ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Calabrio offers a suite of workforce optimization (WFO) products used in call centers that includes call recording, quality recording, workforce management and performance management, and it also offers a purpose-built speech analytics product. From a briefing and demonstration, I confirmed that the core WFO products support the capabilities that our research shows companies expect of these products. Ventana Research defines agent performance management (APM) as WFO plus capture of all forms of customer interaction, agent training and coaching and agent compensation management, as well as all forms of contact center-related analytics such as text, voice and desktop. The recent Ventana Research APM Value Index shows that this market is highly competitive, as all the top five vendors scored within one percentage point of each other. Calabrio differentiates itself from the competition in three ways. First, unlike some of the vendors in this market, it provides a purpose-built suite that was developed from the ground up, so its capabilities are tightly integrated, for example allowing users to sign in once to all applications and enter data once to populate all related data fields. This enables organizations to close the loop between related processes; for example, they can link quality monitoring with agent performance management. Second, the suite includes a purpose-built speech analytics product that uses an industry-standard engine to extract data from call recordings and uses phonetics-based analysis to extract insights from the data. Third, it has other capabilities that support annotation of call playback to show when words and phrases were used, and display a link to what agents were doing at their desktops at the time particular words and phrases were used. These add up to what Calabrio presents as its main differentiator – making WFO easy to use through a user-friendly interface and linked capabilities. The experience starts at sign-on when users are presented with a dashboard that has been previously customized to their own requirements. It presents users with information they want to see, in a useful format, and it lets them drill down into more detailed information relevant to the tasks they need to carry out. During the demonstration I was able to compare the old and new software interfaces, and the new one lives up to most of the claims. It is easier to use than many products I have seen, and from the examples I saw I expect it to improve further in time. Calabrio now has more than 3,000 customers, 50-plus partners and many case studies showing customers’ business success. However, as I indicated earlier, this is a tough, competitive market, so Calabrio needs to continue to invest in its core strengths to remain successful. If it does so, I recommend that companies looking to improve agent performance take Calabrio into account. Regards, Richard J. Snow VP & Research Director

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