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Systems are key levers in increasing your centers’ efficiency. When a system is cumbersome or hard to use, process performance can suffer greatly. Additionally agents’ frustration with the systems can bleed through to their interactions with the customer. Understanding where your systems’ usability can be improved is but a first step. Given that your budget will likely not allow you to fix everything identified, you must also understand how frequently your agents are encountering the various usability issues, so you can maximize your investment in efficiency.
When a system is slow to respond, it can be frustrating for your agents and your customers, from simple, irritating pauses to long delays that prompt your agents to apologize, “I’m sorry, but the system is updating.” Where in the system latency occurs, how severe is the latency, and how frequently does the latency occur are all key variables to prioritizing which problems to solve now and which can wait.
Often when a new system or functionality is introduced into your centers’ environment, it is difficult to determine if it is meeting its benefits case. Are the agents using the system at all? Are they using it in the manner they should? If not, what are the issues? Understanding how well a system is being adopted, and, more importantly, the factors impeding its integration into daily processes, if key to realizing the investment you’ve made. Often, small changes in approach, or early corrective actions can result in big increases in adoption rate and speed of adoption.
Different centers may solve the same problem in different ways. While this diversity is often welcomed, it can be a problem when it comes to information systems. Redundant information systems bring with them redundant costs and support infrastructure. Besides the increased cost, when multiple systems are trying to solve the same problem, confusion can inconsistency become issues for process control, a potentially greater cost to your organization. Identifying when a shadow system has crept into the environment is an important part of creating and maintaining a consistent systems environment—and wresting back process control.