FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Last month, Inova Solutions sent contact center industry professionals an invitation to participate in an industry trends survey. One lucky participant, Susan Stewart, was selected at random to win an Apple iPad for completing the survey!

Since the response to this survey was so great, we thought we’d share some of the more interesting results with you:

• Of all the challenges contact center managers face, survey respondents indicated that employee morale and quality of performance reporting were the most challenging.
• Survey participants said that they measure many different KPIs, but the top KPI being reported is average handle time.
• Quality monitoring solutions were chosen as the most important technology for successful contact center management, while management dashboards were chosen as most likely to positively impact performance.
• 44% of survey respondants expect their contact center budget to stay the same over the next year. 35% expect it to increase, 10% expect it to decrease, and the remainder was not sure.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contact center industry survey!

You may know that Inova Solutions is now authoring a customer service and call center-oriented blog, InsideInova.com. We post several new articles each week. The following is an excerpt from one of our recent articles, called “Performance Management: More Important Than Ever.”

“In today’s business climate, organizations must actively manage employee performance. In a climate of restructuring and downsizing, top performers are a prized and valuable resource. And, with fewer employees on many payrolls, managers are realizing they need to give extra attention to staff performance.

Clear expectations, regular feedback, and praise and recognition are all no-cost tools that must be used if an organization expects to thrive and prosper in this time of fewer resources. In fact, Bersin and Associates recently released a study that reveals that performance management is now at the top of the priority list for many organizations. Forty-two percent of organizations have consistent, enterprise-wide practices for performance management. Another 29 percent have a process that is used by most groups throughout the organization. However, that leaves up to 30 percent of organizations with inconsistent or informal performance management practices.

This is troubling because the research also shows that for-profit organizations with defined performance management practices have experienced less downsizing, lower turnover among high performers, and twice the revenue per employee as organizations with informal or inconsistent practices.

The moral of the story is that if you are looking to do more with less…” (continue reading at InsideInova.com)

It’s that time of year again – time to finalize your contact center’s budget. The process of creating an annual budget can be time-intensive and frustrating. No doubt you have been instructed to improve operational efficiency and customer service next year – but with limited resources to do so.

How should you go about tackling the budget proposal, and pitching it in a way that gets your team the resources they need to be successful? Inova has created a brief guide to contact center budgeting with five tips to get you started. Here’s an excerpt from the guide:

1. Prove your value.

It is very difficult to obtain adequate funding for your contact center if executives do not understand the value the center brings to the company. So your first step is to meet with the appropriate stakeholders and share your successes from the past year.

Don’t know where to start? Your vendors are a great resource. They, too, are eager to prove that their technology solution is contributing to your bottom line and may be willing to help you prove operational improvements. Your ACD provider or real-time reporting vendor may be especially helpful, since they are familiar with key performance indicators.

2. Include all current expenses.

You’ll need to tally up the basics from this year and project your need for next year:

• Infrastructure – This includes network, facilities and utilities (don’t forget to account for depreciation).
• Human resources – Be sure to include not only salary/benefits, but training programs to combat poor performance, recruiting expenses to attract top talent, and also calculate what your attrition rate costs you in terms of productivity loss.
• Technology – Include cost estimates for new systems and services as well as maintenance contracts for existing systems. Get in touch with your vendors to get quotes and find out about any new product or service offerings for which you should set aside dollars. It’s better to know about these items now, rather than have them surprise you in the middle of the next budget cycle.

(To read budgeting tips 3, 4 and 5, click here.)