The Virtual Contact Center

The Virtual

Contact Center

Your Essential Guide to

Selecting, Designing and

Implementing a Virtual Contact

Center to Transform Your

1

2

VIRTUAL CONTACT CENTER NEEDS ASSESSMENT

3

GAINING PRODUCTIVITY BY IMPLEMENTING THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

4

LEVERAGING THE STRATEGIC BENEFITS OF A VIRTUAL CONTACT CENTER

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VIRTUAL CONTACT CENTER CASE STUDIES

What is a Virtual Contact Center? A Virtual Contact Center (VCC) is a cloud-based contact center that delivers call routing,

interactive voice response (IVR), and computer telephony integration (CTI) empowering your business to create optimal

customer experiences (CX).

Businesses continue to evolve in order to address emerging communication channels and adapt to people’s

preferences, technology advancements, and data needs. To meet the growing demands for convenient communication channels, businesses recognize that their customers are their biggest asset and they need to listen, respond, and deliver to keep their customers satisfied. More and more businesses today are evaluating and ultimately shifting to the Cloud to deliver functionality faster to market ahead of their competitors.

Using a cloud-based VCC has many compelling business and operational benefits. For starters, organizations can quickly deploy a VCC and run it with minimal IT involvement, no capital investment and low operating costs. In addition, organizations large and small can take advantage of a geographically distributed workforce, utilizing the

strengths of a cloud infrastructure’s unique call routing capabilities that can span multiple locations.

Availability

When customers reach out, will your service

be available?

Scalability

Can your contact center scale as your

business grows?

Visibility

Will it give you end-to-end visibility into the customer

experience?

Affordability

Would no setup fees or capital investment make upgrading today

a possibility?

Productivity

Do you believe improving your analytical

insight, resolution rates, and intelligent routing

capabilities would positively affect your customer’s experience?

There are several reasons why you might want to look at

your current platform to see if it is handling the blocking and

tackling necessary to deliver great customer experiences, or

whether a Virtual Contact Center would provide a better game

plan to deliver those experiences.

You may already have an on-premises solution yet want

to gain the operational benefits of moving to the Cloud.

Alternatively, your organization could already have a cloud

solution but are looking to make a move to a more robust

offering. Perhaps you may not have a solution today but need

to think about what will be the best solution for your contact

center agents, customers, and business operations in the near

short-term. Regardless of the reason, determining the needs of

your organization is a critical first step before embarking on the

VCC path.

While researching options, you may ask—what does a

“virtual” contact center really mean? A Virtual Contact Center

supports geographically dispersed contact center agents

instead of requiring all agents to work out of the same physical

contact center location, thereby ensuring customer care

collaboration anywhere. VCCs are known for having higher

agent satisfaction rates and therefore lower agent turnover,

leading to better customer service, higher ratio of skills-based

agents, and considerable cost-saving operational efficiencies.

Three areas you should consider when determining your

VCC needs:

CHAPTER 2:

VIRTUAL CONTACT CENTER

NEEDS ASSESSMENT

Advantage of the Single View

2

Tools to Get the Job Done

3

Benefits of a Virtual Environment

Businesses of all sizes are under pressure to increase operational efficiencies and deliver more

personalized and seamless interactions while effectively dealing with capital expenditure pressure and scrutiny. Not an easy task but especially critical for Small to Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs). Some questions SMBs should consider as they assess their VCC needs: what systems do they currently use? Do they have integration with the CRM? And, how robust is the IVR? Can it deliver important routing capabilities and personalization attributes? Does the platform easily hand off a caller to an agent along with data and interaction history? What are the up-front costs associated with moving to a VCC? And, can the current system deliver this in a flexible, scalable solution that offers rapid deployment and always-on availability?

If a business is not using a VCC today, they should strongly consider its inherent advantages. As organizations look at alternative ways to extract maximum return from their budgets and lower costs, they are finding the on-demand model with low to no setup fees and ability to quickly and cost-effectively address usage fluctuations delivers a positive impact on their capital expenditures. In addition, organizations are finding that the gain in flexibility and interoperability moving to a virtual environment is paramount to addressing business concerns and delivering a highly satisfying customer experience.

If you are a SMB or mid-sized organization, can you effectively compete with larger enterprises without moving to the Cloud?

Benefits of a Virtual Environment

This is where the beauty of a VCC really shines through. When an organization implements a VCC, they obtain not only the operational benefits of the Cloud, but access to these advantages inherent in a complete, single browser-based view. What makes the single view impressive is the ability to extract insight from various touchpoints and channels to deliver a unified customer context directly to the VCC. Why is a single view so important? It removes the inefficiencies of multiple applications and customer frustrations related to a siloed approach that requires repeated inquiries for information. Consider this the next time you are speaking to a contact center representative, and while you are waiting for information to address simple requests. They may say, “Please hold, I need to look that up, just give me a minute.” With a VCC, the information agents need is on-demand, always on, and easily accessible in a single dashboard.

Are your siloed systems frustrating customers with repeat questions and lack of customer history?

