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contact centers, depicted as “best-
in-class,” outpaces all others, includ-
ing year-to-year improvements in
revenue, retention, satisfaction, cost
per customer contact, first call reso-
lution and number of SLAs met.
All told, Aberdeen cites three main
categories of performance benefits
that intelligent contact centers pro-
vide. For starters, they enjoy superior
customer experience results indicated
by the ability to decrease the number
of customer complaints year over year
(7.9 percent for best-in-class vs. -1.0
percent for all others).
“As such, they observe substan-
tial annual growth in customer re-
tention rates and customer lifetime
value,” argues Minkara.
Secondly are the benefits that
relate to operational results, includ-
ing metrics such as agent utilization,
number of quality SLAs met and aver-
age handle time. “Managing opera-
tions to improve these KPIs ultimately
help contact centers reduce customer
service costs,” continues Minkara.
Aberdeen figures show “that
intelligent contact centers maximiz-
ing operational efficiencies reduce
service costs by 5.2 percent year-
over-year, compared to 1.1 percent
increase by all others,” said Minka-
ra’s research report. Put together,
the results suggest that intelligent
contact centers improve the cus-
tomer service experience while
simultaneously lowering customer
service costs.
Even better, the third area of
benefits is financial results. Aber-
deen figures suggest that companies
with best-in-class contact centers
enjoy more than twice the year-over-
year growth in annual company rev-
enue than the all others group (12.7
percent vs. 5.6 percent).
The Cornerstones
of Intelligence
So how does a company deter-
mine the IQ of its customer support
resources? Aberdeen researchers
have identified four building blocks
that businesses can use to help
construct a performance-enhancing,
intelligent contact center.
Being that customer support
resides in an omni-channel world,
where multiple systems (CRM, ACD,
IVR) and channels (phone, SMS, live
chat, email) are integrated across
the enterprise and experience to
provide a unified view of the cus-
tomer, it’s no surprise that the first
building block is the seamless flow
of data across the organization, or
workflow optimization. And one of
the primary upsides of workflow
optimization is a personalized cus-
tomer experience.
In turn, intelligent contact cen-
ters are 31 percent more likely to
use customer contact data to direct
customers to the appropriate chan-
nels, show Aberdeen surveys. “This
is done by using ACD data in com-
bination with account data within
the CRM system to optimize cus-
tomer routing,” Minkara explained.
Companies also can build spe-
cific workflows so clients within
higher-spending categories are
quickly connected to a high-touch
channel (i.e. phone) without having
to go through IVR, or a workflow
can route clients to a preferred
support channel, assuming that
information is available within the
CRM platform. Companies with
intelligence contact centers also
are 61 percent more likely to route
support interactions based on com-
plexity, showed Aberdeen.
Beyond customer interaction,
optimized data flows can help busi-
nesses streamline operations, such
as with agent scheduling. Aberdeen
found that intelligent contact centers
are 77 percent more likely than all
others to use self-service data when
forecasting agent demand across all
channels, meaning companies active-
ly monitor the number of customers
using self-service portals such as a
website, IVR or an online community,
and apply this insight when project-
ing agent demand across channels.
The next principal component
of intelligence in the contact center,
says Aberdeen, is the empowerment
of agents.
“Data shows that intelligent contact
centers truly understand the impor-
tance of empowering employees with
timely and relevant insights needed to
do their jobs,” said Minkara.
Source: Aberdeen Group
Performance of Intelligent Contact Centers Outpace “All Others”
Year-over-year percent change
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
-2%
12.7%
5.6%
9.9%
4.0%
8.5%
3.2%
8.3%
7.9%
5.2%
-1.8%
-1.0%
-1.1%
Annual
company
revenue
Customer
retention
Customer
lifetime value
Number of
quality SLAs
met
Improvement
in number of
customer
complaints
Improvement
in average cost
per customer
contact
Best-in-Class
All Others
12
THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S
PLAYBOOK