CPI Aces AVAYA Global Service Assessment

Posted by Chris Dellen
May31
cdellen

On Friday, CPI aced its onsite Avaya Global Services Assessment. An achievement that authorizes CPI to continue implementing and supporting Avaya Co-Delivery offers, such as Joint Service Delivery (JSD), Partner Support Service (PSS), and to qualify for PASS (heritage Nortel) Co-Delivery Services.

The ability to provide effective customer support is a significant contributor to customer satisfaction and a major part of the Avaya Certification process. Avaya substantiated support capabilities by surveying a list of our customers, who responded extremely favorably, rating CPI at 100% on the Customer Satisfaction scale. In addition, Avaya performed a comprehensive evaluation of CPI’s internal support capabilities, systems, and processes.

The result, “CPI demonstrated great proficiency and effective management of their resources to meet customer demands as well as embracing a continuous improvement ideology.”

We are excited to be acknowledged for high standards of excellence and competency in delivering quality solutions and providing quick and helpful customer support. It is our commitment to continue providing value added technologies and partnerships that ensure our customers achieve their vision.

Motivated by Medals? 3 Ways To Keep Your Call Center Agents Running

Posted by Ruth Lochary
Apr25
rlochary

I am in training to run the Indianapolis 500 Festival mini-marathon this year. I’ve never run a half-marathon before – actually, I’ve never run anything before. A friend asked if I would join her in this adventure and, in a moment of weakness, I agreed! There have been lots of long training runs to do. During those runs, I keep myself going by picturing what it will look like to receive my medal at the end of the race. I saw a shirt recently that said, “It’s all about the medal.” Yes, I am motivated by the medal!

There are people in your organization running a race every day. They are racing to provide your customers with the best possible experience. It’s hard work for them…you put them through training in preparation for the work. But…do you provide them with a medal? What have you done lately to motivate those folks? I have three quick ideas to help keep your staff running.

    1. Send them a handwritten note. Who achieved the highest QA score of the week? Who had perfect attendance this month? Who just finished their college degree at night, or announced their engagement? Send them a note…not an email…a genuine I-really-took-the-time-to-do-this handwritten note! I worked with an organization that had a president who was passionate about notes. He counted on his leadership team to let him know what was going on with the 500+ employees in their organization. He sent handwritten notes all the time. You could walk through their contact center and see these notes proudly displayed in cubicles. It’s a “medal” that keeps people running because they know you care about them.

    2. Surprise people with something silly. One year, during an especially busy stretch, we walked up and down the aisles of our call center carrying a tray. On it were small paper cups filled with M&M’s and Jelly Bellies. We labeled one set of cups “Zoloft” and one set of cups “Prozac.” It was a bit of comic relief in an otherwise crazy day. Dress up in a crazy costume, hang balloons from the ceiling, give away little stress balls…it’s all about keeping your runners smiling through their race.

    3. Present them with a medal! Check this out: http://bit.ly/eOoH7h I love buying fun stuff from these folks. It’s very affordable and they’re a good Hoosier company. I’ve presented medals for all kinds of celebrations big and small (the same kinds of reasons I’d write a handwritten note). People hang these on the walls of their cubicles as well. It’s another fun way to recognize your staff’s hard work.

Taking care of our customers is a marathon, not a sprint. Keep your runners motivated for the long haul…give them a medal!

The First Stop in Call Troubleshooting in Interactive Intelligence Environments

Posted by David Currier
Apr12
dcurrier

When troubleshooting issues with your Interaction Center servers, the first place to look are the server event logs. Actually, we recommend that you regularly monitor them for unexpected warnings and errors. Similarly, when troubleshooting reports of trouble with calls, the best place to start is the Call Log on the active IC server at the time of the call. While there are a number of different ways to search this log for one or more calls, the simplest is with a Call ID. Along with a report of what happened from a user, the log entry for a call will quite often be enough to determine what happened.

