The ways in which we communicate today are very different from the analog wired telephony world of 1968, when the nation’s first PSAP began serving the public. The advent of mobile text messages, mobile video, automatic crash notification systems, geographic positioning systems and other communications channels provide an exciting opportunity to provide faster and better emergency services. Leveraging these new technologies is just one of many reasons for the federal government-sponsored Next Generation (NG) 9-1-1 initiative. 

911 voice logging recorder systems in NG9-1-1 are evolving to become standardized functional elements connected to other systems on a common network to log a variety of significant events. The problem is, the vast majority of the legacy PSAP recorders in use today were designed for a voice-only world and a circuit-switched network. They were purchased primarily on the basis of reliability and cost, not the flexibility of features and technology that would be flexible enough to adapt to these changes.  Some of these units have the ability to capture and store screen actions initiated by the call-taker but virtually none have the ability to capture, index, archive, or retrieve text messages, video, telematics and other data calls.  There are many other glaring deficiencies in legacy PSAP digital logging recorders.  Here’s a brief summary of five of the most frequently reported limitations:

1. Unable to capture multi-channel events
2. Not architected to readily conform to coming changes
3. Lack the security and authentication requirements of NG9-1-1
4. Are not well integrated with leading VoIP, radio and CAD vendors
5. Lack dispatch and call taker quality assurance evaluation tools

1.  Capturing Multimedia Communications

Legacy Recorders: Majority are not designed to capture, store, and retrieve data messages.  This is because PSAP call servers cannot capture and route data messages.  However, IP-based multi-channel call servers have been available for many years and are in wide use in business enterprises and commercial contact centers.  Many manufacturers do not even produce analog and TDM call distributors today and those that do are in the process of phasing them out.  PSAPs will have to replace or upgrade (if possible) their legacy call servers with current-generation IP-PBX’s or ACD’s to meet the specifications of NG9-1-1.  At that time, they will also need to replace the PSAP recorder.

Next Generation Recorders: Handle analog and digital TDM as well as VoIP voice, data, and text messages in a unified, consolidated fashion –this will facilitate your transition cost-effectively and enable unified capture of and access to all incident information, regardless of the channel that was used to report and resolve it.  

2.  Adaptability to Readily Conform to Changes – Open Architecture

Legacy Recorders: Closed systems designed with either fully or at least partially proprietary hardware and software - not economically scalable and often cannot be modified for IP.  Consequently, PSAPs cannot use industry standard servers with common operating systems and file formats of captured communications.  Legacy 911 logging recorder systems do not have open interfaces –that are recommended by NENA and US DOT under NG9-1-1 initiatives - and so cannot seamlessly integrate with the other PSAP systems that are (or will be) built to open standards.  Examples include the new database formats specified for NG9-1-1 infrastructure, to include CAD systems, mapping software, and more.  With closed systems, each integration point is a custom job adding to costs of acquisition and ownership and creating unnecessary complexity to the task of replacing legacy sub-systems. 

Next Generation Recorders: Designed from the ground up with fully open, service oriented architecture that is inherently adaptable and flexible, open to integrations with other standards-based systems. The standards-based architecture of latest-generation recorders directly translates into lower investment and lower costs of operations – users can leverage COTS hardware and other 3rd party interfaces and data to subordinate the rules and procedures for data access to processes and policies. These recorders will capture inputs from any device; including, voice, data, and video.  Each incident will be indexed with ANI/ALI information, incident number, and other identifiers like call taker name or ID and associated information such as CAD logs and maps.  Incident scenarios will include all communications sequenced just as they happened, all plotted on a map to improve visual analysis

3.  Security and Authentication Measures

Call recordings are often used as court evidence.  It is very important that the recordings be secured from access by unauthorized personnel and if there is an intrusion that there be a mechanism for identifying and tracing the security breach.

Legacy Recorders: Many do not offer encryption of recordings and data, nor they come up with built-in audit trails to monitor and alert on access violations.

Next Generation Recorders: Delivered with encryption, file watermarking, password-protected exports, audit logs and more. 

4.  Tight Integration with Leading VoIP, Radio, CAD, and other Emergency Communications Systems

Legacy Recorders: Virtually none or only limited, expensive capability to convert to recording VoIP, CAD data, or P25 Radio voice and data. In some cases, the recorder is compatible with only one VoIP switch or radio system vendor.  However, different vendors handle communications in different ways and with different communication protocols. While the ultimate objective of NG9-1-1 is to unify communication protocols, this transition will be very gradual.  

Reliable and error-free integration between communications systems and the recording platform is rather important   The recorder must be able to read the ANI, ALI, CLID, trunk ID, call taker ID, incident number, and other data captured by the call server, radio system, or CAD.

Next Generation Recorders: The top recording vendors will have proven integrations with the major PBX, CAD, and radio vendors. They would be development partners with multiple such manufacturers – to have full and complete access to the latest specifications and be able to certify that the recorder functions properly with various versions and releases of the vendor’s switch.

One of the many benefits of NG 9-1-1 is that by adopting Internet Protocol as the common voice and data communications language, subsystems and applications will be able to communicate with each other both internally and externally.  The need for costly integrations will slowly diminish as savvy vendors will design their products to accommodate not only today’s complex environment but the all-IP environment of tomorrow. To learn more about NG9-1-1 recording requirements, check out this recent Podcast featuring Guy Clinch from Avaya and Patrick Botz from VPI.

5.  Integrated Dispatcher Quality Assurance Evaluation and Coaching Tools

The ability to maintain or improve quality of emergency response and objectively monitor progress is critical especially at the time of implementation of new NG9-11 infrastructure. 

Legacy Recorders: Typically unavailable with integrated quality assurance feature sets, not designed to assist with the selection of calls for supervisor evaluation, nor to provide management with helpful tools for designing and completing the evaluation forms.

Next Generation Recorders: Automatically present evaluators with targeted evaluation forms and synchronized interaction audio and screen video (if captured) – selected manually or automatically based on rules for identification of critical calls - to enable efficient assessment of single calls or entire incidents.

Thanks for reading! We welcome the opportunity to answer any questions you may have.

Did you know that almost one in every 25 jobs in the US is within the contact center industry? Pretty thought provoking, huh? But just what does the future hold for the people, processes and technologies of this constantly evolving environment? As the leading developer and provider of contact center workforce optimization solutions and services, we at VPI decided to compile a list of compelling statistics that are shaping the future of customer contact and our solution portfolio. Check it out:

Customer Experience

1) Even in a negative economy, customer experience is a high priority for consumers, with 60% often or always paying more for a better experience. (Source: Harris Interactive)  Tweet This Stat!

2) 86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience, up from 59% 4 years ago. (Source: Harris Interactive)  Tweet This Stat!

3) 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience. (Source: Harris Interactive)  Tweet This Stat!

4) 59% will try a new brand or company for a better service experience. (Source: American Express)  Tweet This Stat!

5) The top three drivers for investing in customer experience management are:

• Improve customer retention – (42 %)
• Improve customer satisfaction – (33 %)
• Increase cross-selling and up-selling – (32 %)

(Source: Aberdeen)  Tweet This Stat!

What These Customer Service Statistics Say about the Future of Contact Centers

These stats make it clear. Your company’s customer service simply can’t be ignored. Customers are choosier and more discerning than ever before. If you neglect the quality of your customer service you will lose key customers to your competitors. Interestingly, these customers are actually willing to pay more for better service and a superior experience.

Self-Service and Call Automation

6) By 2020, the customer will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. (Source: Gartner)  Tweet This Stat!

7) The number of consumers preferring automated self-service has doubled to 55% in the last five years. (Source: Convergys)  Tweet This Stat!

8) US contact centers spend $12.4 billion annually verifying the caller is who they say they are. 59% of calls require identity verification, but only 3% of these are handled entirely through automated processes. (Source: ContactBabel)  Tweet This Stat!

  9) The IVR accounts for an astounding 27% of the total call experience. However, only 7% of organizations currently offer an IVR solution that delivers a better experience (CSAT) than their live agent experience. (Source: JD Power & Associates) Tweet This Stat! 

What These Self-Service Stats Say about the Future of Contact Centers

Self-service is growing by the minute. Your customers’ preferences are rapidly changing. They expect and demand immediate service and satisfaction. These days,regardless of age, gender or occupation, customers expect almost instant gratification when it comes to customer service – they have tools at their fingertips that provide constant and immediate communication. They don’t want to have to wait on hold and they don’t want to have to repeat their information. Can you live up to their expectations? It’s crucial to adapt to your customer’s self-service needs or you may be left behind.

