Updated May 2020.

Setting up a call center is not always straightforward.

There is a vast selection of call center reporting software, including hosted or cloud call center solutions and premises-based solutions, and you will need to do a little research to determine the best solution for your needs.

The different types of systems each have certain advantages and disadvantages. Each caters to different sizes of organization and call center needs.

Before we get to the crucial questions, we need to talk a bit about the differences between cloud call center solutions or other types of hosted solutions and premises-based solutions.

Types of call center reporting systems

A premises-based solution is, as the name suggests, is one that is based on-site in your call center’s location. In other words, your PBX or VoIP system’s physical server and all of the hardware associated with the telephone system will be situated on-site.

The customer can maintain equipment, but this requires internal IT staff.

Sometimes the equipment maintenance is covered through a contract with the provider.

Premises-based systems require an initial outlay of capital, as the company must purchase the equipment at the starting phase of implementation.

Your company will own all of the hardware and have immediate access to the hardware. As you can imagine, this involves a significant outlay of capital at the initial stage of implementation.

You may also be taking on monthly fees associated with network infrastructure and ongoing hardware maintenance.

Alternatively, you may be required to hire additional staff to tend to the maintenance of the in-house system.

According to Genesy’s definition, a hosted call center reporting system is a call center reporting “solution in which an organization’s central point of inbound and outbound communications is hosted on a service provider’s back-office systems.”

When it comes to call center reporting systems, there is often some confusion around the terms “hosted” and “cloud-based.”

People often use the words interchangeably without any clear distinction between them.

Often, when vendors claim to offer “cloud” services, they are, in fact, hosted versions of a legacy on-premises solution.

Hosted and true cloud services are two very different things.

Cloud-based call center reporting software is a type of hosted call center reporting system that stores your data in a secure network of servers that can find what you need and deliver it to you or your team wherever you are.

Cloud call center reporting software solutions are those that include a comprehensive suite of tools, applications, and cloud-hosted services for contact centers.

The cloud-based technology can accommodate the needs of large organizations that require multiple communications channels (including phone calls and messaging), sophisticated call routing, agent management, and analytics.

A Cloud Contact Center reporting system can help large organizations meet the challenges of communicating with their customers or clients.

In short, hosted PBX, or Hosted VoIP (Voice over IP) – also referred to as cloud systems – embody the latest phase in phone system technology.

With a hosted or cloud system, the customer does not own or house the physical server in their office – instead, the phone server resides in a service provider’s data center.

Since the system itself is offsite, hosted solutions use web-based access to configure, manage, and maintain the system.

What is the “cloud”? The technology industry uses many buzzwords.

Some examples of this include terms or phrases like the Internet of Things, Big Data, and 5G.

The problem is that these sometimes nebulous or arbitrary terms don’t make it clear what they mean to consumers from individual users to corporations; the meanings of these buzzwords are not always precise.

“The cloud” is one of those terms.

The cloud refers to software and services that run on the Internet, instead of locally on your computer.

Your team can access most cloud services by using a Web browser like Firefox or Google Chrome, and some companies offer dedicated mobile apps.

There are many business applications for cloud computing, but here we are only interested in call center reporting applications.

The advantage of the cloud is that you can access your information on any device with an Internet connection.

Before you choose a call center solution, you will need to consider several factors that will impact which choice will be best for your organization.

There are quantitative considerations, like the number of calls you expect to handle, the size of your team, and your budget.

There are other considerations, too. Continue reading to learn more about the ten essential questions to ask before you invest in call center reporting solutions.

10 Key Questions

1. Compatibility: How well will the system integrate with your existing tools?

If your business is well-established and already has a customer relationship management or sales system in place, then it is essential to choose a call center reporting system that is compatible with your existing infrastructure.

Why spend a significant amount of capital on a system that will not easily offer improvements in productivity and customer satisfaction?

You also want to ensure that the system and the staff have the experience and expertise to meet your company’s needs.

2. Security: How secure is the service?

Security is an important consideration.

Does the system have mechanisms in place to establish the security, confidentiality, and integrity of their customers’ data?

You need to look at things like data isolation, data backup, and the security of the servers.

Is data isolated and stored on dedicated tables?

How frequently are backups run, and where are the backup data stored?

What security measures on in place at the data centers?

3. Scalability: Can the service scale in tandem with fluctuations in demand?

Contact center demands fluctuate.

You need a system that will be flexible enough to provide the capacity you need and are using according to the ebbs and flows of your customers.

Why pay for maximum volume all of the time?

Especially for small to medium-sized call centers, a system that can switch from higher to lower call volumes as needed makes good business sense.

Cloud systems are suitable for this because they provide a large and robust infrastructure and typically offer on-demand provisioning.

4. Usability: Does the system provide useful reporting capabilities?

Is the reporting system robust and accessible?

Look for the capability to generate reports from multiple data sources (ex.: telephone, sales, WFM, quality, and so on), for multiple locations, for multiple business units in one place.

Will your team be able to access amalgamated and roll-up summaries at every level of the organization.

Many companies unwillingly end up spending more time collecting data, compiling and distributing reports than they spend in quality analysis.

Delays in decision-making weaken a company’s market position.

So can making bad decisions.

Look for a call center reporting system that generates reports that lead to useful and timely decision making.

There is rarely a shortage of raw data, yet leaders continue to run short on business insight.

The challenge is not a lack of data per se; it is the transformation of data into insight that is absent.

Lack of insight limits opportunities and success.