1) Browse to the Logs folder and open the folder for the date of the offending call

How to View the Interactive Intelligence Logs Folder

2) Open the file CallLog.ininlog (by default it will open in the ININ Log Viewer

Interactive Intelligence Log Viewer

3) From the Filter menu, select Filter Configuration – this will open the Filter Configuration dialog

4) From the Filter menu, create a new filter for a Context Attribute

Interactive Intelligence Context Attribute

5) From the Context Attribute dropdown menu, select Ctx Attrib 1

ININ Context Attribute Dropdown menu

6) Enter the Call ID of the call in question in the Search Item field and click Add, then click Ok

The Call Log will now be filtered to the entry for the specified interaction and (depending on the type of call) will provide many useful pieces of information including the calling and called party numbers, users involved in the call, start and end times, the call disconnect reason, and more. If more troubleshooting is required, the information provided in the log entry of a call will help you know where to look next.

ININ Supervisor Video Training Guide

How to Monitor Contact Center Agents using Interaction Supervisor – A Video Training Guide

Posted by Chris Dellen
Apr1
cdellen

Here’s Interactive Intelligence’s tool to help track your most essential resource – your people

Every call center has a buzz…you can feel the energy from the people in the air. Keeping track of those people is an essential part of every contact center leader’s day. Here’s the tool that gives you detailed insight into the work your agents are doing. See where to find this critical information.

3 Reasons why Customer Loyalty Beats Customer Satisfaction – The Tale of Two Socks

Posted by Ruth Lochary
Apr1
rlochary

Call center leaders are always measuring something. We’re buried in data and reports. One of the things we struggle to measure is “CSat” – customer satisfaction. We try post-call surveys to assess this; but privately, I think most of us would admit that we’re not sure those reports really amount to much of anything. If the customer is satisfied, they’ll keep coming back, right?

I’ve been doing some research on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and was surprised to learn that “loyal” is much more important than “satisfied” for a customer. I’ve got a story to illustrate.

Several months ago, a friend convinced me to start a walking/jogging program with her. I agreed and visited Blue Mile, a local walking/running supply store, to buy the right shoes.

These people are experts and they are passionate about running/walking/fitness. They didn’t talk down to me or laugh when I asked basic questions. In fact, they got excited about my new adventure. They answered my questions and urged me to come back if I needed anything else.

Needless to say, I’ve been back for purchases large and small. I stopped in the day I finished my first 5K – just to tell them what I did – not to buy one thing! It didn’t matter – they greeted me with the same enthusiasm…they offered advice…they encouraged me.

Last Saturday, after my morning walk, I had to throw away my socks. They were worn out. I bought them a long time ago at the “megamart” in town. Where did I go for my new socks? That’s right – to Blue Mile. The person waiting on me had me try on two different kinds of socks to be sure I got the right type!

So, what’s my point? I was satisfied with the socks from the “megamart.” The purchase transaction was handled just fine. The socks lasted a very reasonable amount of time, so there wasn’t a quality issue. The price was competitive (cheaper, actually). But, I didn’t go back to purchase more.

Instead, I went to the business that earned my loyalty. The staff at Blue Mile connected with me as a person. They know me and what’s important to me. They share knowledge for free and they make it easy to do business with them.

You can be satisfied, but never buy from a business again…just like me and my socks. Loyal customers are created when your people connect with those customers. In fact, the research shows three important things about loyal customers:

o They spend more
o They stay with you longer
o They more easily forgive your mistakes.

Here are a couple of questions for you today: are your customers satisfied or loyal? What would it mean for your business if more customers were loyal? What is one thing your contact center agents could do today to connect and create – not just satisfied, but – loyal customers?

Migration Paths for Norstar Customers

Posted by Jim Sites
Mar31
jsites

Norstar’s 20 year run ended on October 4, 2010 with Avaya’s End of Sale announcement. In efforts to consolidate products, Avaya is offering Norstar users two migration paths. As a Norstar (3×8, CICS, MICS, Call Pilot 100/150) user, you may be thinking to yourself “I don’t want to change. I’m happy with what I have.” Regardless of which camp you fall in to, we encourage you to explore all your options before making your next move. Currently, you have three. You may migrate to BCM, migrate to IP-Office 7.0 or maintain your current system until Extended Support Services ends. Here are brief explanations for each of your options:

1. Migrate to BCM: Both the BCM50 or BCM450 provide scalable migration paths. You can keep your phones and in many cases you can also retain your fiber trunk and station modules, which can add up to 70% of the total cost of a new telephony system. Another highlight is that BCM features are used in almost the same way as your Norstar system’s which significantly reduces training challenges. However, it is important to note that the BCM platform will be migrated to Avaya’s IP office platform in the future.

