Call Center Industry a Work in Progress NexxPhase CEO Craig Mento discusses the changing needs of call centers today For many businesses around the world, call centers are a key
part of providing customer service each and every day. Recently, Customer Care News went to Craig Mento, CEO of NexxPhase, to find out more about the ever changing call center industry and its
face huge upgrade fees or move to the cloud.
CCN: Of the changes you mentioned, what issues and trends
ket. Nexxlinx has been serving the call center industry for 15 years
manage their call center activities in the future?
and has grown in the past decade from $2 million to $40 million.
CCN: What is the NexxPhase core business and what separates you from others in the industry?
CM: Our core business is providing a multichannel, cloud-
based contact center platform that you pay for by the minute. You use a minute, you pay for a minute. It’s a truly disruptive
pricing model. But pricing is only effective if you provide a quality service.
This platform is optimized for production use, in our own
do you see making a significant difference in how companies
CM: Call centers will get more precise in the use of resources, optimizing every aspect of their operations, with a focus on quality and first call resolution (FCR).
Our Best-of-Breed platform uses VPI, Pipkins, Knowlagent, Taleo and Cornerstone.
This business is getting more complex with tighter margins. The forward-looking contact center operators will be using more tools to optimize their performance.
centers and for clients here and abroad. We have an advanced
CCN: Quality staffing is a key issue for all companies that
ized applications, bringing them to market in a fraction of the
and helped manage it? What systems have you put in place to
Business Process Modeling tool to develop and deploy customtime and money associated with conventional solutions.
manage call centers. How has NexxPhase improved the process ensure that quality staff members are put in place?
And, we’ve recently integrated VPI (quality), Pipkins (work-
CM: With personnel costs taking 65 cents of every dollar of
into a packaged Best-of-Breed offering that makes no compro-
We have hired an industrial psychologist to develop a tool that
force management) and Knowlagent (Intraday management) mises, unlike most all-in-one solutions.
CCN: There is a tremendous amount of change going on in the
call center industry. Can you give us your take on some of the
revenue, most call centers struggle with attrition percentages. is far more effective in the screening of applicants. In addition, Taleo and Cornerstone are an important part of our onboarding process.
most significant changes affecting the industry?
In addition, Pipkins (workforce management), VPI (quality)
CM: There are a couple of seismic shifts. First is the move to
ity and productivity.
cloud-based call centers and Software as a Service. The prom-
ise of no capital, no maintenance and no expensive staff is hard to resist…and users are going this direction in droves.
Fall 2012
Centers that are voice-only (up to 80 percent) have a choice —
quickly changing needs. NexxPhase was established in 2011 to take
Nexxlinx’s new multichannel workflow engine to the general mar-
The second is the move to multichannel. Smartphones are the primary device in 40 percent of homes, and consumers want
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to have access to support via voice, chat, email or social media.
and Knowlagent (Intraday management) all address staff qual-
CCN: Changes with in-house call center technology have had
a profound impact on staff learning and call management. How do you view the technology changes we have seen in the past couple of years and how can they help a company’s bottom line?
Customer Care News
CM: Well, I think largely, most technologies get developed
and they expect your call center to be fluent in each channel.
the status quo. But all too often, expectations don’t match
voice response (IVR) to be more of a personal assistant than
with the objective of being better, faster or cheaper than reality. It’s not so much that people have gotten it wrong
— they just missed some of the costs for the overall implementation. Thus, the new technology is sub-optimized to the original plan.
So I look at technology as a basic enabler. With the advent of a cloud services delivery and per-minute pricing model, the
They may like Siri on their iPhone, and expect your interactive a rigid tree structure. They may start an interaction as a chat
and want to move to a live agent, expecting their call history to follow them. Or they may post something on social media that
requires immediate interaction. In all cases, we need to be one step ahead of a rapidly evolving market and the technologies that support them.
beauty is that you can immediately take advantage of current
CCN: What does NexxPhase see as the vital products and ser-
CCN: What should call center managers be most concerned
CM: As table stakes, you need the multichannel capability
advantage of the changes that are taking place? Where should
time business analytics to be able to anticipate change or react
technology and precisely align your expenses and results.
about to ensure they are helping their companies take full they start?
CM: Well, call center managers need to be passionate lifelong
learners. This is a rapidly changing industry. We expect our people to be active in industry forums and to be very well
vices needed for call center directors to compete in the future?
mentioned earlier. But you also need a wide variety of real-
quickly to adjust the workflow to the pace of business. Our business is one of foreseen and unforeseen changes. The key is to have the tools and metrics to optimize the next hour, next week or next year.
briefed on the latest trends through industry publications,
CCN: In your opinion, what will call centers look like in the
vide a culture that encourages success. The biggest challenge is
look like? How will they operate in the new online world?
training and seminars. For executives, the imperative is to pro-
that there is so much material to synthesize that they have to prioritize where to invest their time.
CCN: For a CEO of a company with active call centers, what
should they do to make sure they are managing the process and getting the most from their centers?
CM: Benchmark, benchmark and benchmark some more. What is world class in statistics? What’s world class for FCR?
future? Where will they be located? What will their offices What technology is coming?
CM: Great question. You can look at it from a couple of dif-
ferent angles. One would be, what will libraries look like in the
future? Where have resources gone? Is there a virtual place to
actually get knowledge? The contact center is like a library; an intermediary between a need and knowledge that exists somewhere.
For customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores? For price perfor-
We see a growing trend for work-at-home agents staffing a
occasionally bring in third-party analysts to audit and validate
versus brick and mortar look. I believe there still needs to be a
mance? You create the benchmark, measure yourself, then the performance of your company. Unlike some industries, this
industry is constantly a work in progress, and your corporate culture must embrace that change.
virtual contact center. Certainly more of a non-traditional connection between an employee and the people they represent
and their employer, but I think there’s a variety of ways for that umbilical cord to be transformed and extended.
CCN: Customer care has taken on new meaning in today’s
I see a growing use of automation and self-service. There
dents to customer concerns. Can you help CEOs and call center
more than an intelligent data center that can respond to
business culture. Many call centers are viewed as first respon-
managers understand the important changes from technology
CM: Customers are using smartphones, tablets and laptops in
addition to standard phones to initiate customer interactions,
www.customercarenews.com
tier 1 queries or to have the ability for very high-end sales, marketing and technology to be deployed for people that
Fall 2012
to social media and the impact they have on customer care?
are valid arguments for the contact center being nothing
are in remote locations anywhere in the world, where the work follows the worker rather than the worker going to the work. CCN
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