Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Dimension Data: The Age of the $33 Billion Seat
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See also outsourcing updates for related categories: Customer Support
Dimension Data: The Age of the $33 Billion Seat
Are Organisations Getting the Best Returns on Contact Centre Seats?
Press release, Dimension Data
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, March 19 - New research released today reveals that organisations spend some USD 5,000 per month per agent seat to provide customer service through their contact centres. This includes staff, technology and other facilities and management costs. When applied to an
estimated 6.5 million contact centre seats worldwide, this translates to an
investment of USD 33 billion.
These results from Dimension Data's Global Contact Centre Benchmarking
Report 2007, which surveyed 403 contact centres located across 42 countries,
underscore the need for management to ensure greater productivity and
effectiveness from contact centre resources.
Cara Diemont, editor of the Report comments: "The challenge for
executives and contact centre management is to ensure that organisations get
the best return on investment for both business and customers. Two key levers
they can focus on to achieve this are call resolution and automation."
The Report indicates a drop in the percentage of calls resolved by the
first agent over the past three years: from 82.1% in the 2005 Report to 80.7%
in 2006 and 69.8% this year. Also, contact centre agents spend around 60% of
their time speaking to customers, responding to e-mails and handling queries.
These two findings are concerning: 40% of the investment made in agent seats
is not directly linked to customer interaction and when it is, only seven out
of ten calls are resolved by the first agent.
"Unresolved calls frustrate customers and cost organisations money. If
companies improve call resolution and agent utilisation, contact centre
effectiveness can be substantially improved," says Diemont.
The second lever is automation, which is widely regarded as a critical
strategy for contact centres. The 2007 Report highlights that automating
processes or parts of processes is the top re-engineering and improvement
priority for contact centres (54.9%). But a word of warning: keep top of mind
that processes determine the 'how' of contact centre operation.
"Many organisations focus on process automation and overlook the
inescapable fact that automating a poorly defined or executed process will not
improve the situation," says Diemont.
Self-service is an automation strategy that is increasingly being adopted
by organisations. Currently, 13.5% of contact centres use speech recognition
while a quarter plan to implement it.
"Success rates with voice-driven self-service have also improved, with
completion rates on self-service continuing to climb - 19% compound growth on
last year - across the board," concludes Diemont.
About Dimension Data
Dimension Data plc (LSE:DDT), a specialist IT services and solution
provider, helps clients plan, build and support their IT infrastructures.
Dimension Data applies its expertise in networking, security, operating
environments, storage and contact centre technologies and its unique skills in
consulting, integration and managed services to create customised client
solutions.
www.dimensiondata.com
About the Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report
First published in the UK in 1997 by Merchants, Dimension Data's specialist contact centre outsourcing and operations division, this year's edition is the ninth in a series of the industry-renowned benchmarking reports. The report has balanced global and industry representation from 403 contact centres located across 42 countries and five continents, and is an invaluable reference for all contact centre professionals. It provides managers with a set of best practice standards and benchmarks, including staffing and training, performance metrics, technology usage, budgets and development plans. The report is researched and published by Dimension Data.
For more information about the Report, please go to www.ccbenchmarking.com
For further information: Dimension Data Hilary King Tel: +27 11 575 6728
Cell: +27 82 414 9623 Fax: +27 11 576 6728
Click on the labels below for more posts on those categories
See also outsourcing updates for related categories: Customer Support
Dimension Data: The Age of the $33 Billion Seat
Are Organisations Getting the Best Returns on Contact Centre Seats?
Press release, Dimension Data
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, March 19 - New research released today reveals that organisations spend some USD 5,000 per month per agent seat to provide customer service through their contact centres. This includes staff, technology and other facilities and management costs. When applied to an
estimated 6.5 million contact centre seats worldwide, this translates to an
investment of USD 33 billion.
These results from Dimension Data's Global Contact Centre Benchmarking
Report 2007, which surveyed 403 contact centres located across 42 countries,
underscore the need for management to ensure greater productivity and
effectiveness from contact centre resources.
Cara Diemont, editor of the Report comments: "The challenge for
executives and contact centre management is to ensure that organisations get
the best return on investment for both business and customers. Two key levers
they can focus on to achieve this are call resolution and automation."