2. Migrate to IP-Office 7.0: A few of the many benefits of upgrading to IP-Office 7.0 are listed below:

- Gives you the ability to reuse existing phones

- Allows you to protect upwards of 60% of your investment in your Norstar system

- Some key capabilities you will have access to include Avaya one-X Portal for IP-Office, IP Office Video Softphone, and embedded meet me conferencing, to name a few

3. Maintain your current Norstar system. Avaya has committed to providing Manufacturer’s Support on hardware and software for three years (until October 2013) in addition to three years of Extended Services Support (October 2013-October 2016). If you so choose, you will have the opportunity to preserve your investment and migrate to Avaya’s IP Office when it makes sense for you.

Interaction Center 3.0 Service Update 11 Released by Interactive Intelligence

Posted by David Currier
Mar29
dcurrier

It has been nearly a year since Interactive Intelligence has release a significant set of new features for their flagship product, the Customer Interaction Center version 3.0. The release of Service Update 11 was announced yesterday and includes a number of enhancements that have been a long time in coming – literally. This includes a 64-bit fax client driver, advanced call analysis on the media server, new features for Interaction Attendant, Tracker, Process Automation, Recorder, and more.

There are a couple of critical considerations to keep in mind when planning to apply this update. First, IC 3.0 SU10 (New Patch Target) is required prior to installing SU11. If you have not already done so, I definitely recommend applying Service Update 10. It has been a very stable release with very few significant bugs. Second, apply Interactive Update 1.0 SU8 prior to installing SU11. As of Service Update 10, the update cycle for Interactive Update was separated from the main product to allow independent fixes and feature enhancements to the “updater” – this will help make deployment of Service Update 11 much smoother.

A note of caution…

Service Update 11 includes the first significant new features in almost a year. New features always increase the likelihood of new bugs – in fact, there are already a couple of critical bugs in SU11 impacting remote users that require patches to fix. If you do not have a business need for the new features available in SU11, I recommend the “wait-and-see” approach. If this update is critical to your organization, proceed with caution.

Ear to the Ground, Part 2 at Contact Center Conference 2011

Posted by Ruth Lochary
Mar24
rlochary

The Contact Center 2011 conference continued on Wednesday. Many more great speakers presented. Here are a few of the highlights I picked up from the day.

Change thought for the day: “Home agents – if you’re not doing it, do it. If you are doing it, it’s time to expand it. All of the excuses to not do it are gone.”

Customer service thought for the day: How many of you encourage customers to call your center? Don’t we generally look for ways to direct people to our IVR, website…some form of self-service? We want to avoid the more expensive phone call, right? Zappos puts their 800 number on every page of their website because they WANT you to call them. They say that every phone call is 3-5 minutes of uninterrupted time with their customer. How’s that for a paradigm shift for you?

How do you turn talent into successful performance? That is a challenge for the leader of any organization. I know we all certainly deal with it in our contact centers. According to Garrison Wynn, our staff members need to know they’ve been genuinely listened to and heard. That connection – taking the time to genuinely listen, forms the foundation of your influence as a leader. The act of listening to your staff builds trust for you. That trust then enables you to lead your group through change and other challenges. Don’t you think that sometimes we look for a fancier or more difficult solution? It’s not any more complicated that this – listen to your people. By the way here is one quote I especially liked from Mr. Wynn’s talk: “If you criticize other’s ideas too much, they’ll never use your ideas, no matter how good they are.”

If you’d like to see more of what’s happening at the conference, go to www.contactcenter2011.com/live.

