The Future Customer-Centric Organization: Best practice and new strategies for improving customer service

• Publication date: March 2008
• Report size: 141 pages

This report examines the applications and services that have evolved to support organizations’ customer service efforts. It analyses the drivers behind the growing emphasis on customer service and the emergence of the customer-centric enterprise model. Developments in contact center technology designed to assist customer service initiatives – such as mobile applications, unified communications and the growing use of virtual contact centers â€...

This report examines the applications and services that have evolved to support organizations’ customer service efforts. It analyses the drivers behind the growing emphasis on customer service and the emergence of the customer-centric enterprise model. Developments in contact center technology designed to assist customer service initiatives – such as mobile applications, unified communications and the growing use of virtual contact centers – are explored, as are the opportunities for making outsourcing contact centers a success.

Software Industry

Table of Contents
The Future Customer-centric Organization Executive summary 10
The importance of customer satisfaction 10
The role of IT in improving customer service 11
Know your market 11
The IP platform 12
Mobility 13
Virtual contact centers 14
Making outsourcing a success 14
The vendor landscape 15
Chapter 1 Introduction 18
What is this report about? 18
Who is this report for? 18
Definitions 19
Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) 19
Customer service automation 19
Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) 19
Hosted applications 19
IP-PBX 19
IP telephone 20
Mobility 20
On-demand applications 20
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) 20
Software as a service (SaaS) 20
Unified communications 21
Voice/data convergence 21
Chapter 2 The importance of customer satisfaction 24
Summary 24
Why customer service matters 25
Customer service in the utilities market 25
Understanding customer satisfaction in this market 26
Measuring customer satisfaction 28
Customer service in financial services 29
The key goal of the financial services provider is to meet or exceed
its customers’ expectations 30
Customer service initiatives play a crucial role in maintaining
customer loyalty 32
Measuring customer satisfaction 33
The customer-centric enterprise 34
Evolution of the customer-centric enterprise 34
IP-based communciations 35
Contact center virtualization 35
Multi-channel communications 36
Selling solutions to the contact center market 37
Short term challenges 38
Medium term challenges 38
The end game 38
Chapter 3 The role of IT in improving customer service 42
Summary 42
Introduction 43
Drivers behind the CRM market 43
Contact center optimization technologies 45
Improving customer satisfaction is a top priority 45
Supporting the customer-centric enterprise 46
Barriers to the deployment of customer-centric technology 47
Scheduling and forecasting in a distributed environment 47
Monitoring agents anywhere 48
Providing performance management irrespective of location 48
The role of workforce optimization 49
WFM vendors extend their reach into the enterprise 50
Speech analytics and quality monitoring 51
eCoaching modules help to eliminate customer frustration 51
Contact center analytics 52
Unified agent desktop applications 53
Efficient and effective interactions lead to greater customer
satisfaction 54
Developing customer-centric optimization technologies 55
Targeting non-traditional customer service agents 56
Speech analytics and eCoaching will continue to grow in QM 57
Contact center analytics need to be open and flexible 57
Unified agent desktop tools 58
Chapter 4 Know your market 60
Summary 60
Introduction 60
Managing diverse regional markets for contact center technology 61
A growing emphasis on customer service in the Middle East 62
The market opportunity 62
Various industries and geographies are influential in the customer interaction industry 63
Customer service learnings 65
Outbound capabilities open channels for commercially orientated customer care 65
Workforce optimization applications will gain traction 66
Vendors must educate end users about competitive opportunities provided by better customer service 66
System convergence 67
Vendor strategies for targeting the Middle East 68
Chapter 5 The IP platform 72
Summary 72
The IP era 73
Both end users and customer experience driving convergence solutions 73
Cost and confusion inhibit convergence 75
IP telephony 76
The voice/data convergence market is growing steadily 79
Unified communications 80
Future outlook for voice/data convergence 82
IP-PBXs will eventually replace traditional TDM systems 82
Price pressure will increase as solutions mature and the market slows 82
Interoperability with mobile devices and enterprise applications will increase 82
The market for IP contact centers 83
IP contact center growth 83
IP technology spending 85
The future of IP contact centers 86
Distributed contact centers and remote workers 86