Without new information, your capacity to find new solutions is severely handicapped.

Will your team be able to access reports in real-time? When reports are obsolete, decision-making is compromised.

The cost of revamping, refitting and reformatting reports to accommodate changes is rapidly mounting.

5. Capability: Is the system capable of tracking all of the channels through which you communicate with your customers?

With the growing popularity of social media, companies are offering their customers and clients options for customer care communication.

In addition to telephony, most contact centers also offer live chat, email, and message boards, to name a few.

Look for a system that offers “Multi-Channel Support.”

Multi-Channel support simply means that the system is capable of handling the various channels that your company may be using to communicate with your customers, either now or in the future.

6. Affordability and transparency: Check the pricing structure so that you know up-front what the system will cost.

As already mentioned, premises-based solutions often require an initial outlay of capital and ongoing maintenance costs.

In addition, there are the costs associated with an on-site IT team. By contrast, a self-serve user interface eliminates the need for in-house IT staff, or frees up their time for other tasks.

And a hosted or cloud-based solution eliminates the substantial up-front cost and investment risk.

7. Functionality: Are your team leaders and agents able to use the call center reporting software?

The system you select must be one that your agents and team leaders are able to use comfortably.

To best serve your end customers, you need a system that your employees can use.

The goal is to empower your team and enhance your customers’ satisfaction with their contact center communications.

For this to happen, contact center managers and supervisors need to be able to access reports as they need them.

So you want to be sure that this will be the case.

It is a good idea to ask your personnel for input.

8. Efficiency: Does the call center reporting software support blended agents?

In the context of a contact center, a blended agent, manages both incoming and outgoing calls and applications as needed.

Need is determined by contact center traffic levels.

The strategy of using blended agents is increasingly common as it contributes to the overall efficiency of your business.

You need to ask whether the system you are considering will allow your agents to move between answering incoming communications and dialling outgoing calls with minimal effort.

9. Accessibility: Can agents access the system from home?

More and more companies are relying on remote workers, and this trend is likely to continue.

You need to ask whether or not it is easy to add additional staff to the system as needed.

Will you be easily able to direct calls to an external number or numbers?

Will the reporting software be capable of monitoring this usage?

10. Testability: Can you run a demonstration before you go live?

Another critical consideration is whether or not you are able to run a demonstration of the call center reporting software before you invest any money or sign any contracts.

In most cases, you should be able to try the software on a separate network.

It is a good idea to have the agents and team leaders who will be working with the system on the ground involved in the trial run as they are well-situated and knowledgeable about the day-to-day flows and demands of their workplace.

In brief, there are ten vital factors to consider when you are selecting a new call center reporting software system or upgrading your existing system.

The crucial considerations relate to how much you are willing to spend, what you estimate your current and future needs to be, the reliability of service, the ease of use for your agents and management teams, and the overall improvement to your customers’ experience.

And, of course, you need to think about your budgetary needs and return on investment.

For many call centers, cloud-based solutions fit the bill.

Cloud-based models have a multitenant architecture with an intentional design that will maximize the secure and efficient delivery of web-based applications.

They feature interconnectivity capacities as part of the design.

Cloud-based consumer experience systems are quick to install and set up.

Additionally, your company will benefit from lower operating costs because you are using a secure and shared service.

You also benefit from the ability to increase or decrease capacity according to fluctuations in demand.

To recap, some of the main benefits of a hosted or cloud solution are:

• Cost-effective and up to date VoIP functionality
• Little to no need for in-house IT involvement in installing and maintaining the system
• Hosted and cloud-based systems feature scalability making them suitable for both small and large businesses

At the end of the day, you want to find a telecommunication partner that offers secure, reliable and affordable services.

You want a company that has the experience, capability, and expertise that you need. And you want a solution that your team can use with ease.

Finally, you want a solution that can adapt as your company’s needs change over both the short and long-term.

For more information about The Reporting Engine, Contact Us Now.

Keeping a standard for your call center is never too easy.

You need to manage things properly to maintain them because managing a call center is crucial to reach out to your targeted audience.

If you are running a call center, you need to keep check of every single detail.

It can be about your services, agents’ performance – and most importantly, your clients.

Now the question is how you do that? Well, it’s not that easy to manage, but you can make it possible.

Get yourself the proper tools and manage your call center accordingly. Running a call center without proper planning is insane.

You need to know about things that really matter for call center management.

You need to keep a check on your employees’ and customers’ information, which is a hard task.

Are you confused and don’t know what tools you need?

I can understand, and there’s no need to worry, as we are here to help you.

The best tool for managing a call center is call center reporting.

We will explain what it is and how it works.

Call Center Reporting and Why You Need It Right Now?

Simply put, call center reporting helps you put light on what is happening in every corner of your call center.

It enables you to understand the key performance indicators (KPIs) of your call center agents.

The call center reporting helps you understand and evaluate your customers and agents. It helps you to get direction for improvement.

Call center reporting provides you with reports, real-time dashboards, and customer insights and helps you track performances.

It enables you to make changes based on the data you get through reporting.

You also need to understand the key performance indicators and manage your data according to your needs.

Call centers are successful when your customers are satisfied with your sales and support agents. Therefore, you need to know about your customers’ experiences with your services.

Having millions of customers and keeping a record for their experience is not so easy.

But, no need to worry; this reporting tool helps you generate customer experience and feedbacks.

The analytics generated helps you to understand and evaluate your customer experience and get feedback.

Feedbacks really matters if you want to improve your services.

