Business intelligence at your fingertips: how utilising data can transform your...

Wednesday, 28 April 2021 14:50

Business intelligence at your fingertips: how utilising data can transform your contact centre into a business insights hub

Daniel Harding, Director Australia Operations, MaxContact

Guest opinion by Daniel Harding, Director – Australia Operations at MaxContact; "Every business running a modern, cloud based contact centre has access to a wealth of data and it makes sense to exploit it to the full,"

Heard the saying that data is ‘the new oil’ of the twenty-first century? Coined by British mathematician Clive Humby back in 2006, the phrase refers to the fact that, refined and analysed, data is an enormously valuable commodity. The business insights it yields can be used to contain costs, improve productivity, enhance customer experience and inform the decision making process.

Big businesses are already alive to its potential: just under a third of ICT chiefs in Australia and New Zealand nominated data analytics as the top game changing technology for their organisations, in the Gartner 2020 CIO Agenda survey.

But the benefits that can accrue from a deep dive into the data aren’t confined to the top end of town. Many small and medium sized enterprises have a rich, and frequently under-exploited, ‘data well’, ripe for the tapping.

It’s the contact centre. Invest in a premium, cloud-based platform with intelligent reporting and analytics features and you’re in the position to optimise your contact centre operations and provide valuable insights to other business units too.

Working out what matters most to your business

So, what sort of insights should you be seeking? That’s the high tech equivalent of asking ‘how long is a piece of string?’.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to the number of ways you can ‘slice and dice’ the data at your disposal but more isn’t necessarily better when it comes to generating reports. Choosing five or six key things to focus on prevents information overload and allows you to home in on the things that will make a real difference to your operation – and your bottom line.

The metrics that matter to you will likely be determined by the nature of your business and the chief operational function of your contact centre. In some enterprises, it’s there to generate sales and provide customer service. In others, it exists primarily as a revenue collection hub.

Here are a few ways you can draw on the power of data to benefit your contact centre and your enterprise at large.

Honing your marketing campaigns

Wondering how effective your digital marketing campaigns are in generating enquiries and sales? Using data analytics to map your contact centre activity patterns against social media, SMS and email promotions can provide valuable insight into what works best for your business and what doesn’t. That intelligence can be used to inform the timing, frequency and content of future offers.

Optimising your rostering

Looking to contain the costs associated with running your contact centre, without compromising on service levels? Providing fast, responsive service without blowing the budget has historically been challenging for business owners but digging in to the data can make it less so. Examining your interaction volumes – the number of calls, emails and messages you receive each hour, day and week – will allow you to optimise your roster and get maximum value from your investment in human resources.

Gauging the ‘vibe’

Not sure how well your contact centre team performs under pressure, what prompts a customer to escalate a complaint, or how scrupulously your agents are sticking to prescribed scripts when they make or answer calls? Accurate data can help to improve agents’ performance and you don’t need to make a full-time job out of monitoring their calls to secure it. By deploying speech analytics technology, you can highlight positive and negative words and phrases that enable you to measure the sentiment in a call and obtain an overall view of the quality of your interactions.

Using data to drive your business forward

Today’s cloud contact centre platforms are a world away from the clunky, complex, inhouse solutions of yore. Drawing on the data analytics capabilities of your system to drive efficiency and improvements, in the contact centre and throughout the enterprise, will help your business optimise its performance and respond to market conditions.

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