Offshoring 87
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) 87
Small and Greenfield contact centers 88
Hosted IP contact centers 88
Implications for vendors 89
Chapter 6 Mobility 92
Summary 92
Introduction 92
The role of speech in mobile field services 93
Spending on speech-enabled mobile field services applications 95
Speech is gaining momentum in field services 96
Successful strategies for deploying speech in mobile field services 96
The growing role of mobility in unified communications 97
The availability of UC solutions for mobile devices is increasing 98
Mobility will help drive investments in unified communications 98
FMC and ‘one number’ solutions will become a reality 98
Greater security implications and demand for mobile management 99
Changing lifestyles and flexible working 99
Chapter 7 Virtual contact centers 102
Summary 102
Contact center virtualization in the customer-centric enterprise 103
The need for a central platform and multi-directional communication 104
Drivers of virtualization 106
Customer-centric business SMBs 106
Inhibitors to virtualizing contact centers 107
Employee unwillingness to engage in customer contact 107
Lack of central visibility 108
People and process issues 108
Risk behind virtualization 109
Costs associated with virtualization 109
Take-up of contact center virtualization 110
Unified communications in virtual contact centers 112
Challenges for unified communications in a virtual environment 113
All-in-one solutions may not be best for larger enterprises 113
The promise of presence may not be essential 113
Vendor actions 114
Educating the market and delivering flexible solutions 114
Overcoming the people and process issues 115
Virtualization growth not dependent on regional and vertical markets 115
Develop strong partnerships with global systems integrators 115
Invest in switch independent contact center solutions 116
Pricing contact center seats 116
Chapter 8 Making outsourcing a success 118
Summary 118
Introduction 119
Vertical market opportunities 119
Emerging markets 119
Travel and hospitality firms look for a commercial edge 120
Concentrate on price sensitivity 121
Focus on commercialization 122
Look for opportunities from new contact channels 122
Hotels as a source of hidden value 123
Demand for improved customer service in healthcare outsourcing 123
Emphasis on customer service levels 124
Automated service options 124
Partnership with existing healthcare non-contact center BPO providers 124
Sell offshore as a niche solution 125
Opportunities for public sector outsourcing 125
Emphasize agent quality and lower costs 126
Engage government procurement specialists 126
Target key government agencies for outsourcing business 127
Embrace eGovernment opportunities 127
Utilities’ demand for outsourced customer service 128
Emphasize opportunities to build customer satisfaction 128
Cost management potential 129
Product / service integration services 129
Outsourcing strategies for success 130
Shifts in horizontal requirements from outsourcing investors 130
Adopting new agent models and leveraging self-service technology 130
Chapter 9 The vendor landscape 134
Summary 134
Leaders and challengers 135
Market leaders: Oracle and SAP 135
The challengers: Chordiant, Infor and Salesforce.com 135
Future vendor strategies for success 136
Emerging players 137
Microsoft 137
Apple, Google and Yahoo! 138
IBM 138
More collaboration between vendors but increased competition 138
Index 140
List of Figures
Figure 2.1: Changing emphasis on customer service 26
Figure 2.2: Evaluating customer satisfaction 27
Figure 2.3: Different types of customer service 31
Figure 2.4: Financial services firms acknowledge the importance of customer service 32
Figure 3.5: Planned use of technology to enhance business growth 45
Figure 3.6: Top 3 technology investment priorities over the next 12 months 47
Figure 3.7: Top 3 technology investment priorities over the next three years 53
Figure 4.8: Spending on contact center technology in the Middle East, 2005 – 2010 ($m) 63
Figure 5.9: IP telephony investment strategies 77
Figure 5.10: Enterprises take a staged migration to IP telephony 78
Figure 5.11: Global voice/data convergence market revenue, 2006-2012 ($m) 79
Figure 5.12: The convergence of voice and data systems provides the opportunity for unified communications 80
Figure 5.13: Total IP APs (000s) and IP APs as a percentage of total 84
Figure 5.14: Global IP vs TDM inbound routing spending 85
Figure 6.15: Common mobile applications in the enterprise 93
Figure 7.16: Customer service silos in the contact center 103
Figure 7.17: Unifying disparate systems into one enterprise-wide communications system 112
List of Tables
Table 5.1: The importance of objectives to the convergent communication investment strategy in 2007 74
Table 5.2: Issues preventing your organization from investing in voice/data convergence technologies 75
Table 6.3: Global spending on speech-enabled mobile field services applications, 2005-2010 95
Table 7.4: Remote workers as a percentage of total APs globally, 2005-2010 110
Table 7.5: Remote workers components, 2005-2010 111