Advantage of the Single View

So, what are the tools needed in a typical VCC? An ideal VCC platform should have at least these three attributes: a robust IVR, powerful call routing functionality, and integrated analytics for ongoing process optimization. Organizations that decide to migrate from an on-premises solution to a cloud-based VCC instantly have tools at their fingertips to manage all aspects of their global operations for inbound, outbound, and proactive communications. Integration of call routing functionality and IVR with business rules and embedded analytics is critical as it delivers immediate visibility of the call center, and a better experience for customers.

Behind the scenes, a robust VCC delivers powerful agent management and supervisor controls through any web browser or device. Agents have access to an intuitive web-based agent desktop, where they can receive whisper messages that provide context prior to taking the call, plus customer data presentation and agent disposition codes. This pre-call data is extremely helpful for agents to not only get up to speed quickly on the call, but it also helps to personalize the caller experience. Supervisors gain immediate flexibility in the contact center with call monitoring tools that allow agent coaching and barge-in options to intervene on difficult calls, as well as real-time and historical metrics and reports, designed to support mobile devices and tablets for today’s multi-device world.

Do you have the best tools for your key assets—your customers?

Tools to Get the Job Done

When considering a VCC, you should look beyond just replacing legacy ACD systems, but consider other technical

advancements that can drive productivity. A good VCC utilizes a robust IVR on the front end of calls, having a significant portion

of the calls completed within the IVR environment without the need to speak with an agent. When the caller is transferred to

an agent, it is the right agent to solve the problem the first time and that agent has the caller’s information in front of them so

there is no need to ask customers to repeat themselves. This raises the first call resolution rate, an important metric for contact

centers, plus it delivers significant productivity improvement for the business with the added bonus of improved CX.

— Analytics—Aggregate call details to reveal KPIs (i.e. date and time, caller ID, IVR responses, talk time, etc.) plus historical drill down capabilities to determine trends of the customer experience for actionable insight.

— Agent Setup Speed—Setting up agents should be a simple and fast process in order to get them online quickly—especially important for peak call cycles.

— Intelligent Routing—In addition to simply routing incoming calls to the geographically dispersed agent pool, intelligent routing can route calls based on business rules to the optimal agent based on agent proficiency or customer context.

— Intuitive Agent Monitor Design—A simple and easy-to-navigate user interface or monitoring dashboard for contact center agents. — Live Quality Monitoring—The ability for supervisors to listen in

to live calls ensures a high level of customer service as well as the ability for supervisors to coach agents or be conferenced in to assist with escalated calls.

— Multi-channel Capable—Manage consistent cross-channel customer experiences and support customer engagement across communication channels (i.e. voice, email, chat).

CHAPTER 3:

GAINING PRODUCTIVITY BY IMPLEMENTING

THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

Speed

Quick-start packages that offer the ability to be up and running

quickly and easily.

Simplicity

Integrated IVR and call routing (ACD) functionality in one intuitive and seamless interface.

Reliability

Scalability and reliability to support your vital customer facing operations and always

on availability.

Personalization

Enterprise-class routing that can deliver calls based on context and agent skills, and personalized IVR interactions tailored to fit your specific

customer needs.

A cloud-based Virtual Contact Center offers consistent, seamless, personalized experiences that span self-service and

human-assisted interactions and provides many compelling business benefits. It gives your business a complete 360-degree view for

managing the touchpoints along the customer journey.

When your team begins exploring VCC options, you should look for solutions that deliver:

LEVERAGING THE STRATEGIC BENEFITS OF A

VIRTUAL CONTACT CENTER

One of the major drivers to consider when contemplating making a move from a traditional, on-premises contact center is

the Return On Investment (ROI) associated with moving to a cloud-based VCC. The investment for a hosted platform can be

recouped quickly and run with minimal IT involvement, no capital investment and low operating costs.

Best-in-class VCCs allow organizations to scale operations quickly and handle growing demand or traffic spikes without failure or

the need for additional capital investments—helping realize immediate ROI. Besides the minimal upfront investment and ongoing

maintenance costs, they see real improvements in their contact center metrics—measureable improvements in case-related call

completions, increases in uptime and live answer rates as well as decreases in call hold times and abandon rates. This all leads

to stronger customer loyalty and a better overall customer experience.

The following case studies illustrate just a few examples of major companies and organizations that have seen the operational

and cost-saving benefits of moving to a cloud-based VCC.

Genesys Case Study: Marketo

Marketo is a leading cloud-based provider of a marketing software platform. The platform delivers marketing

automation and sales effectiveness software designed to help organizations streamline marketing processes, deliver

more campaigns, generate more win-ready leads, and improve sales performance. Marketo helps over 2,500

customers in 36 countries turn marketing from a cost center into a revenue driver.

Challenge

Marketo wanted a quick and easy-to-deploy a VCC to leverage skills-based routing.

Solution

The Marketo support team was able to rapidly implement the Genesys Premier Edition VCC call routing (ACD) to route inbound calls from customers. Marketo added Genesys Salesforce CTI cloud-based integration into its support application to further streamline customer service calls.

