The Top Six Considerations When Evaluating On-Demand Call Center Technologies

Transcription

1 White Paper The Top Six Considerations When Evaluating On-Demand Call Center Technologies Executive Summary Enterprise call centers are at a crossroads with regards to their technology infrastructure. As management attempts to balance the goals of improving the quality of customer interactions while lowering costs, they are often hindered by outdated technology that constrains their business users from responding quickly to business change. Even if these companies were to invest millions of dollars in costly upgrades, it would not result in significant improvements in call center agility, efficiency, and effectiveness. That s why businesses are turning to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or on-demand technologies to step up the functionality and flexibility of their call centers. A new generation of on-demand call center solutions now offers innovative ways to address the top challenges and priorities associated with managing call centers, including: Optimizing infrastructure to manage fluctuations in call volumes Obtaining integrated visibility into call center operations Rapidly responding to changes in business conditions Optimizing agent workforce productivity with advanced tools and virtualization Delivering a uniform customer experience across all channels This white paper discusses recent technology innovations in the SaaS model that support mission-critical areas of the enterprise with high reliability and security. It also discusses the top six considerations you need to keep in mind when selecting an on-demand call center platform. You ll learn how LiveOps addresses each of these areas of concern in an innovative way that s been proven successful in our own call center as well as those of our customers. 1

2 Contents Executive Summary p. 1 On-Demand Technology: Ready to Meet Enterprise Call Center Requirements p. 3 On-Demand Technology Has Matured p. 3 Successful Early Adopters p. 4 Top Six Considerations When Evaluating On-Demand Call Center Platforms p Security p Availability p Integration p Maturity and Unification of Feature Sets p Deployment Flexibility to Support Gradual Innovation p Customer-Proven Technology p. 6 How LiveOps Virtual Call Center Measures Up p. 6 LiveOps Technology Stack p. 6 How LiveOps Addresses the Top Six Considerations p Advanced, Multi-Level Security p High Availability p Simplified Integration with Existing Systems p Mature, Unified Feature Sets p Support for Innovation at Your Own Pace p Customer-Proven Technology p. 10 For More Information p. 10 2

3 The Top Six Considerations When Evaluating On-Demand Call Center Technologies On-Demand Technology: Ready to Meet Enterprise Call Center Requirements Call centers have reached a crossroads with their technology infrastructures. Aging technologies, which have served well for many years, are reaching their end of life and forcing costly upgrade decisions. As they evaluate their technology options, many companies are deciding to break away from the constraints of disparate, fragmented technology in their existing call centers. They want a flexible call center solution that helps them react quickly to business changes such as spikes in call volumes and more aggressive customer interaction goals. At the same time, the global economy and relentless pressure to differentiate their business have heightened executive awareness of the quality of customer interactions. Economic drivers are also pushing management to reduce call center costs: the ripple effect from the credit crunch has caused companies to tighten budgets as economic uncertainty looms. As a result, businesses are relying on on-demand technology as a way to shift from high up-front capital expenditures to an operational expenditures model. It s no surprise, then, that on-demand call center technology is attracting considerable attention including yours, given you are reading this paper. Often referred to as Softwareas-a-Service (SaaS), on-demand solutions are driving productivity in other areas of the enterprise, including CRM, human resources, and finance, and the trend is toward use in call centers as well. In fact, Gartner predicts that adoption of on-demand software models will increase, stating that: Internet technologies and a renewed interest in the hosted delivery and operating model offer early adopters the opportunity to innovate and benefit from significantly reduced deployment times. 1 On-Demand Technology Has Matured The concept of network-based, hosted call centers is not new. This type of call center was first offered as a managed service in the late 1980s. However, it failed to gain wide acceptance because service providers were unable to address enterprise concerns around complexity, lack of flexibility, and most importantly, control. But new innovations, including Java, Internet technologies, open source, and distributed grid computing, have been proven across the enterprise as well as in massive commerce hubs such as ebay. These technologies have reached the call center, addressed enterprise concerns, and opened the way for organizations to seriously consider adopting on-demand solutions. Advanced platforms can: Provide enterprise-grade security and availability Provide scalability and variable capacity in an as-needed model Deliver greater operational efficiencies by implementing new, deceptively simple improvements that radically improve customer interactions Make a single-vendor, single-platform solution possible 1 Drew Kraus, Research Vice-President of Enterprise Communications Applications for Gartner 3

