Data analytics is revolutionising every area of business, with both large and small organisations finding ways to reap the benefits, writes Jonathan Wax, VP EMEA, NICE Nexidia. Research shows that approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created every day and businesses generate a vast amount of this, often spread across various sources and platforms.
If a business can effectively use data to its full potential, it can not only transform operations but also provide the ability to maximise effectiveness and deliver tangible business benefit. It is clear that making data analytics a core function of a business is now a key success factor, as shown by the fact that in the UK alone, investment in data analytics solutions is set to reach almost £25 billion by 2020.
However, while data analytics isn’t new to businesses, many are still unsure of how to successfully and effectively use it.
The challenge is that it’s no longer enough to simply employ a few analysts and data experts, it needs to be embedded as a core process, which leads us onto the question of how contact centres can harness data analytics to optimise their workforce
Analytics-Driven Quality
Customer expectations are constantly evolving, so delivering high-quality customer service is now more challenging than ever. Analytics is an obvious area where business intelligence and contact centre performance are closely linked. The ability to use analytics for quality management across the entire workforce and drive operational improvements provides a powerful competitive advantage, while also elevating agent engagement and performance.
For example, it helps organisations to automatically analyse customer interactions, agents receive next-best-action recommendations through predictive analytics and to get automatic alerts for the most problematic interactions. This enables them to optimise average handle times, reduce call volumes, decrease hold times, increase first call resolution rates and even predict problems before they occur. All of these capabilities ensure high levels of compliance, reduce risk and deliver ongoing quality control to businesses.
Tap Into the Potential of your Agents
Sometimes it’s the little things that cause an employee’s attention and energy level to decrease. One such example is repetitive, mundane tasks. Analytics supports the successful delivery of robots to take control of desktop processes like form filling, data entry, calculations and order processing, it can free up your employees to spend more time engaged with customers and attending to their needs.
This allows them to build on their own skills and take part in more meaningful interactions. When employees spend their time on the right activities, productivity rises and customers go away satisfied – creating a virtuous cycle in which employees are motivated to stay at the top of their game.
What’s more, managers get access to a complete view of trends, performance indicators and workforce plans to help identify issues and skills gaps. This can then feed into evaluations and training, pinpointing performance strengths or weakness and helping managers give their employees a roadmap that ensures meaningful growth.
Cut Through Complexities
With the use of analytics, managers are able to uncover actionable insights that ensure front-end processes, back-office processes and performance metrics are closely tied to top-priority objectives in near real-time. Organisations can more effectively manage and eliminate common challenges, such as over or understaffing and the creation of time-consuming business reports. Managers can also select the most appropriate or experienced agents on any given day to overcome staffing challenges, automatically assigning schedules based on agent capacities or preferred shifts thanks to the insights generated.
Despite the growing importance of a well-organised back office, operations are often marred with complexities. Typical back-office operations max out productivity at around 50-60%. However, with analytics software, productivity can increase in the range of 10-25%. Data analytics has the ability to cut through business complexities by providing a real-time view of operations, highlighting process inefficiencies and providing time-saving alternatives.
Ultimately, data analytics does more than just helping contact centres keep up with customer demand. With the help of actionable insights, businesses can be sure that they are making the most out of their data not only to deliver the kind of customer experience that increases stickiness with their users but also to develop upcoming talent and tie that together with tools to maximise their productivity. Over the coming year, analytics will be a crucial tool in helping organisations be a better place to work and retain the best staff, thereby improving performance across a range of metrics.