Call center reporting is very crucial to understand the progress of campaigns run by the call center.

Moreover, you also have to evaluate how your customers are responding to your services and how your agents are guiding them through the process.

Basically, through call center reporting, you can measure the performance of your call center through customer experience.

No doubt that flawless customer service is vital for the growth of your business in this competitive era.

For the growth of your company, you need to have high-quality call center services once you have that, you can quickly grow your business.

The call center reporting software helps you improve your call center performance.

Customer Satisfaction Matters

If you want to grow your business, your customer satisfaction should be your first priority.

You need to know the buyer’s journey to provide them with your best services.

It gives you insights about things that are more critical to your customers.

You can improve your productivity, efficiency, and performance when you understand your customer’s needs.

If you don’t have a reporting system, it won’t be an easy task to evaluate your customer’s needs.

Once you have satisfied customers, you can grow your business without any barriers.

Satisfy your customers with your services.

Enjoy the growth of your business — no need to worry when you have the call center reporting system.

The call center reporting software is used in call centers to evaluate and manage information about the customer’s experience with the services.

Through this software, the call center floor manager can keep the information in one place, establish knowledgebase and train call center agents to tackle known issues.

When you are running a call center, you are generally concerned about the influx of massive data in raw form that is hard to arrange.

To have proper monitoring of this data and customer’s information, you need to have a system in place that stores and provides reporting based on the calling patterns and customer interaction with your agents.

If you don’t have a call center reporting software, it’s not going to be easy to keep track of this information.

Call center reporting helps you access information and reports of your clients at one platform which makes it easier to analyze and make decisions.

When you hire a programmer or depend on other applications for different departments, you need to spend a large amount of money which, sometimes, is not a good option.

To save that money and also keep your data at a secure place, you need to have the call center reporting software for your business.

Having a call center reporting system will be helpful for your business growth as well.

Below are 5 key benefits of having a call center reporting software.

Benefits of Call Center Reporting Software

The call center reporting software will help you improve your services and enhance your productivity.

Having a top-notch call center reporting system makes it easier to generate customized reports, and evaluate your call center outbound campaigns as well as customer experiences.

In turn, you will be able to analyze emerging trends and challenges for process improvements.

1. Great Customer Experience

Undoubtedly, today the most important thing is customer experience.

You need to provide your customers with the best services and satisfy them to form long term relationships.

It is only possible when you have a proper system in place to be able to listen to customer’s concerns and understand their needs.

The call center reporting software will help you get appropriate feedback from your customers which results in improvements to your services.

2. Decrease Costs

In a typical call center, you have different departments with tons of data which is very important for your business.

You really need to save your data and for that most of the time, we spend a lot of money on different software or programmers.

If you want to save money and reduce the cost for data management and customer care, get yourself a call center reporting software.

It will help you keep your data in one place which is secure and easy to access.

3. Enhance Productivity and Efficiency

Most importantly, the call center reporting software helps the agent respond to phone calls quickly and efficiently.

The calls can be transferred to the right agents at the right time which will help them facilitate the customer.

Once you have proper management, you will be able to increase productivity and efficiency.

Getting back to your customers with correct answers and helping them with their concerns will improve the image of your business and restore confidence in your customers.

A comprehensive call center reporting system will integrate your contact center solution with your voice service, which will give you an overview of your performance along with key metrics.

It also gives a detailed view of how the business is performing.

4. Easy & Enhanced Data Access

Do you want to have the trust of your clients?

Though earning the client’s trust is not that easy.

You can have that if you provide them with your best services.

An agent needs to have a proper understanding of how to handle a client’s data to provide them with their best services.

They also have to take care of data safety and privacy.

To build trustworthy relations with your customers, you need to assure them that their data is safe with you.

Using a robust call center reporting software enables you to leverage your data and understand what makes your team successful and customers satisfied in real-time.

Moreover, this will also help the agent to understand the priorities of your customer.

Your agents will be able to interact with customers in a more comprehensive, timely and customized manner.

Most importantly, this will help you develop a long-lasting, strong bond with your customers.

5. Improved Reporting

To be able to evaluate the performance of your call center, you need to overcome certain challenges.

First, you need timely and accurate information for your business with custom reporting.

Sometimes, you have the information and raw data of customer interactions, which needs to be presented in standard reporting formats.

You might require live and historical data performance statistics to manage the flow of incoming and outgoing calls.

This can only be managed if your call center reporting software gives you the leverage to customized reporting on a real-time basis.

The enhanced reporting system through call center reporting software helps the managers to get reports of all the activities in the call center.

Now you can get easy access to your reports and enhance your service quality. Attract more clients and grow your business at a little cost.

Improve Your Operations And Grow Your Business With Call Center Reporting Software

Call centers have to take numerous calls every day, and the management has to keep track of all the information related to them.

But it’s not that easy.

With heaps of data and privacy issues, you really need to have customized systems that will make sure that their data are secured and updated according to the highest standards of data safety and protection.

It’s high time that you get call center reporting software and make a healthy and unbreakable bond with your customers.

When you get this software, you can easily save a considerable amount of money.
Don’t waste your money on different programmers or applications.

What are you waiting for?

Identify the best call center reporting software providers, avail their services and improve your business interaction with customers.

It will make sure that your data is secure.

Run your call center operations smoothly with this software and make improvements according to your needs.

Also, you can have an empowering work environment because this system gives customized reporting that will help you analyze lead-to-opportunity conversions as well as marketing results across various campaigns.

