TO REACH THEM. the attention of companies large and small. The chal- for this functionality, and ven- lenge is that too few organizations are realizing the dors have been meeting their expected payback. The industry continues to need best customers’ needs by including coaching functionality in practices and expertise to drive this IT segment for- a variety of other applications. DMG does not expect any ward. DMG expects the market to grow by 15 percent significant revenue growth in this category over the next in 2015 and 2016, 14 percent in 2017, and 13 percent five years. in 2018 and 2019. But if vendors can do a better job Gamification. This emerging application, which allows of making the results actionable, sales will increase at a organizations to institutionalize a reward-and-recogni- much faster rate. tion process for their staff, is just starting to be considered Text analytics (TA). This is the killer app in the world a part of WFO suites. A growing number of organizations of social customer care, as TA solutions structure and are willing to invest in gamification as long as it’s not too find insights in written interactions. The challenge: expensive. Although the base for this segment is very low, Social customer care has not yet caught on. But as the DMG expects it to grow at 15 percent in 2015 and at 18 volume of social interactions increases, companies will percent or more each year from 2016 through 2019. need structured programs to address them. Since the Customer journey analytics (CJA). DMG expects CJA base for TA is low, DMG expects to see strong growth solutions to become essential, as these applications give in this segment, though it may not take off the way it visibility into all aspect of the customer life cycle. A few should. DMG predicts the market will grow by 20 per- CJA solutions are on the market, and more are under cent in 2015, 22 percent in 2016, and 25 percent in 2017, development. A great deal of what is currently consid- 2018, and 2019. ered CJA is a technology platform combined with and Desktop analytics (DA). This broad grouping of capa- supported by professional services. DMG expects the CJA bilities captures everything employees do at their desk- market, which currently has very little revenue, to grow by tops; it also provides workflow and process automation at least 15 percent in 2015 and 2016, 18 percent in 2017, functionality that can substantially improve the perfor- and 25 percent in 2018 and 2019. mance of both front- and back-office operating groups. The vast majority of WFO applications are sold as DA is increasingly used in back offices to track employee on-premises solutions, although EFM and CJA are almost work items. The user base for this relatively new analyt- all cloud-based. Leading WFO vendors claim that their ical capability is low, which gives it great potential for customers want primarily on-premises solutions, but this growth. DMG expects the DA market to grow by 30 per- is changing. There is growing demand for cloud-based cent in 2015 and 2016, and by 25 percent in 2017, 2018, WFM, and interest in other cloud-based solutions is pick- and 2019. ing up. As with many types of contact center applications, Enterprise feedback management (EFM)/surveying. the hybrid deployment model—with some solutions This segment has undergone extensive enhancement on-premises and others in the cloud—will be the most during the past few years, with the solutions increasingly common model going forward. used to engage customers and alter outcomes. Most EFM solutions are sold in the cloud, and many come with Donna Fluss ([email protected]) is founder and principal of DMG Consulting, professional services to help organizations realize their a provider of contact center and analytics research, marketing analysis, and consulting. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2016 51 Marshall Lager March’s Chief Psychology Officer Pint of View Thank You for Your Whatever Warm feelings help drive satisfying interactions

I HAD A SUDDEN INSIGHT recently in the way we a feeling that what just happened is fundamentally right, and think about customer experience, and I want to share it with we want to return the favor. This is not true for psychopaths, you. It’s a pure coincidence that I was also desperate for a topic but they learn that in order to get along in life, they need to at this month and I’m writing shortly after Thanksgiving. [Ed least fake it well. They do. Not me, because I’m not one. No note: Lead time alert!] I posit that at its core, good customer sir, no psychopaths here. experience is based on the feeling of gratitude. So if a single instance of gratitude stays with us so strongly, Since this is coming from an epiphany and personal expe- what about the establishments we do business with on a regu- rience, my hypothesis is going to be more philosophy than lar basis? I don’t know about you, but there are a lot of com- science. I’m applying introspection to a panies I feel attached to but with whom broad topic, much like Freud did when I don’t have any particular memory of a he came up with his shtick. It worked big thank-you moment. That’s commu- great for him—dude is still famous 75 nity at work. The businesses we go back years after his death, and he changed to are the ones that have made us grateful the mental health field, even if he was several times, in ways strong or weak, so mostly wrong. we are drawn to the feeling we get when Consider this: What are the interac- we’re there. It becomes home, a place tions you remember most as a customer? where we are comfortable because we While it’s true we tend to share negative know we will have thank-you moments. experiences more broadly than positive This is so ingrained into our social ones, the times we hold most dear are character that even when we’re not get- the ones where someone goes above and ting good service, we say the same thing. beyond the call of duty. When we really don’t expect anything How many times have we uttered a bitter or sarcastic thank- good but somebody rocks our socks off, we experience a wave you to somebody who was failing us? It’s all we can do in a of gratitude. When we expect excellence and still get something society that tries to be peaceful and conflict-averse, because beyond our expectations, all we can say is, “Wow, thank you.” otherwise it would be the sound of neck bones snapping while Whether it’s a doctor making a house call—these are incred- James Earl Jones intones, “Apology accepted, Captain Needa.” ibly rare but they do happen—or a shelf monkey finding one It’s when we start to take thankfulness for granted that we more of an out-of-stock item you desperately need, the feeling become more likely to lapse as customers. As with any good is overwhelming. We just want to hug that person, shake their feeling from endorphins, repeated stimulus of the gratitude hand, give them a tip. This is why gratitude and gratuity look center makes it less sensitive, and greater effort is needed to so similar. It even extends to cuisine, as au gratin is French for get the high. This is something for businesses to remember— “Thanks for putting cheese on everything.” expressing our gratitude to customers for continuing to come It’s safe to say that the one phrase most commercial experi- to us is crucial to keeping the cycle going. They come to you ences have in common is thank you. I believe it is part of our and provide you the money to remain profitable, so you’d genes. Humans, as I’ve said before, are social animals. We are damn well better thank them and mean it. hard-wired to work together, because individually we were no match for other animals or the callous hand of nature. When Marshall Lager would like to thank each of you, personally, for continuing to read this somebody does something for us, we experience a warm rush, page. Get your gratitude at www.3rd-idea.com or www.twitter.com/Lager.

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