Artificial Intelligence is now being applied to self-service to make it smarter, faster and better. To learn more about the next generation in voice self-service – Virtual Call Agents powered by Artificial Intelligence – watch this short video and listen to these virtual agent call audio samples.

At-Home Agents

10) There are an estimated 3 million Americans who work primarily from home today, an increase of 61% since 2005. (Source: Forrester)  Tweet This Stat!

11) An estimated 60% of contact centers utilize home agents today in some capacity and the forecast is 80% by year-end 2013. (Source: Customer Contact Strategies)  Tweet This Stat!

12) More than half of the contact centers in the U.S. today, 53% have some percentage of their agent population functioning from a home office. More than 70% of those currently supporting at-home agents plan on increasing the number of their at-home agents in 2013. (Source: National Association of Call Centers)  Tweet This Stat!

13) Ovum expects the number of home-based customer service agents to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 36.4%, one of the strongest expansion levels of any outsourcing market sub-segment. (Source: Ovum)  Tweet This Stat!

14) By 2016, 63 million Americans will telecommute. (Source: Global Workplace Analytics)  Tweet This Stat!

What these Home Working Stats Say about the Future of Contact Centers

Working from home is becoming an increasingly common practice – quite possibly the single biggest phenomenon changing the customer contact landscape in over a decade. Telecommuting offers employees a flexible schedule and higher job satisfaction rate. Without the limits of geography, employers benefit from the ability to cherry pick candidates from a vast labor pool beyond the confined radius of a brick-and-mortar facility. Consequently, more and more companies are hiring at-home agents, but this means they need a way to monitor the performance and productivity of the agents.

To learn more about best practices for implementing a successful at-home agent program,  download your complimentary white paper on ‘Call Center At-Home Agent Best Practices,’ authored by analyst firm DMG Consulting, and consider attending one of Michele Rowan’s world-class ‘At-Home Agent Strategies for Success Workshops.’ As the former VP of Performance Management at Hilton, Michele led the expansion of the Hilton@Home program from 200 to 1000 at-home agents, and has since helped hundreds of other organizations successfully deploy home working programs.

Quality and Performance Management

15) Only 31% of organizations closely monitor the quality of interactions with target customers. (Source: Forrester Research)  Tweet This Stat!

16) Two-thirds of organizations view access to real-time or nearly real-time metrics is a very important capability. However, very few companies (8%) receive their metrics as soon as they are generated. Fewer than one-fifth (18%) receive them on the same day, while at the remaining companies it can take up to four weeks for the metrics to be delivered. (Source: Ventana Research)  Tweet This Stat!

17) 92% of contact center leaders see high value in sharing metrics in real-time with front-line agents. The top 5 metrics of greatest value when shared in real-time with agents are # of calls in queue, service level, customer satisfaction, schedule adherence, and first contact resolution – in that order. (Source: Good to Great: Rapid Results with Real-time Performance Management, A Saddletree Research Paper, 2012) Read the full benchmark research report.  Tweet This Stat!

18) 60% of all repeat calls are process or training driven – business processes are not in place to meet the customer’s need, and agents have not been given the training required to meet the customer expectations that have been set by marketing or elsewhere in the business. (Source: Frost & Sullivan)  Tweet This Stat!

19) Organizations that focus on frequent training see advantages in first call resolution - 65% vs. 58% for those who don't. (Source: Parature)  Tweet This Stat!

20) Only 31% of organizations recognize and reward employees across the company for improving customer experience. (Source: Forrester Research)  Tweet This Stat!

What these Quality and Performance Management Stats Say about the Future of Contact Centers

Clearly, these stats show that companies need to pay more attention to agent quality and performance management in order to maximize the potential of each employee and provide the training the agents need to be successful.

When empowered with real-time performance metrics and information, front-line agents and supervisors thrive. The problem is that most contact centers struggle to extract customer insights from multiple siloed systems and applications that share data. It takes time and resources to produce spreadsheets and reports that have already become stale and outdated by the time they're delivered. Fortunately, with the availability of Real-time Performance Management software, the ability to consolidate metrics from multiple disparate contact center telephony and business applications and deliver them just-in-time to agents, supervisors and executives has now become an affordable reality.

To get more value from Quality Assurance efforts, it’s important to re-think your approach to Quality Assurance (QA). Traditional QA which has been primarily focused on monitoring and improving internal agent quality and compliance for the past 30 years, is now also being used to uncover valuable insights to improve business operations and customer satisfaction. The emergence of workflow automation and embedded analytics with new QA solutions are helping customer facing organizations around the world reduce the manual steps required by most traditional QA programs by 60 to 80 percent. Better yet, analytics-driven QA takes you straight to what really matters – delivering insight into critical business issues and opportunities to improve customer experience and revenue outcomes.

Multi-Channel

21) Contact channels other than the phone, such as email, Web self-service, chat, and other online techniques, now account for more than 30 percent of customer service engagements. Web self-service and email dominate this mix. (Source: CFI Group)  Tweet This Stat!

22) 25% of consumers utilize one to two channels when seeking customer care and 52% of consumers utilize three or four channels. (Source: Ovum)  Tweet This Stat!

23) 57% best in class companies measure support center success across email, chat, web, and voice, and 62% use integrated voice response (IVR). (Source: Aberdeen Group)  Tweet This Stat!

24) In the US, 21% of online shoppers prefer live chat, close to the same number as those who favor using the telephone (23%) and ahead of social media (2%). Email remains the most popular method for online shoppers to communicate with customer services, with 54% saying they prefer this method. (Source: BoldChat )  Tweet This Stat!

25) 60% of adults aged 25–29 live in households with only wireless telephones. (Source: Centers for Disease Control)  Tweet This Stat!

What these Multi-Channel Stats Say about the Future of Contact Centers

Today’s contact centers are using many different channels to reach their customers. In this era of constant, ‘round-the-clock communication, customers expect to be able to interact with a company through any channel – whether via phone, going online or even live Web chat. In addition, an increasing number of businesses and contact centers are implementing live chat to meet this rising demand. In addition to being able to evaluate and analyze voice interactions with customers, organizations need to place equal or greater weight on the ability to assess and extract insights from self-service, Web chat, email and social media conversations. This leads us into the next major trend – Speech and Text Analytics.

Speech and Text Analytics

26) Currently, there are 3,170 active, successful speech analytics implementations. (Source: SpeechTech)  Tweet This Stat!

27) Speech analytics was one of the top two fastest-growing call center tools in 2012 – the adoption of speech analytics grew by 59% and Web chat jumped by 60%. (Source: ContactBabel)  Tweet This Stat!

28) Speech analytics was among the top five technologies evaluated, with 24 percent saying that they intended to evaluate it for purchase in 2012. (Source: Saddletree Research) Tweet This Stat!

29) The speech analytics market is projected to continue to expand over the next several years, growing by 25 percent in 2013 and 20 percent in 2014. (Source: DMG Consulting) Tweet This Stat!

30) Speech analytics solutions are currently in use in 24% of all organizations, predominantly used by services, outsourcing and finance organizations. There is an appreciable amount of interest in implementing a new speech analytics system or replacing the one they have within the near future, especially in the medical sector (45% of companies), insurance sector (54%) and retail (40%). (Source: ContactBabel)  Tweet This Stat!

What these Speech Analytics Statistics Say about the Future of Contact Centers

These statistics clearly demonstrate that speech analytics may be the fastest growing trend impacting the future of contact centers today. The possibilities are endless. Speech analytics allows you to identify calls that can be better handled, helps you improve First Contact Resolution and reduce customer churn, and enables you to increase sales and collections by sharing best practices.

Social Media

31) More than 50% of Facebook users and 80% of Twitter users expect a response to a customer service inquiry in a day or less.(Source: Oracle)  Tweet This Stat!

32) Failure to respond via social channels can lead to up to a 15% increase in churn rate for existing customers. (Source: Gartner)  Tweet This Stat!

33) 56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored. (Source: Huffington Post  “100 Fascinating Social Media Statistics and Figures from 2012 )  Tweet This Stat!

34) 19% of consumers who had unsatisfactory service interactions shared their experiences through social networks in 2010, a 50% increase over 2009. (Source: Forrester)  Tweet This Stat!

35) Customers who wrote about their contact center experiences on social media sites and then received follow-up from the company rated their overall satisfaction with the contact center experience nearly 20%higher and are 15% more likely to recommend the company than those who received no follow-up. (Source: CFI Group)  Tweet This Stat!