You can get your call center reporting software TODAY and impress your customers with your quick and robust services.

With an all-in-one software, you can ensure improved customer retention rate as well as increased sales.

A call center reporting system provides insights that make it easier for you to guide your call center agents, take appropriate actions and meet your targets.

Impress your clients with your best performance and establish long-lasting bonds with your clients.

Using prebuilt reports, you can unveil the market trends revealed by calling patterns and take immediate actions to improve your customer experience.

Once you have proper reports generated, you will be able to enhance your call center performance.

The most crucial aspect of your success will come up when you are able to devise an actionable plan to empower your team.

You can achieve this by easily creating, maintaining, and distributing custom reports that monitor the ongoing performance of your call center agents.

So, what are you waiting for, get your call center reporting software RIGHT NOW!
Spend less, earn more and grow your business today.

Do you need call center reporting software? Don’t worry, we are here to help you.

Reach to us here and get your best business partner Call Center Reporting Software!

Call centers are a unique type of industry with specific challenges and needs.

High caller volumes require a full complement of agents, but when are the high demand periods?

Difficult customers and occasionally abusive callers can create a great deal of stress.

The isolation of a cubby-hole workspace can leave agents feeling alone and alienated.

Strong leadership from top management to team leaders play a crucial role in the success of your call center operation.

Leaders need comprehensive and accurate reports that draw on information from multiple data sources.

Accurate, timely information can empower your call center’s management and team leaders to make sound decisions.

With leadership playing such a central role in the efficiency, productivity, and overall success in gaining customer satisfaction and consumer loyalty, it seems that elevating and enhancing your call center’s leadership at all levels is paramount.

Leadership in a Call Center

As the name suggests, call center team leaders are the people who are in charge of groups of call center employees. The team members, as the frontline workers, are tasked with responding to client queries.

Call center team leaders need to ensure frontline workers respond to customer questions and concerns in a consistent, professional, and personable manner.

Call center team leaders are central to the effective and efficient day to day operations of a call center environment.

A capable team leader motivates their team members and inspires them to perform to the highest standards.

Another tier of leadership is the customer service director or contact center manager; these upper managerial positions oversee the company’s team leaders and make pivotal decisions regarding company procedures.

To ensure quality employee and leadership performance, call center leaders must be able to handle daily operations effectively.

They need to be able to take a hands-on approach and be able to ensure the correct implementation of company procedures.

Effective leaders regularly provide direction and guidance and identify areas for performance improvements.

They can assist by offering advice, authorizing a procedural adjustment to deal with a difficult client, or take over and deal with the customer directly.

Management and team leaders are responsible for scheduling work shifts to ensure adequate coverage at all times that the call center is open for operations.

Team leaders need to ensure a high level of employee morale, and this is especially the case in a call center environment.

Addressing customer concerns, trouble-shooting their problems, or providing clear information can be challenging.

Competent call center team leaders encourage their team members to take their job seriously and strive to foster a loyal clientele.

Goal-setting with clear performance indicators facilitates team management and enables clear measurement.

Timely feedback, including rewards and coaching, are important for employee morale.

Effective leadership oversees the hiring and training of staff, which requires a solid understanding of what their company needs from its customer service team.

They need to have a firm grasp of the needs and procedures of the call center operations, a solid understanding of the client-base and be effective communicators.

Another part of the hiring and training duties involves ongoing employee performance evaluation.

Call center team leaders need to be able to monitor how both their group and each member are performing.

They identify ways to increase productivity and customer satisfaction.

An outstanding leader can build knowledgeable and efficient teams, elevate employee morale, and promote solid relationships among team members and between frontline workers and the customers they interact with on a daily basis.

Effective leaders are great motivators who encourage their team members to perform at their optimal levels.

Effective leaders can follow through on inquiries and meet critical deadlines.

Effective leadership requires ongoing access to accurate and timely information, and that is where the importance of call center reporting software comes in.

How to Elevate Leadership in a Call Center

Information gleaned from accurate and timely call center reporting is a crucial component in ensuring the smooth operation of your call center by providing timely and accurate information to all tiers of your call center’s leadership from top managers to team leaders.

Communication between team leaders and managers needs to be clear and precise.

Team leaders must understand the companies core goals and expectations of both themselves and their agents.

Strong leaders also need a clear understanding of their clientele’s demographics.

What does this mean?

Demographics refers to “statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it.”

For the purposes of call center leadership, client demographics refers to marketing, promotion, and anticipating caller needs.

Knowing who your callers are likely to be, including basic information such as their gender, age, marital status, and level of education, helps you know who your agents will be speaking with on a regular basis.

This information can also help you to understand their potential problems and the best way to interact with each caller.

A call center reporting system with customizable demographics helps leaders discover new areas of improvement related to processes.

Accurate, real-time information means there will be less pressure on agents, which improves employee morale and reduces attrition rates.

Effective call center reporting software implements a “big picture” design that helps to contextualize agent performance, making more effective use of team leaders’ time by identifying agents in need of coaching.

Customizable performance indicators based on best-of-class contact centers are instrumental in promoting strong and effective leadership.

Managers, team leaders, and call center agents face a number of challenges and need to identify and learn from their mistakes in a timely manner.

Contact centers have their agents reporting to team leads. There is much team shuffling that goes on throughout the year in contact centers.

Upper management not only needs reports on the agents’ performance, but they also need reports for each team.

Reliable, real-time reports are crucial for them to coach their coaches/team leads effectively.

