Hello there,
And a warm welcome to our little gathering!
Forward: Hey - I just read this through and I honestly didn't *mean* to write this much, honest! I would suggest, in the very first instance, you acquaint yourself with the general terms of the Genesys Technologies, by having a look through my Rough Guides..., located in the Forum thread, here:
http://www.sggu.com/smf/index.php/topic,2532.0.html
- Firstly I have to say that *everyone* has (quite correctly!) a different perspective on trends and strategic technologies in the CTI sphere. There are no right or wrong answers and most perspectives are based on what a person knows, versus what we think we might need or want in both the immediate and long term future. The analogy of the frog in the pond comes to mind; A Stork stops off at a pond for a drink - it meets a frog and asks him what he is doing in a smelly old pond - and why doesn't he go out and see the world? The frog shrugs and says "what's a world...?"
So - I'm not the Stork or the frog [i]<insert smart comment here...!>[/i] but I am somewhere in between. With a background in delivering end-to-end solutions for customer services and debt management for the financial sector and more recently the mobile network sector, here's what I "see" - from the beginning;
Customer First Contact!
First impressions are important! "Hi and welcome to Company X. If you are a returning customer, please wait - otherwise press 1 now... thank you! If you want to know more about Widget X, press 1 now - if you want to find out about Widget Y, press 2 now - to hear these Options again, press 9 - to return to the Main Menu, press #... !!!!!! - Calm down... it's only a mock up - but this can be very true of an overworked, over-anxious, over-developed Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, that has seen many changes and additions over many years. What to do? Well, you could re-optimize your scripts (again!) but there is so much more out there with which to apply your very first voice contact to your customer base, today; Automated Speech Recognition (ASR), Text To Speech (TTS), intelligent response, intelligent routing, extended (back office) services, secure speech/security and recognition techniques, etc. All of this is being continually honed and re-developed, to give an ultimate experience of doing everything an Agent might have to do - through intelligent automation. Sure, there will always be a need for a "real person" which is inevitable, since these contacts cannot be replaced in total - that's a fact! So, what does Genesys offer? There's a few places you could look; Genesys Voice Portal (GVP), Voice Genie (my apologies if I get the naming convention wrong on that one - I believe it has just been purchased by Genesys), Virtual Hold (is that Genesys? I think it should be... ) and then the lower end stuff (which I think is still "on sale"); Voice Telephony Option (VTO). You'd also do well to look up the innovators in this space; Nuance.
Technology Consolidations
Over the years, many many *many* custom-built applications have littered the Agents PC/Desktop, to the point where they may not be able to see the wood for the trees. Aside from this, there are now many more ways in which Agents can contact the Customer and vice versa. Here's a few things to put those statements into perspective:
Back Office: CTI (and thereby Genesys) can play a role in the consolidation techniques being employed by technical "Service Integration" specialists. As part of a consolidated desktop, a "Soft Phone" or "Media Integration" component will appear as an essential component of this consolidation. Therefore, the Genesys Adaptors for the likes of SAP, Siebel, etc. have a part to play in this consolidation, along with the Genesys SDK's for Media, Statistics and Configuration and the TLib items, coupled with the ActiveX components - although I'm not sure if ActiveX is a viable option these days - you may want to ask!
Media Types: First there were letters between the customer and customer services. Then came the telephone, introducing voice for incoming calls - then we called our customers back through our efforts to create outbound strategies/campaigns. Then came FAX's, then sms, then email, then web chat... then... then... ! If we haven't already done so, it's time to optimize the sterling efforts being undertaken by our front line staff. If they are Technically-orientated (= Technical "Skills"), then we would want to deliver *any* media type, regarding the same specialist subjects to them - irrespective of that media type. So, Genesys Multi-Channel Routing is a good place to start, along with the Content and Knowledge Management components, the Genesys Agent Desktop and the Genesys Supervisor Desktop.
Customer Insight
So, now we have loads of ways of contacting our customer - and they have loads of ways of wanting to be contacted (or not, as the case may be!) But how do we know that we are doing the right things, in the right way for *them*. In the past, the speed with which we reply, the length of time taken to answer a call, their relative satisfaction, their propensity to churn (ceasing their contract/moving to another supplier) and various other liberally applied statistics of the customer "as a whole" were considered enough to gauge a companies relative success in the market place. Of course, with the advent of more intelligent systems, more processing power and many more information technology advances, we have much more data to delve into. Only problem is that we don't want to drown in it! So; What is relevant and what is not? When should the information be presented and at what level? What is the best media to present the information through? Who gets/needs what data? The Genesys offerings in this space are plentiful and there is a lot to wade through, if you really want to. As the basis of a study, you would probably want to look at the current and future offerings of; Genesys Call Centre Analyser, Genesys Call Centre Pulse +, ICON/Infomart, Genesys Statistics SDK and possibly the Genesys Workforce Management Reporting Interface.
Customer Satisfaction
Next, once you *think* you're doing a good job of retaining your customers and keeping them relatively happy, you will probably want their feedback, too - just so's you can support your Customer Insight. What to do? Well, you could look into utilizing your IVR (GVP) to allow the customer to have their say - with real speech. Using the technologies already mentioned (ASR and TTS) you can "converse" with customers, extracting items such as their demeanor, their mood, their level of stress or anxiety, etc. All possible with add-ons to the GVP via Voice Recording techniques and data/voice mining. This is cutting edge, new stuff - you might want to find out what Genesys has to offer in this space...
Genesys Costs
Price will always be a bottom line for businesses - what can they *afford* to do? It's not just about Genesys license costs, which are quite high, considering the products they offer - there's all of the "other stuff";
Implementation/System Integration (Delivery, Design, Development, Testing, Deployment, Quality Assurance, Interfaces)
CAPEX - start up costs
OPEX - licensing and support agreements
Hardware - catching up with the latest CPU and RAM to be able to run the product
Network - beefing up your LAN to take SIP/VOIP
Strengths and Weaknesses
No - I haven't written the following incorrectly...!
PRO: Versatility - you can do pretty much anything with the plethora of options available through the Genesys Solutions and Tools. That's great for just about any solution.
CONTRA: Versatility - you can do pretty much anything with the plethora of options available through the Genesys Solutions and Tools. That's bad because just about anything can go wrong.
PRO: Genesys is the Number One in CTI on the Globe. They supply and support the biggest and best implementations. That's great because you want the best in class for your customer.
CONTRA: Genesys is the Number One in CTI on the Globe. They supply and support the biggest and best implementations. That's bad because you want support relevant for/to you - not generalized for everyone else. But how else can they support their customer base, because they are so BIG?!
I was also going to go on about Customer Churn, Incentives and Business Intelligence but I really think there is enough food for thought here.
- Best of luck with your studies!
Tony