4 Provide unprecedented visibility and control to business users Leverage continuous innovation through IP-based technology In short, on-demand models have matured to the point where they can easily support mission-critical call center requirements and provide access to unique capabilities and ongoing innovation. Successful Early Adopters Did you know that a substantial number of early adopters are realizing the value of on-demand technology to drive labor productivity, reduce the costs of traditional customer-premise equipment (CPE) models, and drive down facilities costs? They are also experiencing faster and continuous innovation, as well as greater return on investment by using technology that offers unprecedented simplicity. On-demand solutions are easy to use, and business users can reconfigure them on the fly. Because of these trends, analysts are expecting rapid growth in on-demand call center solutions. For example, Datamonitor predicts that hosted agent positions will grow at 45.3% compounded annual growth rate between 2007 and 2012, which will amount to well over 1.5 million hosted agent positions by Top Six Considerations When Evaluating On-Demand Call Center Platforms Not all on-demand call center platforms are the same, so you need to carefully evaluate your options. The traditional areas of concern around availability, security, and integration, for example, are still relevant, as not all providers of on-demand solutions have necessarily addressed these concerns with the right technologies and best practices. Other concerns for example, ease of implementation and breadth of feature sets are also important to consider as you investigate on-demand technology. 1. Security When evaluating on-demand technology for your call center, you need to ensure that the on-demand solution you choose addresses security in all the layers of the stack, including the physical, network, application and data levels. Each layer plays a vital role in protecting your organization in the following ways: Physical security: Because your data resides in a network operations center hosted by the SaaS vendor, you need to ensure that their data center is protected by several security perimeters, such as mantraps, surveillance cameras, and security staff. You should also enquire about how many security experts they have on staff and qualify their credentials, as best practices are typically driven from the top down. Network security: Before selecting a SaaS vendor, ensure that their network is protected by multi-layer firewalls and intrusion detection systems. Weak network security is one of the biggest threats to your corporate data. Systems- and application-level security: It s also important to ensure that security is an integral part of how your potential SaaS vendor designed and built their call center technology not just an afterthought. Effective security at system and application levels requires careful planning and execution through every stage of the software development lifecycle. In addition, developers and testers need to perform thorough code testing to prove that their software adheres to industry-standard security processes. You should also fully understand their data encryption standards, as not all vendors are able to meet the industry standards and can inadvertently place your organization at risk. Data security: You should also explore how your potential SaaS vendor handles data encryption. Many vendors still do not encrypt their customers sensitive data, which exposes customers to unnecessary risk. 2. Availability Mission-critical call center applications and platforms that take a distributed grid approach have essentially eliminated the concept of a single point of failure, as well as minimized the impact of any type of failure. Missioncritical components are protected by hot failover, while other components are highly distributed to ensure low impact of failure. When delivered on demand, these solutions can provide higher availability than even on-premise solutions can offer. When evaluating on-demand technology for your call center, ensure that 4