The challenge for reporting that will promote effective leadership in a contact center workplace is very apparent when upper management looks at their team leads’ performance results.

Reports need to track the historical achievements or shortfalls of their team leads despite regular rotation of agents under their authority.

The historical aspect of their team leads performance needs to remain intact regardless of who is currently overseeing the agent’s work.

In other words, the new team lead’s results will only begin to show the new employee from the moment he/she reports to him/her.

To ensure reporting and analytics continues to provide accurate results for agents (that’s relatively straightforward).

Precise tracking of results by group/category/team requires a database application and structure that tracks the movement of said agents.

A feature that preserves the history of each team lead is built into the Reporting Engine.

Precise tracking that maintains the history of not only agents but of teams or groups is crucial to effective contact center management.

Imagine if contact center experts collaborated to design a top-notch call center reporting software based on best practices for the industry?

Such software would help to identify and resolve difficulties that might arise.

Team leaders need to identify potential problems so that they can provide relevant coaching and training to service agents based on actual need.

Again, reliable information stored and processed through an effective call center reporting software package facilitates reliable leadership and appropriate decision-making.

Reports need to be up to date, accurate, and easy to understand.

Call center leadership, and their teams, are the most familiar with the daily challenges they face and clear communication to assess needs as well as a call center reporting software that users can customize to meet the unique needs of their workplace can play a pivotal role in making this process more effective.

Employee morale is also a crucial area to monitor and manage, as research indicates that “happy workers are between 12 and 20 percent more productive than less-enthused employees.”

Team leaders need to appreciate the importance of employee morale, to listen to agents’ concerns and be mindful of their needs.

Timely feedback, including positive affirmation and rewards for goals met or a job well done, are vital tools that serve to foster employee morale.

You don’t have to worry about maintaining a reporting infrastructure with The Reporting Engine The analytics software has a self serve user interface that allows users to modify and create reports.

Use the contact center reporting software to collect valuable data from multiple sources.

Automation helps to eliminate errors that may be caused by manual intervention.

A good contact center reporting software will include a charting application designed to increase productivity and efficiency.

It should be convenient and user-friendly, providing access to essential and accurate information with a few simple clicks.

Make the most of your team leaders and create a highly motivated workplace.

Many leaders believe that technology alone can help employees improve their capabilities to perform well in their jobs.

But this mistaken assumption could be detrimental to your business operations.

Technology is now a central part of any call center reporting system that could have a significant impact on all levels of the organization.

In the modern business world, successful leaders need to adapt to market fluctuations, cultural, and economic ebbs and flows, and adjust leadership approaches and models.

New approaches target the way business leaders utilize their data resources to make effective decisions.

An effective call center reporting software system is one that provides an exceptional array of user-friendly options to contact center leaders to continuously improve their leadership capabilities using a comprehensive data management system.

As Gilles Beaulac of the Reporting Engine notes:

“Built into The Reporting Engine are over 20 years of contact center management best practices aimed at making better leaders and more positive working environments for your agents.”

Let’s have a look at how the tool helps contact center managers improve their leadership and the overall business performance.

Previously you had to rely on business analysts and technology experts to generate reports.

A self-serve contact center reporting software enables management and team leaders to gain insights from their reports.

The Reporting Engine is a call center application that allows managers or users to analyze complex data quickly.

One useful call center reporting tool is a cloud-based software designed to reduce the costs of creating reports and eliminates dependency on a development team.

Real-time reporting allows your management team to spend more quality time with their people instead of wasting it on multiple reports.

However, The Reporting Engine has made it easier for you to create and get reports whenever you need them.

With the simple and more convenient report generation feature, you can view and share insightful data and information on all aspects of the business with key stakeholders.

Using integrated reports as well as individual reports on financial, sales, and customer data, you can make more accurate, fact-based business decisions.

With The Reporting Engine, you can provide your employees with the ability to collect crucial data from multiple sources using integrated software.

Comprehensive reporting enables agents to collect information with enhanced speed and more accuracy, freeing them from the tedious process of data management.

The efficient collection of data not only saves your employees’ valuable time and effort but also improves their productivity, redirecting their efforts towards more useful and profitable operations.

Call center reporting systems should empower leadership and promote a vibrant and engaged workplace culture.

When leaders spend more time pouring over complicated reports or waiting on IT specialists, they have less time to interact with their agents.

Using an innovative data management solution, leaders can encourage engagement and interaction among team members.

Powerful customized reports that allow users to drill down to specific points in time or navigate to a particular department, team, or agent provide your call center leadership with the information that they need to make solid decisions, identify problems, and create innovative solutions in real-time.

In addition to this, by allowing contact center agents access to a more extensive set of information, you empower them with more control, which also contributes to improving employee engagement.

If you are looking for a comprehensive contact center solution to improve your leadership and the overall performance of your company, contact us today!

With e-mails, instant messaging and online communiqué the functioning of contact centers has largely expanded.

To guarantee the success of customers, contact center solution aids its clients in the sales and promotion of their products and services.

Reflecting on the significance of novel sales prospects, the solution suppliers provide timely response to clientele’s inquiries.

To boost sales and develop market shares, contact center solutions are integrated with contemporary marketing devices that are put forward by the solution providers.

Nowadays, presenting top-notch customer relationship administration services, contact center solution present the ultimate approaches to rapid success.

The chief aim of better and newer versions of contact centers is basically to make the best use of the available opportunities by giving the customers surety regarding their satisfaction and approval.