The Report indicates a drop in the percentage of calls resolved by the
first agent over the past three years: from 82.1% in the 2005 Report to 80.7%
in 2006 and 69.8% this year. Also, contact centre agents spend around 60% of
their time speaking to customers, responding to e-mails and handling queries.
These two findings are concerning: 40% of the investment made in agent seats
is not directly linked to customer interaction and when it is, only seven out
of ten calls are resolved by the first agent.
"Unresolved calls frustrate customers and cost organisations money. If
companies improve call resolution and agent utilisation, contact centre
effectiveness can be substantially improved," says Diemont.
The second lever is automation, which is widely regarded as a critical
strategy for contact centres. The 2007 Report highlights that automating
processes or parts of processes is the top re-engineering and improvement
priority for contact centres (54.9%). But a word of warning: keep top of mind
that processes determine the 'how' of contact centre operation.
"Many organisations focus on process automation and overlook the
inescapable fact that automating a poorly defined or executed process will not
improve the situation," says Diemont.
Self-service is an automation strategy that is increasingly being adopted
by organisations. Currently, 13.5% of contact centres use speech recognition
while a quarter plan to implement it.
"Success rates with voice-driven self-service have also improved, with
completion rates on self-service continuing to climb - 19% compound growth on
last year - across the board," concludes Diemont.
About Dimension Data
Dimension Data plc (LSE:DDT), a specialist IT services and solution
provider, helps clients plan, build and support their IT infrastructures.
Dimension Data applies its expertise in networking, security, operating
environments, storage and contact centre technologies and its unique skills in
consulting, integration and managed services to create customised client
solutions.
www.dimensiondata.com
About the Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report
First published in the UK in 1997 by Merchants, Dimension Data's specialist contact centre outsourcing and operations division, this year's edition is the ninth in a series of the industry-renowned benchmarking reports. The report has balanced global and industry representation from 403 contact centres located across 42 countries and five continents, and is an invaluable reference for all contact centre professionals. It provides managers with a set of best practice standards and benchmarks, including staffing and training, performance metrics, technology usage, budgets and development plans. The report is researched and published by Dimension Data.
For more information about the Report, please go to www.ccbenchmarking.com
For further information: Dimension Data Hilary King Tel: +27 11 575 6728
Cell: +27 82 414 9623 Fax: +27 11 576 6728
Click on the labels below for more posts on those categories
Labels: benchmarking-contact-centre, call-centres-reports, call-centres-technology, costs
PermaLink - Dimension Data: The Age of the $33 Billion Seat posted by Ecacofonix : 9:40 AM
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Sunday, March 11, 2007
Importance of Establishing Key Metrics in the Contact Center
Importance of Establishing Key Metrics in the Contact Center
March 05, 2007
In a recent white paper, "Metrics That Matter, Proactively Boost Performance and Improve the Customer Experience", from the PELORUS Group, the author Richard Bucci focuses on the importance of understanding broad corporate goals and the resultant goals and action plans of the department that includes the contact center. This white paper goes into great detail to examine the metrics that matter, such as customer delight metrics, business intelligence metrics etc., and how any contact center can create and execute a specific set of key metrics.
Read more about this white paper and a link to the same from this TMC Net article
BlogOut provides regular, global outsourcing updates for all industries & business functions, in hundreds of categories. See BlogOut Directory for the complete list of categories
March 05, 2007
In a recent white paper, "Metrics That Matter, Proactively Boost Performance and Improve the Customer Experience", from the PELORUS Group, the author Richard Bucci focuses on the importance of understanding broad corporate goals and the resultant goals and action plans of the department that includes the contact center. This white paper goes into great detail to examine the metrics that matter, such as customer delight metrics, business intelligence metrics etc., and how any contact center can create and execute a specific set of key metrics.
Read more about this white paper and a link to the same from this TMC Net article
BlogOut provides regular, global outsourcing updates for all industries & business functions, in hundreds of categories. See BlogOut Directory for the complete list of categories
Labels: analysis, benchmarking, benchmarking-contact-centre, contact-centres-white-papers, strategies, white-papers
PermaLink - Importance of Establishing Key Metrics in the Contact Center posted by Ecacofonix : 7:50 AM
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