36) Servicing via social media boosts customer satisfaction by 15-20%. (Source: CFI Group)  Tweet This Stat!

37) 80% of users prefer to connect with brands on Facebook. (Source: Huffington Post)  Tweet This Stat!

What these Social Media Stats Say about the Future of Contact Centers

Social Media has had a huge impact on the future of the contact center industry. After interacting with your company, a customer can immediately vent theirfrustrations or share their positive experiences with the click of a button. This is why customer service you provide is more important than ever before. Additionally, since word now travels so fast, companies can lose business opportunities if they don’t regularly respond to their customers’ requests and comments on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, blogs and others. With the advent of Social Media, QA is becoming more important than ever before as it takes just seconds for a customer to rave about or complain and bash a brand to thousands.

Cloud Computing

38) By the end of 2015 more than 18 percent of contact center seats will be delivered by cloud-based contact center infrastructure providers. (Source: DMG Consulting)  Tweet This Stat!

39) At year-end 2016, more than 50 percent of Global 1000 companies will have stored customer-sensitive data in the public cloud. (Source: Gartner Predicts)  Tweet This Stat!

40) 57% of cloud computing users feel that it actually increased their security when compared to traditional methods for computing and data back up. (Source: Mimecast)  Tweet This Stat!

What these Cloud Computing Stats Say about the Future of Contact Centers

Recording NG9-1-1 communications involves much more than capturing voice and some basic data. NG logging recorders now require tighter integration of technologies and processes than yesterday's recorders were designed for. Considering that recording emergency communications is a must these days as it will be in the future, let’s look into 'what's under the hood' in this important, but often overlooked area.

VPI recently participated in Avaya’s TechTalk podcast where the two long-term partners and industry leaders in innovative technologies for processing and managing emergency communications shared their insights on NG9-1-1 recording requirements and considerations in an informal, engaging conversation. You're invited to listen to these 6 minutes of recorded audio or read the Podcast transcript:

Avaya:

Public Safety Emergency Communication centers are known for the use of many different proprietary technologies, specifically developed for use in emergency response process. How is this changing due to Next Generation 9-1-1 standards and how is it impacting the communications recording function?

VPI:

Next Generation 9-1-1 is one of the most significant changes we’ve seen in the public safety industry in years. The functional specification for the NENA i3 solution 08-003 calls for standardization of all multimedia communications, technologies and processes. PSAPs - or Public Safety Answering Points – must be updated to be able to receive and log all forms of communication used today – whether it’s voice, text or other media. And they must be able to accept new forms of evidence from the field, including mobile photos, videos and SMS messages that will be delivered via the SIP protocol standard over the Emergency Services IP Network – or ESiNet for short.

To accommodate these specs, technology vendors, including recording providers like VPI, are required to standardize their architectures, interfaces and communication protocols, so that PSAPs can easily share and exchange information with other agencies when needed.

Avaya:

That’s very interesting. Where does VPI’s recording system fit within the NG9-1-1 communications infrastructure?

VPI:

Recording systems play very important role in Next-Gen 9-1-1. Regardless of call media type being transferred – whether it’s phone call, text, video or IM – the media is converted to SIP signaling within the originating network. Then, it travels through ESInet and is routed to the appropriate i3 PSAP. There, the Emergency Call Routing Function queries what’s called an Emergency Services Routing Proxy like Avaya’s Aura ESRP to determine which PSAP to route the call to. Once the call media has arrived to the most appropriate PSAP, our call recorder captures SIP Invite packets from the ESRP and begins recording media and logging events. When a call is completed, a SIP BYE event terminates the recording of the call. And at that time, any associated call data attributes, such as location information, are recorded and logged into our database and then authorized users are able to access recordings via a centralized, Web-based interface.

Avaya:

What are the mandatory elements of a NG9-1-1 recording system?

VPI:

That’s an excellent question - one that we get asked quite a lot these days. 

1. Our recording technologies have been developed on the principles of open service-oriented architecture from the ground up since 1994, encompassing non-proprietary hardware and software elements as well as application services and processes between them. This is the first mandatory requirement per NENA’s i3 specification.
2. The system must be capable of recording analog, TDM, VoIP, radio, wireless calls and SIP-based media including SMS text, email and instant messages, streaming video, and images into standard file formats – and all within the same system.
3. The recorder must be also capable of collecting data attributes from the ESInet such as caller number, date stamp and location information bundled in the SIP signaling.  Other data that is also very useful includes CAD data such as incident ID, type, and severity; and case processing data such chief complaint, scene and victim information and caller safety.
4. If the call is transferred to another PSAP location, the recording system must continue to record and track the call.
5. And for security purposes, the recorder must authenticate all voice and data communications.

Avaya:

Do you have any final thoughts that you’d like to leave with our global community of Avaya customers and partners?

VPI:

Yes, NENA is planning on releasing their final version of the 08-003 i3 specification later this year. With this in mind, our VPI CAPTURE recording solution has been designed to enable you to take full advantage of the i3 network vision. To learn more, you can visit us online at www.VPI-corp.com/PSAP, or feel free to call us anytime at 800-200-5430. And on behalf of all of us at VPI, thanks so for your time today.

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VPI has been one of Avaya’s longest standing Avaya DevConnect partners a member of the Avaya Developer Connection program since 2002. VPI is also an active participant in the National Emergency Number Association’s NG9-1-1 Planning Committee and testing at NENA’s Industry Collaboration Events.  

VPI was recently featured in Contact Center Association's Inbound Magazine in their special issue on 'What to Expect in the Contact Center in 2013.'  One thing is for certain, and that is trading floors and contact centers will be faced with implementing a series of process and technology changes in the coming year.

Authored by VPI's Vice President of Workforce Optimization Patrick Botz, the article 'Financial Contact Centers Face the Reality of Complying with Dodd-Frank' discusses the impact of Dodd-Frank call recording requirements, deadline dates and affordable call recording, analytics and electronic Coaching solutions that are helping trading floors and contact centers of all sizes and in multiple industries that are involved in swap activities – including financial services, manufacturing, oil and insurance – prepare for and ensure compliance with Dodd-Frank call recording requirements.

Financial Contact Centers Face the Realities of Complying with Dodd-Frank

New Dodd-Frank Call Recording Requirements 

Using Analytics to Detect Non-Compliant Activities 

Closing Knowledge Gaps with E-Learning and Coaching 

Want to improve the quality of your mission-critical communications? Still grappling with impending Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) changes?

You’re not alone. Public safety and security agencies nationwide are working hard to meet the challenges of these demanding new regulations. Many are busy updating their voice logging software to a fully compliant NG9-1-1 recording system and integrating their call recording equipment with call quality assurance software. However, despite significant emphasis upon the adoption of new technologies and processes, one thing that’s often overlooked is the impact this huge transition is having on call takers and dispatchers. Their jobs are already incredibly stressful. The last thing they need is to be buried under a ton of new protocols while struggling to familiarize themselves with new software and hardware. With this in mind, I encourage you to check out Katerina Vetrovec’s excellent article, which was recently published in NENA's The Call Magazine. The article,“Public Safety Quality Assurance and Training Best Practices: How to Optimize Communications Center Performance and Job Satisfaction,” examines ways in which call takers can be trained with call center training software more efficiently and effectively in the wake of NG9-1-1. Vetrovec also discusses the latest methods that can be successfully deployed to keep call takers happy and motivated in an increasingly stressful, demanding work environment, such as the implementation of automated Quality Assurance and Coaching Improvement tools.

The article points out that the vast majority of dispatchers and call takers are under-trained and inadequately monitored. All too often, there isn’t even a basic call center quality monitoring process in place. Under these circumstances, it seems pretty unreasonable to expect these PSAP professionals to work to the best of their abilities. Vetrovec outlines various ways in which PSAPs have successfully overcome these problems. She also discusses the advantages of implementing some of the latest enabling technologies, and valuable lessons learned from other industries. I think you’ll find it’s well worth taking the time to check out this insightful, informative article.

My internet has just gone down at home and I’m already frustrated. Since this isn’t the first time I’ve had this experience I know to unplug the modem, shut down my computer, start up the wireless modem again and wait for all the green lights to show up where they are supposed to. I think, YES! But the minute I turn on the computer, I still have no Internet access.

So I’m ready to place that dreaded call to tech support and the first thing I get is a traditional call center IVR system asking me to do the same exact steps that I’ve already done. But I can’t bypass that pre-programmed voice going down its decision tree so I get frustrated and say “Agent!”