Your business may be boosting and you might delude yourself into believing that your contact center does not require contact center solutions but believe it or not, contact center solutions assist in further augmenting the progress of a contact center.

It helps in creating a client-centered that solely focuses on the requirements and needs of a client.

The Reporting Engine is a contact center solutions’ application that helps managers or users in examining and evaluating complex data without difficulties.

The Smart Reports help businesses in negotiating and adapting their arrangements and plans to the needs of the clients.

The Reporting Engine’s Smart Reports not only allow contact centers in gaining more insight from their manifold data sources but also allows them in running their business more proficiently.

This helps the business operations in moving a lot faster and saves the analysts from the hassle of programming.

Now that the analysts can focus solely on analyzing, the management team gets to spend more time with their clients instead of frittering it away on developing multiple reports.

Smart Reports create business intelligence dashboards in a way that makes them more explicable to the contact center employees by eradicating the requirement for programmers.

This results in the contact center staff focusing more on the customer relationship by considering their opinions important and basing their operations on them.

This eventually assists them in pleasing and startling their customers.

All in all, if you are looking to impress your contact center customers, you should definitely look into letting The Reporting Engine’s Smart Reports help you out.

But it does take the right ones.

And these key reports need to evolve with the company.

Fundamentally, there are 2 kinds of reports a business benefits from:

1) Reports generated for the purpose of large scale data analysis.

These are commonly known as data mining reports and perform tasks like cluster analysis and anomaly detection.

2) Reports generated to track results of primary goals.

These are known as performance management reports for example.

There never seems to be a shortage in demands for data mining.

Who can resist the benefits of discovering new anomalies or new insight?

Large sums of money are spent in purchasing such systems.

Even larger sums are invested year after year in manpower to design queries and programs to work with data mining systems.

In our constant struggle to keep or grow our market shares, we do well to invest some money in some form of “data mining”.

However, if left unguarded this could become a money pit.

Its lure of so many revenue-generating and cost reducing discoveries may seduce you until your ROI becomes non-existent.

You can safe-guard your investment by being mindful of the following:

a) Lack of basic understanding of corporate goals

b) Disconnected front-line goals

c) Inconsistent and conflicting goals

d) Inter-departmental goal conflicts

e) Lack of principled leadership

f) Lack of clearly defined objectives

The existence of these weaknesses will spiral your data mining costs out of control.

Where that be in countless meetings where people argue with no specific guidance the necessity of one more report.

Conversely we are tempted to put strict rules for people to follow before making requests – these rules may stifle your best problem-solvers.

Companies with smaller budgets may not benefit from data mining but are also sheltered from the additional costs they incur.

On the other hand, fortunately, all companies live with performance reports.

Unfortunately, they also suffer from the same challenges that data mining reports create.

Many companies have their own in-house developers just like the data mining group has.

Because companies evolve and that their markets are constantly shifting, business managers and executives rely heavily on practical insight provided by both types of reports.

So the demand for changes and add-ons will never cease.

How can you increase the flexibility and reduce the costs of having new or modified reports?

1) Clear connected goals from front-line to the top executives.

2) Effective communication of plans.

3) Efficient yet flexible report request guidelines.

4) Don’t underestimate the benefit of a corporate-wide structured problem-solving approach. (There are great one-day courses offered in your city.)

5) Use of third-party reporting software that leverages benefits of data mining and performance reports, offering complete flexibility to any non-programmer in the company to generate their own analysis or reports when they see fit.

Check out: The Reporting Engine

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

This is true of every aspect of our businesses.

Remember that it also applies to our expenses with regard to your data mining and performance report requirements.

Our operations are running relatively smooth.

We achieve our goals month after month and year after year.

We even manage to improve quality and productivity.

Our employees are happy to work for us and our customers remain loyal year after year.

What else could you want? Why would you want to “mess with success”?

Well, if you insist, perhaps you want to sustain these results at a lower cost?

Or maybe improve these results at lower or same cost?

Perhaps your customers would be just as loyal with a slight increase in wait time making your shareholders even happier with increased profits due to productivity gains?

“Don’t fix what is not broken” is an old adage that has a lot of truth yet we must all be careful not to let complacency cozily settle in.

We all know that in order to stay ahead of the competition we must continue to surpass ourselves.

To surpass ourselves we need to know our business thoroughly.

We need to know where we are.

We need to know where we have been.

We need to know our strong points and we need to know our weak ones.

We can leverage our strengths and proceed to transform weaknesses into strengths.

“Knowledge is power” – the knowledge of your strengths and of your weaknesses – the knowledge to ascertain your areas of success and to discover new areas of improvement.

Does your business intelligence, your data-mining, or whatever reporting system you use continue to help you discover new knowledge, or does it leave you staring at the same over and over again?

Discovering new areas of improvements is a challenge in and of itself, yet discovering solutions to improve these areas is quite another.

The key is to know how to synthesize the tons of data stored everywhere in your business.

Most businesses do not have a shortage of data.

The shortcoming is in the expertise to synthesize it into insight that can help guide you to make even better decisions.

What can you do?

1) Ensure you company goals are aligned with the corporate mission.

2) Build contextual goals for each department and ensure there are no inter-departmental goal conflicts.

3) Build hierarchical goals for each role within each department. Ensure these goals connect to the departmental goals and the corporate mission.

4) Communicate the goals clearly to the employees. Ensure they understand the rationale behind each goal.

5) Solicit employees for their input in uncovering and discovering new areas of improvement.

6) Corroborate their ideas with data.