Ear to the ground at Contact Center Conference 2011

Posted by Ruth Lochary
Mar23
rlochary

Tuesday was the first full day of the Contact Center Conference and Expo 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve met a wonderful variety of contact center staff and leaders and I had the opportunity to attend several excellent sessions. I could write for a long time trying to recap the various sessions, but you’d get bored with that! Instead, I’ve pulled three things that stuck out to me today.

First, there has been LOTS of talk about social media and what we should be doing with it in our contact centers. Over and over though, I keep hearing one theme – Customers are saying, “give me consistent answers across all channels.” Your phone calls, emails, facebook posts and tweets need to all support the same message. That’s easier said than done given that the channels don’t always belong to the same part of an organization. I don’t have the secret key to this challenge. I’m hearing that it’s something we’ve all got to be aware of and work to figure out for our organizations.

Second, we all have agents in our organizations. Most of us have some type of quality program to help measure the work those agents do. I heard something today that really made me think – “QA is really brand management.” Think about that for a minute. Your QA staff listens to what your company (i.e. your agents) says to your customers hundreds of times a month. How would you change your QA form if you wanted to measure how well your contact center is supporting your company’s brand? That was a paradigm shift for me!

Finally, on the technology front, it’s always interesting to talk about new tools folks are using to improve their contact centers. Here was a bullet that really jumped off a slide at me today: “Proactive outbound calling is the hot new differentiator.” Hmmm…do you offer this to your customers?

If you’d like to see more of what’s happening at the conference, check out the website www.contactcenter2011.com and click on the “Live” box.

3 Steps to Creating Customer Astonishment – Lessons Learned at the Contact Center Conference & Expo

Posted by Ruth Lochary
Mar22
rlochary

We hear so much about customer satisfaction, but is “satisfaction” enough? Moving a step beyond to delighting – even astonishing — our customers helps build loyalty that keeps customers coming back. What does it take to create an astonishing experience? I had one of those experiences recently and I saw 3 things I’d like to share with you.

I arrived at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee to attend the Contact Center Association 2011 conference. I came in one day early so I could visit with friends and family. Unfortunately, I had a terrible cold and a very bad case of laryngitis. I could not talk above a whisper. My sister and I were having dinner at one of Opryland’s restaurants. Our waitress, Paula, could not help but notice my plight – she had to lean over to hear me order dinner! After she took our order, she returned to the table with a mug filled with warm water, honey and lemon. She said, “I thought this might help your throat.” I was blown away that someone would care enough to do such a kind thing (and it did help my throat!!). But, Paula wasn’t finished. As we were finishing up our meal, Paula came back with a “to-go” cup and lid. Inside, she had put more honey and lemon. She said I could use the coffee maker in my room to add hot water to the cup to drink before I went to sleep. I was truly astonished. What an amazing thing to do. As I’ve reflecting on the experience, I’ve identified three things that made it happen:

First, Paula took time to see me as a person. Now, someone with laryngitis so bad they can’t talk above a whisper might stand out a bit to a waitress, but she could have just gone on with her night. Her “job” was to get food to my table. She went beyond her job…to Paula, this was a relationship, not a transaction. She went much deeper than the business at hand (getting food to my table) and met a much greater need for me.

Second, she took time to take the extra step. Paula didn’t stop with one mug of medicine for my throat – she made me two! It didn’t take her long, but it was clearly “above and beyond.” She was motivated to do a little bit more to make a difference for her customer.

Third, she works for an organization that approves of extra effort. Clearly, Paula is a caring person. But just as clearly, Paula works in a culture that rewards taking the extra step. We can probably all think of an organization where a manager would have yelled at Paula for giving away the honey and lemon. Instead, for the price of the honey and lemon, the organization made a huge statement. They mean it when they say, “we are committed to meeting your desires and exceeding your expectations.” They allow people like Paula to succeed.

Hopefully, the crazy early-spring weather hasn’t given you a cold and laryngitis. However, the next time you see honey and lemon, ask yourself, “Am I building a culture that would allow the ‘Paulas’ of my organization to astonish our customers?”

What other things do you think contribute to creating astonishing experiences?