Outcome

Caller ID authentication and “priority one” entitlement bypass which transfers customers more quickly to a customer service representative improved the Marketo customer experience. Also, with this integration, the support team was able to handle all call center features within the Salesforce.com working environment.

KEY BENEFITS

— Personalized caller interactions — Improved customer experience — 22% improvement in case deflection — 28% decrease in case-related calls per

customer

Genesys Case Study: ZoomSystems

Challenge

With a distributed network of field personnel servicing over 1,500 locations, ZoomSystems felt the pressure on their contact center telephony platform. They sought to reduce call hold times, efficiently support on-site technicians, and increase the kiosks uptime averages.

Solution

When ZoomSystems evaluated all their needs, the Genesys Premier Edition – Virtual Contact Center (VCC) came out on top. They were attracted to the benefits of a cloud contact center solution and implemented contact center software enhancements for reliability, customer support, feature richness and cost.

Outcome

By modernizing their contact center software with the Genesys Premier Edition - VCC, ZoomSystems delivers a positive customer experience that greatly improves their operations and keep their brands and customers coming back.

KEY BENEFITS

— Uptime increased to their goal of 99%, a 2% improvement

— Expected hold time decrease of approximately 4 minutes

— Live answer rate increased from 30 to 75%

— Call abandon rate decreased from 25 to 7%

ZoomSystems, based in San Francisco, provides automated retail solutions for leading retailers and brands

worldwide. Their end-to-end automated retail solutions include integrated hardware, software, and managed

services in the Cloud.

Genesys Case Study: Total Wine & More

Challenge

The Total Wine and More legacy ACD was rudimentary and unable to handle the demand. In addition, they did not have a reporting system robust enough to handle their needs and resorted to manual manipulation of data. They needed to change this in order to successfully expand, understand its growing customer base, and deliver a higher overall level of customer care.

Solution

Total Wine & More launched their new contact center solution built on Genesys Premier Cloud in time for Black Friday 2014. Genesys enables Total Wine & More to provide customers with priority queues and skill-based routing for connected journeys across multiple channels. And, they are now able to customize messages, get more information out to customers, and gain more visibility into data resulting in workforce optimization and other operational efficiencies.

Outcome

Total Wine & More built a custom IVR on the Genesys platform that was tied to an 800 number published on direct mail materials. With Genesys, they were able to figure out their marketing lift and better understand what customers were calling about, thereby improving staffing levels and

KEY BENEFITS

— Implemented contact center voice and email services within 5 weeks — Delivered improved customer

support, creating better

relationships with 100+ retail stores — Increased sales with improved

customer service

— Cut overall order completion time in half

— Improved workforce optimization

Total Wine & More is the largest independent retailer of fine wine in U.S. Founded in 1991, the company now has

more than 100 stores in 16 states, and is growing rapidly. In response to demand for new sales channels beyond

Customers want a consistent and

personalized experience and the

Genesys Premier Edition−VCC delivers

what you and your customers need. For

business environments up to 250 agents,

using the Premier Edition cloud-based

Virtual Call Center helps you deploy the

solution quickly, running it with minimal

IT involvement, no capital investment and

low operating costs.

The VCC is an important element of

the Genesys Customer Experience

Platform, bringing a proven, global set of

capabilities to a contact center, making it

the right choice now and in the years to

come. Additional capabilities include:

pre-built IVR applications for major verticals,

call recording with encryption, speech

analytics, voice biometrics, ASR and

TTS in over 40 languages available, plus

natural language processing technology.

We hope the Virtual Contact Center

Playbook has been an informative guide

and will help you provide excellent

customer experiences. This playbook

offers a view of a virtual contact center,

its strategic benefits, and examples of

companies who have made the move

to a VCC and reaped the benefits. As

discussed, the scalable solution supports

your business growth through a cloud

deployment, easy-to-use interfaces,

intelligent call routing, integrated

analytics and performance optimization.

This robust set of capabilities offers a

seamless experience for customers and

delivers an optimal customer experience.

CHAPTER 6:

CONCLUSION

— Geared toward the SMB market up to 50 agents

— Rapid cloud-based deployment — Proven, global cloud contact center

platform

— Easy, point-and-click interface and setup

— IVR self-service platform

— Superior reliability and 99.999% service availability

— Bundled telecommunications services — Intuitive and visual solution

configuration

— Out-of-box integration with Salesforce.com and other cloud-based CRM services such as Zendesk, Netsuite and others.

Learn More

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Exceeding Your Customer Experience Goals?

Be sure you are running the right plays and your customers are getting the

pro-level service they expect with Genesys!

Moving to a Virtual Contact Center elevates your business and opens new doors for your customers. Communicating with your customers in a way that produces better

interactions, offers more insight, and gives your agents and supervises better tools will deliver superior business results. To really score and deliver on your goals, the Premier Edition−Virtual Contact Center delivers everything

that small to mid-size contact centers need to provide exceptional customer experiences.

Genesys is the market leader in omnichannel customer experience (CX) and contact center solutions in the cloud and on-premises. We help brands of all sizes make great CX great business. The Genesys Customer Experience Platform powers optimal customer journeys