E-Learning Investments On Rise to Improve Contact Center Effectiveness

As it has become more difficult to differentiate products and services, customers are increasingly relying on contact center agents for information and using it as the basis for establishing and retaining a business relationship.

As a result, contact centers have become a critical asset for businesses, being viewed as a revenue generator and more strategic rather than tactical to deepen customer relationships and increase lifetime value.

According to a recent Datamonitor report, "Workforce Optimization Technology Markets 2007," enterprises globally will spend $6.3 billion solely on solutions to improve agent performance in the contact center. Last year alone, companies globally spent $550 million on technologies to improve their call center workforce. The rise in spending is attributed to several factors that challenge how businesses maintain their pace, transfer knowledge and provide learning to make their contact center more effective. The rapid rate of business change, coupled with new products coming to market faster than ever; companies merging at record speed; and globalization being a fact of life contribute to customer confusion. As customer expectations become more demanding, ensuring that agents can effectively handle complex inquiries is now more critical than ever.

Knowlagent, the exclusive provider of contact center e-learning solutions that deliver individualized content to every agent, every day, is leading the charter to extend the call center's focus to include measurements of effectiveness. "Unlike call center technology investments of previous decades, companies are focusing less on solutions that enable technological efficiency, and more on those that enable employee effectiveness," said Rusty Gordon, CEO of Knowlagent. "An enterprise e-learning strategy goes a long way towards enterprise collaboration and communication across all stakeholders," Gordon said. "However, specifically within the contact center, where the agent often times independently owns the customer relationship, there exists a tremendous opportunity to implement learning processes to increase customer retention and achieve agent productivity measurements that directly align with corporate objectives."

Unlike any other e-learning system, Knowlagent's platform integrates with every major ACD, Workforce Management and Quality Monitoring system to leverage previous call center investments. Through its patented integration engines - RightTime and RightContent™ - Knowlagent identifies individual agent performance gaps and skill deficiencies and addresses them by delivering high-impact, customized content directly to the desktop, at the most teachable moment, during forecasted and un-forecasted workflow downtimes. This allows organizations to improve agent knowledge and skills before they adversely affect customer service, which ultimately leads to a predictable, consistent customer experience.

As organizations rethink how they interact and mange their customer relationships, inconsistencies in service remain the top concern. Have you ever called your mortgage company and received information that conflicted with what you saw on its Web site? Have you ever called a credit card provider to learn more about a new product and the agent was unable to confidently answer your questions? And have you ever had the sense that the call center agents were not terribly interested in selling you what you wanted or needed; that they were pushing products they knew or those that were most profitable for them? Experiences such as these demonstrate how companies have largely done a poor job of providing its customer-facing employees with the right knowledge and skills to service customers. "Prepared agents consistently deliver effective and efficient customer service, which ultimately leads to greater satisfaction and more profitable relationships," Gordon added.

While the numbers vary, experts agree that it costs more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one. However, corporate marketing efforts still remain heavily targeted to acquisition programs, rather than customer retention, product extension and increased share of wallet. "Not focusing on strengthening current customer relationships is clearly a missed opportunity," says Gordon, "where cross-sell, up-sell initiatives should be priority number one."

About Knowlagent
Knowlagent helps its clients align employee performance with company objectives. Knowlagent's proven PROPEL methodology, which focuses on individual performance, equips clients with a Learning Strategy™ to deliver effective e-Learning based on individual needs. With Knowlagent's software solution, companies can author courseware and simulations, deliver training, and test and track results of high-impact, customized e-Learning. More than 35,000 contact center agents use Knowlagent worldwide at companies such as Kaiser Permanente, CitiFinancial, and Sprint. For more information, call 678-356-3400 or visit www.knowlagent.com.