We’ve all done it. But what if we don’t have to? Have you seen IBM's Watson™ on Jeopardy responding to questions using amazing artificial intelligence? Or do you like to ask Siri® for the iPhone® what the meaning of life is just so you can hear the answer?

That kind of capability is now available for the contact center! With live agent costs continuing to go up, and many IVR self-service bound callers asking to speak to agent anyway, the industry needed an answer. Conversational virtual agents using artificial intelligence can eliminate the frustration customers have just come to expect from the automated call center IVR software systems in use today that box callers into a decision tree.

Unlike a typical speech IVR system, virtual agents do not use decision trees. They acquire their knowledge and skills by training much like human agents -- the more call scenarios they listen to and handle, the smarter they get. Not having to use decision trees makes for happier, less-frustrated customers and eliminates the burden on IT staff who no longer need to set up and maintain tedious decision trees.

VPI recently announced the general availability of VPI VirtualSource – a groundbreaking, highly affordable, hosted call center self-service solution. Whether you need just a few virtual agents or 700, this pay-as-you-go model can benefit any contact center in almost any industry. VPI's on-demand virtual call agents are perfect for supplementing or replacing your traditional contact center IVR.

You can read the press release or listen to recorded conversations to better understand the power of this revolutionary technology.

The following great questions were asked during the recent APCO training Webcast on Public Safety Quality Assurance Best Practices and Tools. Please find below our answers for your review:

Quality Assurance Software Questions and Answers

Does the VPI QA system come with quality evaluation forms? If so, how would we customize them or add new ones?

Yes, VPI’s QA system is delivered with sample evaluation forms that have been developed based on best practices of our customers. These forms can be used as templates – you can modify, delete and add any number of questions, skills and sections.  One or more questions can be associated with each skill – answers to those questions during the quality evaluation session are automatically aggregated for a total score for each skill.  You can also create any number of new forms from a scratch, simply following intuitive graphical user interface.

Will the VPI QA software work in a situation where telecommunicators both call take and dispatch multiple, overlapping calls?

Yes, absolutely.  The system does not just associate different forms to different telecommunicators.  This form association is done based on the type of call taken and the type of work done.  Naturally, you will have different criteria for dispatching vs. call taking – these requirements can be either combined in the same evaluation form yet still separated into sections (in a tabbed interface), or you can have different forms for each type of work, depending on specifics of your call flow. Concurrent, overlapping calls are recorded as separate audio/data files which can be then evaluated separately.  With this said, you may also group multiple recordings (such as when evaluating the entire incident) into an “incident” collection that you save under a custom name and then this set of recordings can be evaluated with a single form that contains all needed sections or elements.  In summary, VPI’s QA system is very flexible and adaptable to virtually any center and situation.

We are a small countywide dispatch center with only 6 fulltime personnel. Does the QA program scale well for small dispatch centers as well as for larger ones?

Yes.  Agencies of all sizes should have a QA program in place.  The per-seat pricing of the software allows for easy incremental scaling. Beyond that, since you create your own process, evaluation criteria and forms using VPI software interface, it is completely scalable and adaptable to your evolving needs.

How would multiple evaluators access this system on-site or off-site?

VPI’s QA system is browser based, which means that it does not require installation of any software at user workstations.  It can be accessed by any number of authorized users via your LAN or WAN connection to your local Intranet or “private cloud”.   Evaluators could even review and evaluate calls remotely from off-site locations, using secure remote connection such as VPN.

Since during the training phase you evaluate a trainees’ skills, knowledge and abilities, could this software serve as a type of DOR for the OJT Phase?

Yes.  You can build in any evaluation form you wish.  This would provide excellent documentation by allowing you to save the audio files to the evaluation for ease in future retrieval.

What audio recorder platforms can you work with?

VPI’s QA system can coexist with any full-time recording system, including the VPI Capture NG9-1-1 ready recording system. For public safety agencies that currently have an existing full-time recording system, the VPI Quality software bundle comes embedded with its own built-in quality recording module to record console audio for quality assurance purposes.  All console audio is recorded and calls are then automatically selected using a business rule or manually selected for QA evaluation. If calls are not selected for quality evaluation within a period of time that you define, they are deleted to free up space to record future calls for quality evaluation. The quality assurance application and the quality recording element share the same the hardware platform.

What CADs can the VPI QA software integrate with?

VPI integrates with major CAD brands, including Tiburon, Intergraph and Tritech and provides a variety of integration options for any other CAD system as well. The CAD data is used for automated classification and visualization of recorded call taker and dispatcher calls and screens for fast evidence assembly and value-driven analysis – by incident types, numbers, severity, and/or other parameters. The integration is a passive, one-directional intgegration where we pull data from CAD systems and use it, but do not feed any data back to CAD.

Does the QA form software interface with Intergraph (or other) CAD systems?  If so, in what way?

Yes, VPI’s QA evaluation system successfully integrates with Intergraph CAD.  CAD data can optionally be captured and used to drive the selection of the most important calls for evaluation.  Intergraph CAD (or any other CAD including TriTech, Tiburon, etc.) system provides incident data, such as incident type, ID, severity and the like.  When this data is attached to relevant call recordings, it serves for classification of calls by incident types (or severity) which then helps with prioritization of recordings for review according to their significance or urgency.  For example, your local requirement may be to evaluate ALL domestic violence calls, but only samples of other types of calls.  The system can pull all domestic violence (or any other incident type per your setting) calls for evaluation and automatically attach the most relevant evaluation form to those calls, all of which is then served in the “to-do” list of assigned evaluator(s).

If you would like to/need to, can you still "hunt and peck" for calls?

Absolutely.  You can set up the call selection for QA in any way you want. It can be a combination of calls that are selected automatically by a system rule that you define, calls that you select manually as needed, and even calls that may be flagged by dispatchers/call takers for review.  Hunting and pecking for calls o be evaluated is really easy with VPI’s recording systems – either search by any number and combination of criteria (date/time, employee ID, call type, call length, radio ID, etc.) or you can simply respond to system reports and notifications of abnormal calls.

Is this a paperless system?

Yes, it can be completely paperless.  All interfaces, forms and reports are electronic.  Printing of any reports or details of QA evaluations is available but not required.

If our telephone system is on a separate server than our CAD system, can it all still be integrated?

Yes, we can pull data from multiple sources and attach it to appropriate recordings, enhancing the quality evaluation process as well as reporting on incidents in general.

What is the licensing model for the QA system - site license or by seat?

Pricing for licensing is by seat/position.

Coaching / E-Learning Questions and Answers

What is your definition of coaching? Is it formal training, simple discussion, notes on QA form or something different?

In general, coaching is a personalized learning process (or program) that provides timely support to employees. In some cases, coaching may be a short verbal conversation with personnel while reviewing the quality evaluation form.  However, for documentation purposes, you want the majority of your coaching to have some written component that should effect a change in performance and behavior, and a quiz to ensure there is retention and that learning did take place.

Does the VPI QA software facilitate E-learning? Does it allow for the development of messages and quizzes with questions on e-learning and messages? Does it report on when the dispatcher has viewed and acted upon all of it?

Yes, the VPI Coaching software allows you to create business rules that will automatically deploy coaching assignments based upon scores to certain questions, skills or overall scores on the evaluation.  You can also create quizzes and include them with training to confirm comprehension of conveyed information.

Any learning course can be associated with a quiz that is automatically started at the conclusion of the training content.  Quiz results are included in the training report of each employee.  Messages to call takers/dispatchers can be triggered based on a variety of events, such as specific QA scores, passing/failing scores in quizzes, and the like.  You can set up the messages to require acknowledgement.  Report / quiz / message assignments as well as their completion and acknowledgments (as appropriate for each) are listed in coaching reports that show dates and times associated with each action.

Can you tell if they actually read the document? Does it show how much time they had the document open?

Yes, this is a part of standard tracking of e-learning assignments.  Coaching / E-Learning reports show dates and times of all content and messages sent to each dispatcher/call taker as well dates and times of when the content was accessed and completed.  When SCORM compliant content is used, the system can also report on very granular details of the learning process, such as the amount of time that each employee takes with each quiz question, section of the coaching content, and the like.  This will provide valuable hints regarding most common struggles that need additional attention.

Will the coaching sample be the same across the board or will it change depending on the situation?