5 your vendor has designed a solution for mission-critical availability. Ask about their service-level agreements and their maintenance windows (for example, on which days do they occur, at what time, and how many times a quarter). Any down time of more than an hour or two every three months is most likely unsuitable for your business, as it will impact the ability for your call center to answer customer calls. You should also get an understanding of their architecture and the likelihood of single point of failure, as well as the extent of the impact of failure should it occur. Generally, you don t want a solution with a monolithic architecture, as this leads to a higher probability of single point of failure (and also increases the impact of any failure). You will achieve the highest availability when you choose a SaaS provider who has: A highly distributed, redundant architecture Multiple, geographically redundant data centers and the ability to provide fully redundant operations centers for any disaster recovery in a true, active-to-active configuration Operational excellence and investments in proven, high-caliber staff and carrier-grade equipment 100% control over the code base and a proven depth of understanding of the code (This is only possible if the code has been built from the ground up by the team that manages it.) Automatic failover across multiple carriers, which eliminates down time due to any carrier outages Very few companies whose core competency is not the call center can afford to pay for this level of redundancy, operational excellence, and mission-critical availability. 3. Integration When evaluating SaaS options for your call center, understand how potential vendors plan to integrate with your existing call center and enterprise applications, as well as the expected cost of the integration. For the easiest, lowest-cost integration, choose a SaaS vendor that provides open APIs and pre-packaged integrations. SaaS vendors that have built their solution using a serviceoriented architecture (SOA) often offer accelerated integration with enterprise applications. Those vendors using an integrated, Web services-based architecture can essentially turn your call center into a web service, which further accelerates integration of their on-demand call center functionality with your existing, on-premise applications. 4. Maturity and Unification of Feature Sets The maturity and integration of feature sets among SaaS vendors varies considerably. As you evaluate providers, look for those service providers offering an end-to-end, integrated solution that supports the full call center lifecycle from recruiting and scheduling to management and call routing. Otherwise, you ll be forced to integrate missing functionality using point-to-point integration, which drives up costs and ultimately limits visibility and control. The goal is to make full use of SaaS and SOA-based platforms, which, when fully exploited by vendors, enables them to offer you diverse, highly useful functionality as part of a unified, soup-to-nuts, on-demand call center solution. Ideally, you want to be able to implement this functionality in an array of configurations individually or in groups to best suit the needs of your organization. 5. Deployment Flexibility to Support Gradual Innovation The beauty of on-demand call center technology is that it doesn t require a massive rip-and-replace effort just to try it out. You don t have to make massive investments in technology and expertise because it offers a low-risk, pay-as-you-go model. As you evaluate different SaaS providers, however, take into consideration the level of flexibility you have in deploying their platform. Can you innovate at your own pace by simply leveraging selected functionality to enhance an existing call center? Or are you forced to deploy the entire platform all at once? Can you roll out the solution to specific line groups or for certain call types rather than as part of a blanket rollout? Ideally, you want as much flexibility as possible one of the key benefits that SaaS models can potentially provide. Find out if your potential vendors enable you to implement all at once, in stages, or feature by feature as needed. 5

6 6. Customer-Proven Technology When evaluating on-demand technology for your call center, ask to speak with reference customers and find out how happy they are with their on-demand solution. This is perhaps the best measure of your potential satisfaction with each vendor. Find out how many customers are currently using this solution, and how long they ve been using it. Ask to talk to as many references as possible, and verify that the provider offers customer-proven technology you can trust with your business. The following section describes how LiveOps has addressed these areas and created a robust, on-demand call center platform that successfully supports our own business, as well as the needs of our enterprise customers. In addition, over 200 customers and over 28,000 agents depend on our on-demand call center platform to manage over 270 million minutes of talk time per year. Our platform ensures that we can consistently meet the strictest service level agreements (SLAs) both internally and for our enterprise customers. We use the platform to recruit and onboard agents, educate and certify them, route calls, monitor and improve agent performance, and track performance in real time. Since we rely on the platform as much as (and potentially more than) our customers, we continuously invest in it. Our experts develop new functionality to simplify the job of managing agents, routing calls, and driving performance. We also leverage our experience managing the world s largest virtual call center to develop and share best practices so our customers can use the platform and its accompanying application suite to achieve new levels of customer service and operational efficiency. LiveOps Technology Stack As shown in Figure 1, we ve created a technology stack that supports every aspect of a call center. Our suite uniquely provides end-to-end visibility and comes fully integrated so you can avoid costly systems integration. It also offers a single user interface (UI), which reduces training costs. The LiveOps stack starts with a robust telephony backbone. The entire stack is How LiveOps Virtual Call Center Measures Up At LiveOps, we brought together leading IP telephony innovators from Tellme, as well as Internet architecture innovators from Netscape, to build a call center platform from the ground up that s designed to enable highly distributed call centers with unprecedented efficiencies. We operate the world s largest virtual call center using our on-demand technology and have first-hand experience managing the pressures and complexities of day-to-day call center operations. And because our own business depends on optimal, rock-solid performance, we designed and built our on-demand call center platform to deliver highly scalable, mission-critical call center services. Figure 1: The LiveOps Technology Stack 6