Interaction Supervisor – What You Need To Know About Queue Views

Posted by Chris Dellen
Mar21
cdellen

What’s Cooking in Your Queues?

See the ONE queue view you can’t live without:

You know there is always work “simmering” in your queues. In this video, we show you THE view that allows you to monitor the real-time performance of the work. Here’s where you’ll find number of interactions, service level, abandonment and other essential statistics. Learn how.

Introducing CPI’s Interaction Supervisor Video Training Series (FREE for a limited time – $447 value)

Posted by Chris Dellen
Mar10
cdellen

Get CPI’s 7 on-demand training videos for Interactive Intelligence’s Interaction Supervisor

Call Center Leaders are under ever-increasing pressure to do more with less. You are challenged to balance excellent customer service that is provided in a timely way, with fewer people than ever before. You can’t achieve that balance without clear insight into what’s happening in your center. Interaction Supervisor is Interactive Intelligence’s tool that helps you gain that insight.

With this video training series, it’s our goal to make you a power user of Interaction Supervisor and have a bit of fun while you are doing it.

Become an Interaction Supervisor power user.

What you’ll get:

We will mail the video-series guide as well as a disk that includes copies of the entire 7-part video series. In addition, you are more than welcome to upload these videos to your company’s private intranet to share with your colleagues.

Topics covered in the Interaction Supervisor Video Training Series

* A tour of Interaction Supervisor
* A quick overview and steps for creating views
* Learn what’s cooking in your queues
* Learn how to track your most essential resource – your people
* Learn how to check the health of your Interaction server
* Learn how to set alerts, send messages, and answer assistance requests
* Learn how to run reports
* Learn some of the advanced features of Interaction Supervisor

Become an Interactive Intelligence Interaction Supervisor power user today.

CPI Named One of Indiana’s Best Places to Work in 2011

Posted by Chris Dellen
Feb25
cdellen

CPI was recently named as one of the 2011 Best Places to Work in Indiana – for the second year in a row. The awards program was created in 2006 and is a project of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, BizVoice®, Inside INdiana Business, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and Best Companies Group.

This statewide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Indiana, benefiting the state’s economy, its workforce and businesses. The 2011 Best Places to Work in Indiana list is made up of 34 companies in the small/medium-sized list (15-249 employees in the United States) and 36 companies in the large-sized list (250+ employees in the United States). CPI has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana for 2011.

Cliff Arellano - President and Founder of CPI

Cliff Arellano - CPI President and Founder Receiving an Award for one of Indiana's 2010 Best Places to Work.

To be considered for participation, companies had to fulfill the following eligibility requirements:


- Have at least 15 employees working in Indiana;
- Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business or government entity;
- Be a publicly or privately held business;
- Have a facility in the state of Indiana; and
- Must be in business a minimum of 1 year.

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the Best Places to Work in Indiana. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, and demographics. This part of the process was worth approximately 25% of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. This part of the process was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process in Indiana and also analyzed the data and used their expertise to determine the final rankings.

CPI will be recognized and honored at the 2011 Best Places to Work in Indiana Awards Dinner coordinated by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, May 5th. The final rankings will be announced at the event. In addition, all ranked companies will be featured in the May-June issue of the award-winning BizVoice® magazine.

Unifying Communications Throughout the Value Chain

Posted by Chris Dellen
Feb21
cdellen

Unified Communications is a somewhat abstract term that is used in the IT world to describe the linking of several different types of communications together such as your phone, email, instant message, faxing, video conferencing, mobility and most important of all presence (the ability to see the “status” of another person such as “away,” “in a meeting,” “on the phone,” “available,” etc.)

Up to now, most organizations are working toward “unifying” their own internal communications to take advantage of a number of strategic benefits (increased efficiency, higher customer satisfaction, etc.) However, in my opinion, one of the biggest communication innovations on the horizon is unifying communications up and down our value chains (suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and eventually consumers themselves).

You are probably asking why? Let me explain:

Lessons learned from another discipline:

Many years ago, built on the concepts of Six Sigma and Lean process improvement, manufacturers began realizing the value of JIT (just in time) principles.