Coaching assignments should fit the situation.  Some errors are generic, such as talking too rapidly, and that type of learning content could be prepared and used for all call takers.  You may design a variety of other learning modules and associate them to evaluation questions or skills, so that they are automatically selected when ratings in various areas do not reach desired minimums.  Each employee would then receive a different collection of learning modules, according to their specific knowledge or skill gaps.  In addition to this, other coaching materials may need to be created when warranted, in the form of a Personal Improvement Plan (PIP) to address specific, individual performance deficiencies that cannot be addressed with generic content.

Do we create the coaching or do you all create the coaching session?  Are the coaching and learning assignments pre-made or is it something that needs to be developed by the PSAP?

Training managers or supervisors select content from a variety of resources (APCO, your own recorded calls that show best practices, specific cases posted on-line, etc.) and add custom-designed content that reflects your specific policies and requirements.  The VPI software then takes care of automated (and also manual, when desired) assignments of coaching content to individuals in your PSAP center, as well as tracking of coaching status and resulting improvements.

Can we use our own recordings for coaching purposes?

Yes, absolutely. Any standards-based files can be used, to include recordings from your logger.  When recordings are captured by VPI systems, you receive an interface for redaction of sensitive sections of call and screen recordings.  You can also add notations (such as to clarify why various sections of the call were or were not handled properly) and pop-up messages to maximize the learning experience.  These customized, modified recordings are saved as copies in order to protect the integrity of original recordings.

The following excellent questions were asked during the recent APCO training Webcast on Public Safety Quality Assurance Best Practices and Tools. Lori VanGilder, Manager of Quality Assurance Services at Replay Systems, APCO Institute Adjunct Instructor and prior Communications Supervisor in Florida, provided the following answers below for your review.

Our QA program is viewed by the dispatchers negatively. We offer several training steps to assist the dispatcher in improving. What advice do you have to make the QA process a more positive experience?

First of all, it is great that you do have a program in place.  If there are negative perceptions of the program, start by asking if you utilize the evaluations on the employees annual review?  If so, this provides documentation of all the times they did great, and not just a supervisory file of the occasional negative situations that occur.  I would also ask if everyone on the staff has been trained on the program to understand its process and objectives.  Lastly, perhaps you want to try ensuring that you are including motivational feedback and not just the documented deficiencies.  Are you sending out positive feedback on great performance?  And is it timely? Also, are you sending out informational responses with your QA regarding stress management?  Try to make the program "feel" more empathetic to the Telecommunicators.

Our agency has had QA established for quite some time; however, the scores were always very high and rarely pointed out errors that needed to be addressed. Now, there is a new supervisor completing the QA (previous dispatcher/trainer) and she is fair grading all the same across the board. Many dispatchers/call takers are offended and upset with the supervisor because errors are now being brought to their attention. She also uses positive feedback and constructive criticism when necessary. Is this negativity a typical phase that centers go through and what can we do to help the morale.

Unfortunately, what you have described is very common occurrence.  If the program has been in place and not fairly administered, the new person completing the evaluations faces some challenges.  I would recommend starting out with a training session for the entire staff regarding the policy that governs your quality assurance program.  In that training make sure everyone is aware of the grading standards and what is viewed as compliant/non-compliant/ and exemplary for scoring.  There are going to be some hurt feelings, however stepping forward and addressing the issue should also garner her some respect from the team.

Once the criteria is well understood, we would recommend that you introduce some elements of call taker / dispatcher participation into your QA process.  For example, you can have them flag some of their calls for evaluation – such as those where they did exceptionally well.  Be quick to recognize them for the work well done as soon as such calls are reviewed. You can also allow the call takers/dispatchers evaluate some of their own calls, following the same process as the supervisor.  People typically rate themselves more strictly then when third party does it – listening to their calls after the fact provides a different experience than when they are involved in the call for the first time. These evaluations would be subject to supervisory review and finalization.  We also recommend that call takers/dispatchers receive a copy of their evaluation with embedded call/radio recording for review and specific, constructive comments that can be entered into the evaluation if they believe that their rating was unjust. The evaluator may still revise the ratings (if the employee feedback is valid) and finalize the evaluation thereafter.

What statistical data suggests that "many agents are under-motivated, and see QA as only punitive"?  We have had QA in place for years - and that is not the case here.

You are indeed in a very fortunate situation.  This data is published by a variety of organizations to include:

• National Academies of Emergency Dispatch
• 911Trainer.com
• 9-1-1 Magazine whose team conducted an extensive research to assess many aspects of today’s QI/QA at 9-1-1 centers and published results in their magazine.  They queried dispatchers, supervisors, QI/QA personnel, managers and EMD system providers – in all states around the nation.
• Individual sharing posts from dispatchers can be found on social media sites (LinkedIn and Facebook) and in blogs
• Apart from this information, multiple attendees of our Webinar meeting posted comments about their centers experiencing this same situation – their dispatchers/call takers view the QA process very negatively

Do you suggest one person do all QA work or divide it up by Shift/Supervisor? And if it is divided up, would it be a good idea to have supervisors only evaluate those not on their respective shift?

The answer would depend upon your agency staffing.  In some cases there are too many calls to be reviewed by one person for this to be practical, and in others one single point of contact is an excellent idea.  The most important thing is to ensure that any and all evaluators are grading the same way- that is considered calibration of the gradings.  Also, it is important that those who conduct the evaluations understand the need for confidentiality, otherwise a Telecommunicator could become embarrassed and end up with a negative perception of the program as a whole.

In some states, medical QA is protected from legal discovery (i.e., it is not available for use by attorneys in lawsuits. Is there any similar protection for dispatch QI?  If not, another approach is to not maintain QI info as a permanent record - meaning use it for improvement then delete.

Unfortunately, we are not able to advise an answer for the legal implications as each state has their own statutes.  Please turn to your own agency’s legal division.

Do you recommend Q&A if you are not a 911 center or the main emergency answering point. You get the occasional emergency call that you transfer to the 911 center but for the most part you only answer non-emergency or after the call type calls. If you do, what type do you recommend?

Yes. Quality Assurance can be conducted in any type of call center.  Any personnel who are coming in contact with the public on telephones can/should be evaluated to ensure that the contact is positive for everyone. Your evaluation forms would follow the requirements and criteria that are relevant to your organization and its objectives.

I am a working Supervisor, how much time is dedicated to the QA program?

To conduct a complete evaluation, document it and apply some coaching/learning  (if needed) can take approximately 20 min per call.  If the call is exceptional, obviously that time is greatly reduced.  Assignments of coaching/e-learning can be automated, so that it is automatically triggered based on results of you QA evaluation. 

What is the business model for using ReplayQA? Per call evaluated, monthly fees, etc.?

ReplayQA pricing is based upon call volume and system needs.

Is there anything in CALEA, APCO or NENA certifications that require QA programs in Communications centers?

Yes.  All of them have standards that require Quality Assurance.  APCO Mini Telecommunicator Training  Standards, APCO P33 certification standard, Calea does have a QA standard, NENA call processing standard 56-6 and NFPA standards 1710 and 1221..

How important is calibration of QA? We have 4 people review the same call for monthly random QA. Then calibrate any scores with a 10 point variance?  It's a lengthy process.

Calibration is excellent and it is great that you are including it in your quality assurance program.  It sounds like there is not a lot of effort invested into the objectivity of your evaluation process.  You should be able to reduce the number of calibrations needed by clearly outlining what specific conduct or performance equates to each grade.  These internal standards can be conveyed in a meeting format and reinforced via electronic training where the standards are reiterated.

What is the legal liability associated with disposing of QA recordings and coaching documentation? Is ALL QA discoverable?

Unfortunately, we are not able to advise an answer for the legal implications as each state has their own statutes.  Please refer to your own agency legal division.

Does RePlay QA hire independant contractors to work from home doing reviews

Yes, Replay hires experienced Telecommunications professionals to perform as Assessors and complete the evaluations from their homes.

Do you see any negative issues with having call takers and dispatchers doing the QA reviews and not just supervisors?

If the grading criteria are firmly established in your policy, then the grading should be consistent, regardless of who performs the evaluation.  However, the confidentiality issues may prevent evaluations done by call takers or dispatchers from being a good idea, unless you are referring to agent self-evaluations.  We do recommend self-evaluations. In general, the personnel conducting the evaluations need to be capable of keeping the information in the evaluations confidential so as to not embarrass or discredit a peer, which would create a negative view of the entire program.

My agency currently has a QA program and we have an initial evaluator and 2 additional raters per call. Our program takes an average of all three scores for the call-takers final score. Is this overkill to have 3 evaluators. Do most QA programs only utilize one rater?

