London, UK – Tuesday 6th October 2009 – Technology is failing to provide sufficient and timely information in customer service situations. This is the key finding of a new survey conducted by Corizon, the enterprise mashup company that transforms the economics of the contact centre.
Conducted across the UK in August 2009, a joint survey of 2,127 consumers by YouGov and of 90 contact centre managers by Corizon, revealed that despite significant investment in technology to increase customer service, strategies are not being delivered in ways that satisfy consumers, agents or businesses.
The survey discovered that contact centre staff face challenges from the increasing number of applications that they need to switch between when responding to customer queries. More than a third (37%) of call centre managers cited this as a problem, with 30% saying that it had worsened over the past year. In addition, three quarters (75%) of managers said that their agents used three to five different software applications to handle customer service queries during a typical working day, and 40% said their agents used 5 or more applications. One manager even admitted that contact centre agents used as many as 18 different applications.
Contact centres are investing to add functionality through new applications, but are still failing to maximise ROI.
Of all the consumers surveyed, most (83%) said they had experienced and were frustrated by long waiting times, 69% said they had experienced and were frustrated by repeating information when passed to another agent and 68% had experienced and were frustrated by having to repeat information from a previous call – all of which are consequences of the number of disparate applications that agents are forced to use, compounded by the inaccessibility of information across those applications.
As a direct result of the myriad of applications being used in contact centres, 32% of contact centre managers surveyed believed their agents’ desktops were becoming more unstable. Applications are crashing, freezing and becoming unavailable to frontline staff, as often incompatible software struggles to work together. One in ten managers even felt that ending customer calls due to application instability was their most common problem.
Corizon’s unique enterprise mashup approach to creating and managing business applications addresses all these critical pain points. Corizon combines the useful bits of applications to give people the right information at the right time to do their jobs better. Its enterprise mashup software removes the need for call centre agents to switch between different applications, dramatically improving their productivity. Instead, it allows multiple applications to be seamlessly integrated into one, easy-to-use composite application containing all the data and functionality that agents demand, and delivering the service levels that customers deserve.
In a separate survey conducted by the Customer Contact Association, over half of centre managers listed a unified desktop on their IT system wish list . In the Corizon survey, half of respondents (49%) said less switching between applications would have a significant impact on making their jobs, and those of their agents, easier and more enjoyable.
Eric Guilloteau CEO for Corizon, summed it up: “This survey shows that the amount of software installed in the typical call centre is a disservice to customers and agents alike. Adding another application may seem like a good way to increase agent knowledge and efficiency, but all too often it has the opposite effect.”
In the UK, contact centres represent a critical sector of employment with 958,000 working in more than 5,000 public and private sector call centres, an employment figure expected to increase to over a million by 2012 .
Corizon works with contact centres to increase productivity, in some cases by as much as 40%. BT, for example, achieved a 20% improvement in first call resolution and a full ROI in less than 12 months by implementing enterprise mashups based on the Corizon platform.
Eric Guilloteau, CEO for Corizon, concluded: “Over the past ten years, contact centres have evolved from administrative centres to pivotal hubs for the relationship between organisations and their customers. They have the opportunity to strengthen relationships, build brand equity and drive sales – but also to undermine consumer confidence, spoil relationships and lose customers. Contact centre technology should create a positive customer experience, not prevent one. By bringing multiple applications into one composite application, contact centres can quickly start to see not only ROI, but also happier customers.”
Survey Specifics
* YouGov consumer survey
All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2127 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 7th – 10th August 2009. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
* Corizon Call centre manager survey
90 call centre managers were surveyed by telephone between 1st August and 31st August 2009. The survey was carried out by telephone.
About Corizon
Corizon, the Enterprise Mashup Company, transforms the economics of the contact centre.
Corizon enterprise mashups simplify and automate the streamlining of the desktop enabling people to work more productively. The mashup platform achieves this by seamlessly combining the useful bits of business applications, giving the users the right information at the right time, and allowing them to do their jobs better. The Corizon approach delivers pragmatic and fast project payback by addressing critical pain point’s one process at a time.
Corizon is headquartered in London, UK, and works with leading systems integrators and technology partners across Europe including Oracle, Accenture, Cap Gemini, Sabio and Logica. Corizon’s customers, from multiple industry sectors, seek to deliver fast project payback and improve their customer experience delivery and include BT, KPN, the Student Loans Company (SLC) and HomeServe.
For more information, visit www.corizon.com or follow Corizon on Twitter @CorizonMashups
For further information:
Hazel Butters, Max McConnell or Ellie Turner
Prompt Communications for Corizon
+44 208 996 1650/ +44 7795 143 447
[email protected]
