Analyst Perspectives

Intradiem is a vendor that not many people have heard about, for the simple reason that it is actually Knowlagent, which recently announced a complete rebranding. The company says the new brand better reflects its product and service capabilities. Knowlagent was all about allowing companies to automatically manage how agents utilize their time in those often very short periods when they are not answering calls or carrying out other fixed tasks, such as taking a training course. The latest release of its product, Intradiem 9.0, enhances those capabilities, so even under the new brand, the company will continue to help companies optimize agent utilization.

Previous versions of the product largely monitored data produced by Avaya telephony switches. Based on preconfigured rules, it allocated agents tasks to fill in idle periods. The tasks were largely training activities, selected from a catalogue of available materials.

The latest release extends the range of data sources the software can use to trigger tasks, and also extends the range of tasks it can allocate to agents. In simple terms, data sources and tasks can now be virtually anything. The data can come from other telephony equipment, interaction management systems (another type of interaction needs to be handled), business applications such as CRM (a call needs to be made to a customer) or workforce management (read this notice), or social media (a response is required to a social media post); organizations can basically set any source to be monitored to identify what agents are doing and what tasks need to be done. Using this data as input, companies can configure a rules engine to drive which agent should be doing what, based on the triggers. The rules engine can trigger any task that has been included in the catalogue of possible tasks: handle another type of interaction, take an eLearning course, receive coaching, look at a report, carry out a back-office or admin task, or take a break. Intradiem provides the tools to make virtually anything possible, so long as companies can access the data and identify potential tasks. Once set up, everything happens automatically, and thus the software allows companies to make the best use of agent time without masses of manual effort.

We conducted research into how agents spend their time. We learned that during a shift, cumulatively agents have a significant amount of idle time, but contact center managers have great difficulty making use of this time because it occurs in very short time slots. Our more recent benchmark research into the agent desktop shows that agents’ lives are not getting any easier, and they now have a greater range of activities they should be carrying out. The new capabilities from Intradiem help lift the burden from managers and supervisors as they struggle to optimize agent time and meet business and customer expectations. I therefore recommend organizations assess how Intradiem can help improve agent performance and meet these expectations.

Regards,

Richard J. Snow

VP & Research Director