Your agency clearly has seen the need for calibration of the ratings on the evaluations, which is great.  However, we do see having three people evaluate the same call as a redundant, likely unjustified usage of time and resources.  Perhaps you want to look at the grading criteria for your evaluations and work to remove all subjectivity so there can be more belief that the correct ratings are issued by a single evaluator.  Organizations typically perform one calibration session once or twice a month, which has been shown to suffice as long as grading criteria are clearly defined and the evaluation forms use the proper selection of grading choices to address each evaluation question.  For example, 10-point sliding scales invite more variance between evaluators than 3 or 5-point scales. Yes/no answers may be most appropriate with questions that relate to accuracy, and the like. 

There are many people who believe that expectations such as the 1221 standard on call processing times (< 60 seconds for 95% calls) is unrealistic when performing EMD on EMS calls. Would you comment on that please?

There are many recent discussions on this topic on APCO PS Connect.  Yes, the standards are very high.  However, you have to keep in mind that many agencies who have a separate call taker and dispatcher, as well as smaller agencies where your partner can dispatch while you continue talking to the caller, are meeting the standard by sending the call to the dispatcher as soon as basic information is obtained and then updating the screen and the responders after the initial dispatch.  That helps a great deal with the call processing time.

Currently, we cannot buy software so how do we best start a QA program?

You can conduct a QA program completely without the software.  Create a paper form or use MS Excel and define your grading criteria there.  Then randomly select calls from your recorder to evaluate and tabulate the results. If budget is an issue, you may also want to consider leasing the VPI quality assurance software for an affordable monthly payment.

Join VPI and Straumann for an exciting webinar showcasing the powerful reporting solutions for Cisco UCC Contact Centers. You'll learn how Cisco and VPI helped Straumann develop and award-winning real-time contact center performance reporting solution.

Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Time: 1:00 PM ET, 10:00 AM PT
Register here.

Now you can get even more value from your Cisco UCC Express (UCCX) or UCC Enterprise (UCCE) investment. VPI, a Cisco Solution Developer, VIP and SIP Partner, has integrated its award-winning VPI Performance contact center reporting and performance management software application with Cisco. This functionality complements and enhances the UCCX and UCCE platforms greatly by consolidating data and presenting actionable, real-time information in the form of Web dashboards, interactive reports, scorecards and desktop tickers to empower contact center managers, supervisors and agents to make better, quicker decisions.

Learn how Cisco and VPI customer Straumann, a global leader in dental implant solutions and restorative dentistry, enhanced the capabilities of its Cisco Unified Contact Center system and operations with VPI’s award-winning real-time Cisco reporting software solution.

Register to attend the complimentary Webinar, hosted by subject matter experts from Straumann and VPI, to learn how you can:

• Create and report on metrics based on Cisco UCCX, UCCE and other contact center data (CRM, ERP, QA, WFM) to meet business objectives.
• Report across multiple teams and queues, locations and Cisco UCCX/UCCE systems to get a holistic view of contact center operations.
• Perform true historical reporting with unlimited data collection – get insights into trending over time and a historically accurate representation of your agents’ group assignments.
• Create flexible grouping structures to report on groups and teams in any manner that makes most sense to your business.
• Drill through layers of data for root cause analysis and trigger targeted alerts, notifications and Coaching assignments based on performance thresholds to promptly correct performance gaps.

Scheduling Conflict? Register for the Webinar and we'll send you the recorded version.

Presenters:

Carlo Wise - IT Specialist, Straumann

Carlo Wise serves as a senior IT Specialist at Straumann, a global leader in dental implant solutions and restorative dentistry, leveraging his strong background in all facets of telephony and network systems integration. He is an experienced IT and Contact Center professional with over 16 years of experience in supporting and implementing Contact Center technologies in small to large Contact Center environments. Mr. Wise holds a variety of industry certifications, including Cisco, CompTIA and Redhat.

Delee Shields - Channel Sales Director, VPI
 
Delee has been instrumental in working closely with Cisco in developing VPI's Cisco Developer Network (CDN) Solution Developer, Value Incentive (VIP) and Solutions Incentive (SIP) partnership programs. She is responsible for working hand-in-hand with Cisco customers and channel partners through the entire sales process. She has extensive knowledge of Cisco Unified Communications product platforms and is highly experienced in Cisco reporting software, Cisco call recording software, workforce optimization, VoIP, LAN, WAN, MAN and wireless solution design. Prior to joining VPI as a sales engineer in 2007, she worked in sales and sales engineering capacities promoting Cisco solutions as well as earning her Cisco CCNA and CCNP certifications.

Ahead of this year's holiday season, consumers charged more to their credit cards for second straight month. Robust holiday spending is driving the speculation that U.S. consumers are shifting their use of credit and debit toward credit. Early spending patterns do suggest that total credit card spending is increasing, as it has all year. Worldwide, consumers carry more than 1 billion Visa cards alone. More than 450 million of those cards are in the United States. The number of U.S. identity fraud victims rose 12 percent to 11.1 million adults last year. Credit and debit card fraud is the No. 1 fear of Americans in the midst of the global financial crisis. Concern about fraud supersedes that of terrorism, computer and health viruses and personal safety – one in ten Americans have already been victims of credit card fraud. Software.net found that as many as 40% of its transactions were fraudulent. Expedia.com lost $6 million due to fraudulent credit card purchases.

During the holidays and throughout the year, contact centers that engage in catalog sales, up-selling and/or cross-selling, service providers, and collection companies that take payments in the form of credit or debit cards can become unsuspecting targets of cyber criminals. The card information is typically entered by agents into a CRM or other sales automation software and may be recorded by voice and screen recorders. And there it resides - thousands and even millions of card records inviting remote criminals or even greedy employees to extract consumer card data for personal gain or sell into a sophisticated secondary market.

The payment card industry (PCI) established a Council to define technical standards aimed at minimizing the risk of cyber crime to the misuse of credit cards. The Council subsequently issued a Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) which details security requirements for members, merchants and service providers that store, process or transmit cardholder data. Contact centers and other organizations that accept credit card payments are generally prohibited from archiving sensitive information such as account numbers and security codes after payment authorization has been received. Compliance to PCI-DSS is now mandatory for all non-credit card 'issuing' organizations dealing with credit, debit and ATM cards, as defined by the PCI Security Standards Council - size of an organization and its annual sales are no longer a factor for exceptions. While being compliant to PCI DSS - an already daunting task - is the first part, it it also required that you prove your organization's compliance to PCI-DSS. This PCI Audit is performed either with a set of questionnaires or by a Qualified Security Assessor, external to the organization.

On October 28, 2010, the Payment Card Industry Standards Council made a major update to the PCI Data Security Standard to clarify it. PCI DSS version 2.0 went effective on January 1, 2011. In PCI DSS version 2.0, the PCI DSS standards were clarified to require that no sensitive credit card information be stored within recorded calls, even if those calls are encrypted. The standards committee made the change because of the availability of sophisticated malware that could penetrate encryption algorithms. Organizations that do not take action by December 31, 2011 to ensure compliance with these new PCI call recording requirements could face costly fines. 

Achieving PCI DSS Compliance

To help organizations ensure compliance and avoid costly fines, VPI has developed an effective, affordable solution. The VPI CAPTURE PCI call recording system has the ability to detect when an agent enters an application screen with sensitive information, when sensitive information is inputted, and when they leave a screen containing sensitive information.  The VPI telephone voice recording system then has the ability to promptly mute sections of recorded audio and mask screen video during this sensitive portion of the call.


To further secure sensitive information, the VPI CAPTURE PCI DSS call recording system help you:

• Secure File and Data Transport and Storage Encryption – VPI uses built-in end-to-end data encryption and key management to secure the SQL database that holds attributes of all recordings. The media manager provides for AES 128, 192, 256 or variable bit encryption/decryption when files are stored and accessed from the media manager.
•  Ensure Authenticity with File Watermarking - Every call within the VPI system is wartermarked in real time to ensure authenticity. VPI offers a powerful application to validate the authenticity of any WAV file.
• Monitor User Activity with Detailed Audit Log Reporting – VPI records all user activity within the system so that organizations can conduct full trace audits to determine who accessed any recording in the system and when - for playback, export, or any other critical events.

Leading industry analyst firm, Gartner, predicts that employees will account for up to 80 percent of contact center budgets in the increasingly demanding world of customer interaction. Such a substantial investment cannot be left to chance, yet, it is often an area that is overlooked and rarely reviewed by managers.