What is JIT?

Imagine that you ran an assembly line that puts together computers. A JIT process would deliver a new hard drive from your supplier to your person on the assembly line at the precise moment that it needed to be installed on the new computer.

Think about the implications of JIT… First, it completely eliminates the need to keep any inventory of hard drives (envision the cost of purchasing and storing 100,000 hard drives). Second, if there is a change in customer demand (bigger hard drives for instance) you are stuck with the inventory that then has to be sold at clearance prices.

You can only imagine the amount of coordination it takes between suppliers, manufacturers, and resellers to achieve JIT processes. In some cases it actually led to the suppliers and manufacturers building their factories right next to each other.

Ok, enough about JIT… What is the corollary for unifying communications throughout your value chain?

In just the same way that JIT principles eliminate “waste” in the manufacturing process, unifying communications throughout the value chain could eliminate a lot of the wasted communication delays that impede projects, anger customers, and cost organizations tons of money.

In today’s age, collaboration, coordination, and speed (on a global scale) make up the foundation for building a competitive advantage in the marketplace… and… as the complexity surrounding your products and services rise – the ability to quickly mobilize all of your resources up and down your value chains (suppliers, manufacturers, resellers) quickly and efficiently could be the difference between success or the logo graveyard.

Still not making the connection?

Here are two examples to spark your creativity on potential ways that unifying communications throughout your value chain could revolutionize the way you do business.

1. Pretend that you are a software reseller that sold a complex accounting program to one of your customers. And… after installing the latest software update you completely shut your customer’s entire accounting system down. You can’t figure out what the problem is and none of your employees can solve the customer’s problem.

Traditionally you would have to call the software developers support number and file a request for help, which will then go through several layers of management and eventually be assigned to a tier 3 developer who can actually resolve your customer’s problem. Throughout this time consuming process, the customer is “down” and both yours and the software development company’s brands have been tarnished.

Now imagine unified communications throughout the value chain.

Once you realized that the software problem was beyond your ability to solve you looked at the “presence” of all of the software developer’s available tier 3 support personnel and then instantly placed the call to the exact person who was available and who could solve your customer’s problem. No trading voicemails, no communication delays, no mile-long email strings… just in time access to the person who can solve the problem right then and there.

2. Suppose you manufacture bulldozers and as a result of a recent marketing campaign learn of a construction company who needs 7 new bulldozers. Typically what would happen is that your regional sales person would call the first local distributor that came to mind and the send the lead to the distributor’s sales manager who then passes it to a rep in rotation… you get the idea. It might take hours, or in some cases, days for the lead to be followed up on by the distributor.

Marketers will tell you that the quicker a lead is followed up (in some cases as fast as 2 minutes) the higher the chance of winning the business

Now imagine unified communications throughout the value chain.

As soon as the lead comes in, your company can see the “presence” of all of your local distributor’s bulldozer sales people and instantly assign that lead to a rep who is available to follow up almost instantly. Imagine the effect on sales…


I don’t know of vary many organizations that have actually unified their communications throughout their value chain. Why? Because it is hard, costly and time consuming. However, just like the organizations that solved the JIT problem by building factories next to each other… the day is on the horizon.

Will you be ready?

Indiana Aspirations for Women in Computing Competition

Posted by Chris Dellen
Feb1
cdellen

On January 19, I had the privilege of attending the award ceremony for the National Center for Women and Information Technology’s (NCWIT) Award for Aspirations in Computing.

At the event, 20 high-school women from around the state were honored for their achievements in technology. They were selected for their computing and IT aptitude, leadership ability, academic history, and plans for post-secondary education.

I was completely awestruck at the achievement and drive of these young ladies.

Indiana Aspirations for Women in Computing 2010-11 Competition

Lindsey, one of the recipients of the NCWIT award.

Among these 20 young ladies were:

• Valedictorians
• National Science Olympiads
• Computer programmers
• Our next generation IT innovators

We have a lot to learn from these young women… The drive, determination, and energy that they approach life with is a model for us all to follow.

If you would like to support NCWIT’s work, click here.

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