7 wrapped with a tight security infrastructure that keeps data secure every step of the way. Layered on top of this are open Web services application programming interfaces (APIs) and an SOA architecture that enables easy integration with legacy call center applications and infrastructure, as well as supporting unique business processes. We ve developed a core interactive voice response (IVR) system and routing engine that can route every call to the best agent across all of your call centers (virtualized routing), as well as unique functionality (called Secure Exchange) to securely capture and store confidential customer information. In addition, we provide a suite of applications that manages the agent lifecycle from cradle to grave: recruiting, elearning, agent management and collaboration, quality monitoring, and reporting. How LiveOps Addresses the Top Six Considerations The following sections describe how LiveOps addresses the top six considerations when evaluating on-demand call center platforms. LiveOps provides: Advanced, multi-level security Enterprise-grade high availability Simplified integration with existing systems Mature, unified feature sets Support for innovation at your own pace Customer-proven technology 1. Advanced, Multi-Level Security Security has always been an important aspect of our own call center in 2007 alone, we collected 15 million credit card numbers, over 1 million bank account numbers, and over 100,000 social security numbers during 270 million minutes of talk time. To protect this information, we ve invested heavily in developing a defense-indepth security program that carefully addresses all layers of security, including the following. Independent Certification The LiveOps platform is regularly audited by independent third parties and is fully compliant with the twelve security domains of PCI-DSS Level 1 service providers and PCI standards. This credit card processing compliance requires secure data storage and strong policy and compliance measures. Our clients some of the largest enterprises in the world,representing financial services, pharmaceutical and high tech industries also regularly test and audit the security of the LiveOps platform to ensure that it meets the security requirements for their industry. Physical Security Controls to protect sensitive information include five security perimeters, including mantraps with two layers of biometrics; up to 500 surveillance cameras supported by infrared, ultrasonic and photoelectric motion sensors; and 24x7 armed ex-military and law enforcement staff. Network Security Our secure network architecture includes multi-layer firewalls, access control lists, data On-Demand in Action: The LiveOps Virtual Call Center We use our on-demand call center platform every day to optimize the performance of the LiveOps call center, which: Manages 270 million minutes of talk time per year Provides 99.99% availability measured end-to-end, using the strictest standards including calls dropped by carriers Maintains the highest levels of security with sensitive customer data: in 2007 the LiveOps call center securely collected 15 million credit card numbers, over 1 million bank account numbers, and over 100,000 social security numbers Uses Web services and published APIs to integrate with centralized premise routing systems and other legacy applications 7

8 integrity systems, and intrusion detection systems that are monitored 24x7 by the LiveOps-staffed Security Operations Center (SOC). Changes to the system or a file name are tracked and monitored around the clock. The multi-layered firewalls delineate a demilitarized zone (DMZ), both to protect and restrict access into the DMZ from the public Internet, as well as to protect the LiveOps network from any unauthorized access from within the DMZ. In addition, all access to the LiveOps production network requires full two-factor authentication for additional protection of sensitive customer data. Once access is granted, LiveOps captures and records all keystrokes and screen views to further ensure against unauthorized activity. Keystrokes and screen views are audited in an ongoing basis in compliance with LiveOps rigorous security standards. Application-Level Security Our on-demand platform offers secure, segmented, role-based authentication that allows you to specify access permissions for different users down to a very granular level. Data Security At LiveOps, data is protected at all key aspects of the lifecycle (storage, processing and transmission) using 256-bit AES encryption and the standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). In addition, LiveOps offers several unique capabilities to ensure that your data and your customers data remain secure. For example, LiveOps allows callers to se provide sensitive personal information in a secure manner by preventing agents from hearing or accessing that data. Agent-Level Security LiveOps also helps you protect data from your agents. Any data deemed confidential can be stored within our patented Secure Exchange vault, which meets all PCI requirements and protects sensitive data, such as credit cards, PINs and social security numbers, at all phases. Agents can only view data that the client deems necessary for them to view. Another key component of the LiveOps platform is our Secure Desktop, which enables you to help ensure the security of all data that agents handle. The platform provides each agent with a secure, virtual workspace, or desktop, that allows agents to work in an encrypted and protected environment. It also disables cut-and-paste features to help prevent screen captures and help prevent agents from printing data or saving it to fixed and removable drives. In addition, Secure Desktop ensures that only agent computers that meet LiveOps rigorous security standards are allowed to log on. Every time an agent s computer attempts to connect to Secure Desktop, it must complete in-depth antivirus, personal firewall, system integrity, and service pack compliance checks. Secure Desktop can also help detect and block key loggers and screen scraper viruses as they execute in real-time. All agent desktops can be monitored and managed by the LiveOps Secure Desktop Dashboard, an enterprise management tool which LiveOps customers can access on a 24x7 basis. Finally, LiveOps has joined the BITS Shared Assessments Program and will co-chair with Citibank and KPMG its Technical Development Committee (TDC). The TDC was created by leading US banks and audit firms to assess the risk to financial service providers from a security perspective. All CEOs from the top 100 banks are members. 2. High Availability Because our on-demand call center platform is mission critical for so many organizations including our own we ve taken a unique architecture approach that uses a distributed grid of redundant hardware. This architecture dramatically reduces the probability of a single point of failure, and it ensures high availability with up-time as high as 99.99% (as measured end-to-end, including calls dropped by carriers). We also use geographically redundant data centers arranged in active-active configuration, which provides fully redundant operation centers for any disaster recovery. And finally, we ve created a robust telephony backbone with over 18,000 ports and offer multi-carrier termination with redundant connectivity, which eliminates downtime that could be caused by carrier outages. The result is an infrastructure with more redundancy and mission-critical availability than any enterprise would want to invest in unless call center services was their core competency. 3. Simplified Integration with Existing Systems LiveOps recognizes that enterprise organizations have existing infrastructures that they want to extend, so we 8