Like many other industries in which employee performance is crucial to the customer experience, the utility industry provides an essential commodity to the public. As they are often under intense scrutiny, utility companies must also take steps to minimize their exposure to liability issues. For utilities that provide direct service to retail power customers, the large volume of customer service calls they manage demands both courtesy and accuracy on the part of call center agents. And, consequently, their contact centers need reliable and effective quality monitoring and training solutions. Similarly, "upstream" energy providers specializing in transmitting power to other utilities need interaction recording systems to accurately record 100% of their service and event calls to and from their technicians (and other utilities) for liability protection and to recreate major incidents.

By now, most successful utility contact centers have already adopted baseline call recording and quality monitoring solutions –  the fundamental building blocks for any type of workforce optimization solution. However, although useful, these solutions can be of limited value if they are outdated, early generation quality monitoring applications,  and may be due for review and reevaluation..

The good news is that quality assurance technologies have evolved significantly. They have now reached  the point where they can enable contact centers to focus the entire process on what really matters and what can make the biggest impact on business performance – all without losing objectivity in the assessment of agent performance.

Anticipate and Plan for Agent Satisfaction to Maximize Operations and the Customer Experience

Customer service and help desk environments have traditionally been known as high-turnover environments, where employees tend to consider their positions to be transient or temporary. There are many things that contact centers can do to overcome this challenge.

To anticipate and reduce  turnover, it is best to give agents some time away from the phone for cross-training and multi-skilling. Allowing agents to respond to email or perform other administrative duties while they are mastering the skills of becoming expert contact center professionals makes their jobs feel more fulfilling and enables them to provide a better customer experience.

It is also crucial to provide ongoing training. This will keep agents engaged, alert and empowered to quickly and accurately resolve customer issues. In fact, with today’s tightly integrated quality monitoring and coaching software tools, skill development can be highly personalized according to the needs and objectives of each agent.

The Right Technology Can Help

In addition to process improvements, implementation of the latest technologies can be crucial to the continued success of utility contact centers. When liability and accuracy are the challenges, it is vital to adopt an interactions recording solution that can record 100 percent of calls and data interactions. Using an advanced telephone call recording solution, utility companies can determine what to retain, for how long, and on which storage device by implementing flexible, intelligent business rules. Recordings can be unified across audio and data sources and multiple locations while users can freely search, locate, playback and share using instant searches and filters.

The beauty of a completely integrated suite of workforce optimization applications is the interoperability. Each technology application – recording, QA, performance management, analytics, coaching, E-earning – has valuable capabilities, but multiple solutions can work symbiotically to provide even greater results. Beyond the immediate improvements in contact center performance and lowering operating costs, workforce optimization solutions allow for quick decision making, which helps resolve customer issues.

By adopting advanced technologies for monitoring quality and optimizing customer service — including analytics-driven call center quality assurance systems that help identify and automate routine contact center tasks — utility companies can dramatically improve performance and profitability. The decision to choose one solution instead of another depends on the specific utility’s needs, goals and circumstances. However, with modular workforce optimization software suites, there is a sensible, financially sound path for every budget and objective.

2011 is certainly shaping up to be VPI's year - VPI Quality Pro recently received the 2010 Product of the Year Award from Customer Interaction Solutions (CIS) magazine! Even better, this is the second consecutive year we've won the award. And while our most valued praise always comes from our customers, it never hurts to receive recognition from the industry. We know that selecting a call center Quality Assurance solution is a big decision, and most people rely on industry resources such as TMC and CIS magazine to help guide their decisions.

So, you may be wondering what this award is all about. Each year, CIS presents its Product of Year awards to products and companies in the contact center and CRM industries that help users deliver an enhanced customer experience. Why did CIS choose VPI Quality Pro? First, it's built on our secure and powerful VPI Empower platform. This gives users confidence and reliability. Plus, VPI Quality Pro allows users to automatically categorize and prioritize recordings by customer names, products offered, transaction values and more -- across multimedia communication channels -- so that contact centers can focus on their most critical business issues instead. Now managers have these crucial recordings at their fingertips and can act quickly to resolve issues, improve performance and increase productivity. We're proud to deliver this innovation to our customers and the industry.

Does your contact center use VPI Quality Pro? We'd love to hear what you think! Or click here to learn more about VPI Quality Pro.

Credit unions and community banks are increasingly coping with federal and local legislation, interest rate hikes and volatility in capital markets, all of which entails placing greater emphasis on local and regional customer retention, quality assurance, internal controls, as well as more careful compliance and risk management. Although these smaller banks share many common challenges with large contact centers, they have unique needs that can be addressed using today’s modular, highly customizable call quality monitoring and workforce optimization solutions.

Small- to mid-sized financial services contact centers face a number of operational challenges relatively unknown to the larger contact center. With limited resources and shrinking budgets, a Branch or Regional Manager for smaller contact center needs to carefully keep an eye out for inefficient practices to find opportunities for cost reduction. He or she needs to carefully plan capital expenditures, and training investments, while keeping up with significant hardware and software investments within their broader organization.

Traditionally, customer service and help desk environments are known as high-turnover environments. This is rather typical for smaller financial services contact centers as well, where employees tend to consider helpdesk positions to be transient or temporary. To anticipate and reduce the impact of this phenomenon, it is best in the early days of their careers to give agents some time off the phone for cross-training and multi-skilling to respond to email or perform other administrative duties while they are mastering the skills to becoming expert contact center professionals.

Another necessity is ongoing training to keep them engaged, alert and empowered to resolve customer issues quickly, while they answer phone calls during their careers. In fact, with today’s tightly integrated quality monitoring and coaching software tools, skill development can be highly personalized according to the needs and objectives of each agent and simultaneously targeted directly at business goals of the contact center as well as the broader home organization. Gartner predicts that staffing will account for up to 80% of contact center budgets in the new world of customer interaction. The need for such a substantial investment just cannot be left to a chance. Yet, it is often an area that is overlooked and not really routinely reviewed by managers.

Regardless of size, every contact center must provide excellent customer service, reduce costs and maintain a healthy profit margin to thrive in the new economic model. By adopting advanced technologies for monitoring quality and optimizing customer-service and contact centers — including analytics-driven call center quality assurance systems that help identify and automate routine contact-center and customer-service tasks — mortgage companies and credit unions can dramatically affect their performance and profitability.

By now, most successful contact centers have already adopted at least baseline grade digital call recording and quality monitoring solutions. They are the fundamental building blocks for any type of workforce optimization solution, but they are just a start that may be due for review and re-evaluation, especially if they come from early generations of quality monitoring that couldn’t see beyond the horizon of individual agent compliance with (possibly outdated) internal rules and policies. These older technologies did not really have a good way of connecting standards for customer/agent interactions with evolving business objectives of the bank, let alone being able to incorporate voice of the customer into any part of the quality management process. The good news is that the call center quality assurance technologies evolved to the point where contact centers can focus the entire process onto what really matters and what can make the biggest impact on business performance, without losing any objectivity in assessing agent performance. In fact, evaluating agents based on their quantifiable contributions to the contact center’s business success supports their drive to do well, succeed in their jobs and avoid defection.

The proverbial “needle in a haystack” is now rather easy to find – with the implementation of advanced desktop screen analytics, supervisors can easily identify and evaluate the calls that resulted in a customer cancelling their account and taking their business elsewhere. Or the calls where agents attempted an upsale successfully or unsuccessfully, or where they saved a customer by resolving their issue during the first call – even without unnecessary concessions. Instead of wasting time and adding costs with reviewing completely random selection of low-value calls, why not concentrate on evaluating those calls that provide insights into the bank’s business practices every time, so that something could be done about it before opportunities are missed or lost forever?

Real-time performance management and automated E-Learning tools are the latest additions to the workforce optimization family of solutions that can be closely tied into quality management processes, to provide options for action mechanism whenever a manager needs to be notified or agent supported by just-in-time help.

The decision to choose one solution instead of another depends on a company’s needs, goals and circumstances, but with modular workforce optimization software suites, there is a sensible, financially sound path for every budget and objective.

The beauty of a completely integrated suite of workforce optimization applications is interoperability. Each individual solution has valuable capabilities, but multiple solutions can work symbiotically to provide even greater results. Beyond the immediate improvement of contact center performance involving operating costs, workforce optimization solutions allow for quick decision making which in turn helps resolve issues for customers. Easy access to call recordings can help contact centers give better customer service. Call records can be used to settle disputes quickly and with minimum inconvenience.