7) Guide your business analysts teams. Set expectations for them to analyze data relating to the goals.

8) Begin to categorize results of your employees, your queues, your departments.

Categories such as year of service, education level, schedule, training, skills, experience level etc.. And try to extract data by categories and discover new ways to see your business.

9) If you cannot afford to hire business analysts to perform such analysis, consider investing in a reporting software like The Reporting Engine by Emetrix Systems, where it lets you categorize your data for further analysis.

10) Guide your Team Leaders, Managers, Business Analysts to take a step back and to look at the forests, not just the trees.

Help them draw business decisions from a bigger picture.

11) The power of categorizing is much like the functioning of the human mind – it constantly tries to reduce tons of information into “categories” for example “chair” rolls up into “furniture”, and “furniture” into “household goods” etc…

12) The art of conceptualizing (categorizing) is a distinct human trait that allows us to retain and process more information in order to increase our knowledge.

Leverage categories in your business.

No matter how successful we are, the marketplace always requires the best out of each of us.

Having a way to discover opportunities for surpassing yourself is going to be a key to your future success.

Don’t sit on your laurels, get up and look at your business for the first time.

Start building categories, start building knowledge and start ensuring continued success.

Employees hear “decrease quality” when they hear the boss ask for increased productivity.

Many leaders asking for better quality are afraid to decrease productivity.

I have witnessed many companies where employees became the de facto “defenders” of quality and the leaders the defenders of productivity.

Not a very encouraging place to be.

Productivity and quality is not a unique challenge to call centers, but the two values have a particular make-up in the contact centers.

ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) systems provide easy access to productivity metrics.

Furthermore, easily accessible metrics makes productivity the more objective of the two measurements.

Objectivity is still possible with quality standards but remains a little more demanding to define than productivity standards.

To avoid creating this elusive dichotomy within your contact center, here are a few suggestions:

Do not underestimate the power of aligning your metrics/goals with your corporate mission.

People tend to readily follow leaders that demonstrate evidence that they know where they are going.

When goals and metrics are detached, or appear detached from any bigger picture, people tend to not take them seriously.

Do not change your values on a regular basis.

If your values/goals are connected to a corporate mission, they are less likely to change unless the mission changes.

Stability of objectives inspires confidence and trust.

Lack of consistency projects a lack of commitment; people learn by example and will imitate this lack of commitment.

“…Serenity to accept the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other..”

Although, a great corporate mission statement will rarely change, it might be a question of survival to re-evaluate goals.

Have the wisdom to know the proper time and method to apply the appropriate changes to new goals. Keep them aligned.

When changes are deemed necessary, do not underestimate a grand communication plan.

People will respect change and adapt to change favorably when they understand the rationale.

Be respectful to their intellect and spend the required time to ensure your changes are explained, and make sure that new goals are still aligned correctly with mission.

Pay now or pay later.

When a conflict is perceived between productivity and quality deal with it immediately.

Do not ignore it – it is viral.

People will listen to you when they feel you have understood them first.

As Stephen Covey said “Seek first to understand, then seek to be understood”.

Have discussions with your people, ask questions, genuinely seek to understand what their point of view is.

Act like they truly have the best interest of your customers at heart.

You will be surprised at what they have to share.

Get your employees involved in finding solutions to set proper balanced goals.

Build empowerment.

It is not in the “or” but in the “and” that you will find the synergy.

Always demonstrate the value of productivity goals and the value of quality goals.

Always include both values anytime any one of them is at play.

And explain how they each play a critical role in ensuring the success of “their” company.

Be transparent.

Statistics are an integral part of any business.

They are superb when you want to understand your market and your performance.

They are invaluable when you have no way of knowing the future outcome of a given situation.

They help us make predictions through simple or complex analysis of historical data.

They allow us to calculate probabilities.

They enable us to make decisions in the absence of information.

With the right reporting tools its likely you will reveal areas of improvements unbeknownst to you.

The Bad:

While some folks have sophisticated databases, multidimensional data-mining tools and perhaps even powerful reporting tools, they may inadvertently omit to include first-hand observations in their decision-making process.

If you have a way to determine what is going on rather than limiting yourself to calculations of what could be going on, then including observations of first-hand experience will go a long way.

If you want to know how your agents are doing, spending time looking at what they are doing along with analyzing their statistics will provide the best picture.

Be sure to balance and leverage real observations and statistical data.

Each method on its own does not contain the same effectiveness as when you combine them.

Analysis backed by observation is a powerful persuader.

The Ugly:

In the world of call centers there are a multitude of different ACD systems and each comes with its own data field names and its own methodologies of tracking activities and performance indicators.

This very fact creates mass confusion and ultimately prevents your call center from reaching its full potential.

Despite user groups created for each ACD system, managers continue to be challenged in attempting to get the right story on their reporting fields.

To add salt to the wound, many business analysts then build elaborate reports on the misunderstood data fields.

They say “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”; imagine well-intentioned managers measuring the wrong things because they fail to grasp the nuances and complexities of the fields in their reports/databases.

Far worst is the fact that most of these misinformed managers are absolutely clueless that they are interpreting their statistics incorrectly.

Unfortunately, in my career I have had to inform too many such managers who were dumbfounded by the discoveries.

If you feel you have been trying to improve on a particular aspect of your call center and never seem to quite achieve it, then I urge you to consider facing the possibility that you too are a victim of this inconspicuous threat.