9 6. Building a Community Communication & Feedback Collaboration & Sharing Community Portal 1. Selection and On-boarding Selection Auditioning Evaluation 5. Measuring and Quality Management Performance Scorecards Real-time Reporting Auditing and Monitoring 2. Certification Initial Training On-going Training Certification 4. Routing to the Best Resource Skill-sets/Profile Configuration Performance based Routing On-going Profile Management 3. Scheduling and Supervising Forecasting & Scheduling Schedule Management Real-time assistance Figure 2: The Full Lifecylce of a Virtual Call Center developed an open architecture that facilitates integration. Using a fundamentally unique architectural approach, we use open source software and a service-oriented architecture (rather than proprietary technology) to provide greater flexibility and quality of integration. We offer an open API framework and have published APIs for integrating with existing call center and legacy technologies (including application integration to CRM, enterprise routing, and workforce management systems). In addition, we have published an API that allows data from other call center systems or enterprise applications, such as a CRM or a finance system, to be embedded into the call center customer dashboard, enabling customized dashboards that monitor activities and outcomes in real time. In addition, using our open architecture, we provide simple drag-and-drop integration through mash-ups, gadgets, and widgets, enabling call center managers to easily create customized dashboards that pull data from multiple systems. 4. Mature, Unified Feature Sets At LiveOps, we ve been using our on-demand call center platform for eight years and over time, we ve developed a full suite of mature applications for end-to-end call center management. The applications, which run seamlessly on our on-demand platform, are fully integrated and provide complete coverage of the agent lifecycle (Figure 2). For example, agents can complete an elearning course, take a test, and have their skills profile automatically updated in all the other applications, such as call routing. This eliminates the need to manually update the call routing system, and the agent can immediately start taking calls based on their new training. In the traditional approach to call center technology, this type of integration would require many fragile touch points. While different companies provide some pieces of this lifecycle, integrating all of them on your own would be difficult and costly. Because our 9

10 application suite is fully integrated and includes a central reporting engine, our customers benefit from instant end-to-end visibility into their entire call center operations. And all of our applications can be configured to support unique business processes. 5. Support for Innovation at Your Own Pace Depending on your organization s needs, you can implement the LiveOps platform in one call center or for just one program. You can integrate a specific piece of the platform with an existing call center application to add features that are not available in that application. And the platform is flexible enough to be implemented all at once, in stages, or feature by feature as needed. We ve developed on-demand call center best practices and can readily share them with your organization. We support you as you innovate at your own pace. 6. Customer-Proven Technology Today, over 200 customers use the LiveOps on-demand call center platform many with demanding requirements that have helped us shape the platform and prioritize development efforts. The platform has already been proven across complex, mission-critical industries like financial services and insurance, as well as in high-volume industries with unpredictable, spiky call volumes, such as food services. These enterprise organizations are increasing agent productivity and performance and benefiting from faster and continuous innovation by leveraging on-demand technologies from LiveOps. Our commitment to investing in and improving our on-demand platform has led to extensive collaboration with our enterprise customers. This collaboration has resulted in significant innovations that deliver comprehensive security, high availability, proven integration with legacy systems, and mature feature sets. For More Information On-demand technology is ready to support your mission-critical call center operations and give you a competitive advantage by providing access to unprecedented innovation, flexibility, and control. For more information about ondemand call center solutions from LiveOps, please visit com to review the following resources: A five-minute demo of our On-Demand Call Center Platform at: A webinar with Drew Kraus, research vice president of Enterprise Communications Applications for Gartner. Hear him discuss key considerations for hosted contact center technologies at: Stevens Creek Blvd. Santa Clara, CA or