Recorded calls provide excellent material for training purposes – real-life examples of good and bad agent-customer interactions. This helps the manager effectively intervene when agents are underperforming. The latest-generation solutions have the capability to automatically select and assign coaching and training through courses, tips, quizzes, training flashes, pre-shift announcements and bulletins according to individual agent needs, identified through quality evaluations or simply by monitoring their performance metrics. This tool allows you to set rules that send targeted coaching and training to individual agents or groups when they reach predetermined thresholds based on their performance scores, customer survey results and more. By targeting the right training to the right person at the right time, your agents will be empowered with personalized guidance that will make it easier for them to offer improved service, thus heightening customer satisfaction and ultimately increasing both, agent productivity and satisfaction with the job. Managers can track sales and address marketing and service challenges quickly.

Integrated workforce optimization systems can accomplish this in a cost-effective manner while decreasing expenses, increasing revenues and enhancing customer loyalty and satisfaction – all of which can lead to strengthened market position, customer loyalty and long-term bottom-line growth.

Are you interested in keeping up-to-date on the latest developments in contact center call recording, quality monitoring, analytics, performance management or eLearning technologies?

As organizations look to optimize the performance of their contact centers and the vital role agents play in providing customers with the right experiences as they handle interactions, the demand for thorough research into vendors and products that support agent performance management is becoming critical. Ventana Research has just released this ground-breaking independent research report on Contact Center Agent Performance Management solutions.

You can download your complimentary 2010 Value Index for Agent Performance Management Research Report by Ventana Research at http://www.VPI-corp.com/2010-Value-Index to learn:

• What tools can help you more effectively manage of all the business activities associated with handling customer interactions to ensure an optimal customer experience and alignment to a common set of customer and revenue goals and objectives.
• A framework for buyers to thoroughly review technology vendors as they seek to purchase new systems to support their efforts.
• How 13 agent performance management software vendors and their products were ranked in several categories.
• Why VPI achieved the highest 'Hot Vendor' rating and was rated #1 in Customer Assurance.

It is that time of the year where contact centers are gearing up for the holiday season over the next couple months. Traditionally, this means hiring and training more agents than usual, based on forecasted volumes.  Due to the seasonality of contact center work, expectations and stress placed on contact center resources rise  - this affects especially team supervisors and their agents who are more prone to turnover during higher-stress periods. In fact, multiple  factors contribute to turnover - the most significant variable is the nature of the work the agent does and how they perceive their role within the center. 

While recently visiting an outsourced contact center, I was able to observe how training was delivered to a new hire training class. It turns out that my high school sports coach was right   - coaching and teamwork matter, especially today when selecting the right  agents from a pool of candidates, training them and getting them certified to be on the phones must be done in less than a month. I witnessed extraordinary collaborative effort expended to get the job done. However, the impressive enthusiasm of the contact center team clashed with their process design and technical challenges.
 
Dave, the Director of Operations advised me that it costs approximately USD $12,500 before an agent is competent enough to satisfactorily handle calls. He was perplexed with why in spite of this significant investment, he was experiencing a large turnover of his new agents within the first 30 days on the floor. When  we visited the contact center floor,  I noticed that the agent to supervisor ratio was rather high - around 1:25. I have immediately noticed that call center management was insufficient, as was mechanism for providing agents with timely, intraday feedback on their performance or guidance for improvement.  It looked like the agents were “abandoned” after their initial training. There was call recording equipment and workforce management software in the IT room. However, the center had no visible individuals who actually owned the metrics or were responsible for the generation of scorecards that would provide information to Dave on how the center was doing in the course of a day or, for that matter, a week.  This tough situation was further complicated by the fact that Dave only had four Supervisors to manage a team of hundred agents AND each Supervisor had  less than one-year tenure! . And as if that weren’t hard enough, one Supervisor was on vacation and  another called in sick. Sadly, it is an experience all too familiar to contact center managers today. Successfully managing a multi-channel contact center is one of the most difficult roles in business today due to the dynamic nature of the environment and all the intricacies woven into the equation. 

The contact center is often the only place that customers turn to when they require assistance or to purchase products and services. As shown in our example, working as an agent in a contact center can be a rather stressful job. As a result, turnover can be as high as 50% annually. That is a significant number that directly affects the operating costs of a center. But my question is - what is the real cost of this common phenomenon within a contact center?  Clearly, it will be  reflected in hard-to-measure ways each Monday morning to start with. Agents are likely to develop apathy and grow ever less engaged in their work due to the unsupportive environment that has been created for them. They will be less receptive to new ideas and more importantly, less willing to follow the coach or go the extra mile for the customer or the team. All of this triggers a cascade of  consequences for the business - reduced customer satisfaction, high agent turnover, and negative impact on  profitability.  And that’s exactly the opposite of what the holiday season promises to deliver for the business. Contact center managers must do their homework in order to understand the causes of their challenges as well as available options for addressing them.

Research at VPI has shown that agent and supervisor satisfaction and productivity can be dramatically improved through  an effective strategy of keeping everyone in the loop at all times.  You can achieve this by using call center performance management software that presents real or near-real time scorecards and other forms of status updates - personalized for each employee role according to their responsibilities, goals and needs.  Better yet, tie real-time call center performance management with intelligently triggered e-learning and coaching to help front-line agents learn and grow, supporting their individual skills and talents, giving them the tools and knowledge to please customers.  You will be soon rewarded with higher job satisfaction of the contact center staff and related cost savings. Customers will respond with increased trust and loyalty – so that you can be on the forefront of their choices during the holiday season and beyond.

Real-time Call Center Performance Management - Sample Agent Desktop Ticker


Real-time Call Center Performance Management - Sample Agent Web Scorecard

For the past 15 years, APCO has been carefully crafting a list of operational standards in order to ensure the best possible quality in public safety emergency communications. Now, in collaboration with NENA and associated industry bodies, this lengthy endeavor has culminated in the development of Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) standards, along with soon-to-be introduced Quality Assurance (QA) standards. These new requirements are raising the bar for the quality of service required from the nation’s public safety agencies.

Quality of service is impacted by both the performance of employees and the processes in use.  Periodic, systematic quality evaluation of emergency contact center communications can provide invaluable transparency to everyone involved and expose inadequacies in both employee and process areas. This is especially critical in the current transitional period when old, inadequate communication systems are being replaced with Next Generation technologies and 9-1-1 centers are expected to handle various different types of communications - not just voice and TTY communications any more. Plus, the increasingly complex nature of public safety communications entails new regulations that PSAP centers will have to demonstrably comply with. The traditional approach to quality management is being replaced with evaluation of multiple communication streams and types involved in incidents, along with a variety of supporting evidence, such as images, videos, text documents and data. Prioritization of such evaluations is driven by significance of various incident types, so selection of recordings for evaluation has to be subordinated to that. When correctly planned and executed, the latest-generation software-driven quality evaluation can deliver valuable insights into the best course of corrective actions to support the new demands.

In response to the introduction of the new NG9-1-1 and QA standards and the difficulties faced by cash-strapped organizations in attempting to comply with them, VPI is launching its ‘Upgrade to Quality’ program for public safety and security organizations.  The program, valid from now through June 30th, 2011, stretches the tight budgets of public safety and security organizations by enabling them to affordably upgrade their legacy recording systems with VPI’s state-of-the-art VPI CAPTURE™ voice logging system and provides double the value by including free VPI QUALITY™ call taker quality assurance software. VPI CAPTURE is an affordable, NG9-1-1 ready recording system that installs quickly to reliably and securely capture, manage and share critical incident information and to provide insights to optimize workforce efficiency.

For more information, conditions and restrictions on VPI’s ‘Upgrade to Quality’ program, visit http://www.VPI-corp.com/Quality or contact us at 1-800-200-5430. 

Are you monitoring and measuring the metrics that really matter to you and your organization?

Now more than ever, contact center managers and executives need to be proactive in helping their organizations accomplish contact center optimization and tactical goals, but with so much data available gathered from ACDs, IVRs, telephone recorder software and call monitoring quality assurance tools, there's a tendency to rely upon the tried and true metrics that everyone tracks - perhaps more out of habit than as a result of the their actual value. Successful contact center managers know and understand the metrics that matter and utilize proactive communications recording technologies that enable them to actively identify and optimize rather than wait and react.
 

Download your complimentary white paper authored by one of the industry's premier research firms The Pelorus Group to learn how to develop and track "Metrics that Matter."