The Antidote:

It remains a challenge for managers, especially new ones, to navigate through the myriad of indicators and methodologies of tracking, here are some suggestions that might help you dissipate some of the fog and limit the damage:

1. Balance statistics with real-life observations;
2. When in doubt, perform real-life time and motion analysis whenever possible;
3. Conduct regular calibration sessions: compare statistics to reality;
4. Keep it simple: stick with basic indicators;
5. Review ACD lexicon and feel free to consult with supplier;
6. Use generic call center reporting software: their experts had to learn most ACD systems methodologies and logic;
7. Seek out expert call center consultants with workforce management experience;
8. Do not ignore your intuition when things don’t look right;

If you make first-hand observation your ally it will always come to your rescue.

They say “you can make statistics say anything”, well “reality” will always help keep your statistics honest, but more importantly to keep them real, useful and effective.

Collaborate with reality and corroborate your statistics.

In our hustle and bustle day-to-day bump and grind we may even miss the obvious signs.

Here are 3 fundamental reasons why employees do not perform:

1. They do NOT KNOW what/how to do certain things yet they care about doing things right.
2. They KNOW but do not care.
3. They do not know and do not care.

From these 3 reasons you can derive a few important strategies to help your business.

The obvious one being: making sure you hire people who care about their performance.

But if you inherit employees and had no say in the hiring matter, your avenues remaining will rely heavily on your leadership skills in order to get your employees to “care”.

Generally the good ones care when YOU care about them.

It is no longer a good leadership approach (not sure it ever was one) to rely on “fear” to motivate people to do a better job just because so many people are standing outside looking for a job.

We must be so much better at leading people.

When you lead people with clear expectations along with treating them with respect and ensuring you act fairly at all times, generally you will see employees turn around and begin to care about their performance.

(You’ve got to ask yourself how did they get to this point anyway?)

Empowering your employees by catching them doing something right and praising the work will go even further.

Make it your business to learn what motivates each person individually – make it personal.

Not everyone thrives on the same kind of rewards or recognition – just because you like to be praised in front of other people does not mean they do.

Once you have employees who care about their work, you must ensure you supply them with the knowledge they need to do their jobs.

The place we always look first for this is the new hire training and usually we are pretty darn good at that.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Too many companies rely mainly on their initial training and struggle unknowingly.

Once employees have completed the initial training, remember how much a human brain can retain after so much new information has been force fed in a short amount of time.

You need to make sure you have some form of follow-up program to fill the gaps that may exist the first day on the job.

This can be in the form of having the new employees sit together and assign a trainer or supervisor or senior employee to answer questions while they are doing their duties.

And you could have weekly questionnaires(quiz) to help them remember important things.

Keep their minds always learning and reviewing their training.

With existing employees who have already been through the training, track their current standings, i.e. find out how much they know and what they don’t know.

You need to know what they do not know in order to create the right follow-up training for your senior people.

Re-test everyone regularly, and customize their coaching plans according to each of their own weaknesses and strengths.

Throughout the coaching/follow-up programs regularly check the “care” barometer of your employees including your management teams.

Tweak your programs and leadership skills as you move along; sometimes you may need to modify your training program or your follow-up programs or simply adjust your leadership approach or maybe all of the above.

Sometimes you may even have to make the tough call and terminate someone’s employment – there are bad apples sometimes.

Never lose sight of the fact that once your employees care about their work they will be ready to move mountains for you – just be sure they KNOW how to do it.

Everyone is also painstakingly aware of the disadvantages of focusing too much on this indicator.

Some experts and some companies have decided not to consider this factor at all using the argument that the cost and ramifications of managing handling time far outweighs its benefits.

For those who cannot afford to try this exciting idea, this article will provide you with some suggestions to alleviate the pressures brought about by managing productivity.

As if managing productivity was not enough of a challenge, the telephone system your call center operates exacerbates the issue.

I will recall this issue later.

Let’s just take a moment to be clear on what are the usual elements considered in handling time.

Handling time is meant to track how long it takes an agent to serve a customer by telephone.

This means from the moment the agent answers the phone to the moment the agent is ready to answer the next call.

The time between those two events is what we all refer as the handling time.

There are different states within your telephone systems that can occur during that time.

Your agent can be in a conversation with a customer, can put the customer on hold, or once the customer hangs up, the agent can be in the after-call work state.

While the customer is on hold, or while the agent is in the after-call state, the agent can also make telephone calls – either internal or external.

The mistake I believe some call center managers make is to try and put expectations/goals on each of these states.

I hold that this creates much more pressure on the agents than is necessary and this contributes to productivity’s bad name.

Whether an agent is more comfortable writing notes while the customer is on the phone or during the after-call work or while customer is on hold, does not alter the overall handling time and therefore efforts to manage each state are useless when it comes to managing productivity.

Some may argue that the customer experience might be a whole lot different depending on which method is used, and I conquer, but if you are concerned about achieving certain operating expense goals you might want to consider my suggestion.

At the very least, you might choose to keep your goals/expectations on the amount of time an agent puts a customer on hold, but please remove the expectations from all other states.

(NB.: Pay particular attention to your telephone system’s calculations of Hold Time and Talk Time. Some telephone systems separate the hold time from the talk time, other include the hold time in the total talk time – so beware of double counting it).

How does achieving your productivity goals while removing pressure off of the team leaders and agents sound?

Great? Right?!

Then go ahead, globalize your objectives.

There are other steps you can implement to increase productivity while increasing empowerment.

The key is to think through your company’s mission statement, your core values and by understanding how important it is to streamline your goals accordingly.