Analyst Perspectives

In early 2012 I wrote a blog post about how Verint was overcoming some of its product integration issues by using an information-driven approach that allows users to drill down from key performance metrics into underlying application data. The latest version of its Impact 360 Workforce Optimization suite extends this approach and supports a flow of data between applications and workflows that enables cross-application processes. The suite of products includes interaction recording, workforce management, agent quality monitoring, eLearning and coaching, enterprise and customer feedback management, performance management, and desktop, process, text and speech analytics. The latest release is designed to make these operate seamless so that companies can manage processes related to handling customer interactions.

The enhancements fall into four broad categories; data flows, drill-down capabilities, workflow and alerts, and administration capabilities. The data flow enhancements allow more information to be available on scorecards, including, for example, survey scores. They let data from one application be used by another; for example, KPI scores are passed to workforce management to enable performance-based scheduling. The software also passes additional data flows into the different analytics products, such as call details into data analytics. The drill-down enhancements allow users in one application to drill down into detailed data in another; for example, a user looking at a completed survey can drill down into the call referenced in the survey, and users can go from a scorecard to see the interactions that were used to calculate a quality score.

The new workflow and alerts allow users to take full advantage of suite of products that span the interaction-handling processes and use data collected at different points in the process. Users can set up rules that use multifunctional data to establish the root cause of why different actions or events occur. The output from this analysis can then be used to automatically raise alerts or create workflow items that kick off other processes. For example, after analyzing agent quality scores, the software can send eLearning or coaching tasks to the workforce management application so tasks appear in agents’ schedules, or calls can be prioritized based on their speech category.

The final sets of enhancements make the suite easier to administer and use. Administrators now have centralized capabilities to add, change and remove users and agents and build a unified organizational hierarchy. Users have single sign-on and a common interface for agent schedules, scorecards, eLearning and coaching.

All these enhancements add up to a suite of products that is easier to manage and use, covers all aspects of agent performance management, and more closely links workforce optimization with customer interaction handling. Given that my research into customer relationship maturity shows how important agent performance is in providing excellent customer service and experiences, I recommend companies check out how Verint’s suite’s latest capabilities can help optimize these efforts.

Regards,

Richard J. Snow

VP & Research Director