Envision Offers Comprehensive Suite for Workforce Optimization

Envision is a vendor of workforce optimization software that I have been following for many years. It is rated a Hot vendor in our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index. It offers a full suite of products, including interaction capture, quality monitoring, workforce management, coaching and training, agent compensation management and workforce analytics. In an analysis last year I wrote about how, in an effort to make workforce optimization more accessible and affordable, it created an architecture optimized to run in the cloud. During a recent update, CEO and founder Rodney Kuhn said that the company continues to focus on the cloud while adding new capabilities, especially in interaction capture, agent evaluation and coaching, and analytics.

The on-premises and cloud-based versions are similar in functionality. Both capture calls, screen shoots, agent keystrokes and the flow between applications an agent uses to resolve a customer interaction. Point-and-click actions allow users to instantly review any call recording. New search capabilities enable users to search through range of data fields to find information, records of interactions and other sources of insight. Users can create customized agent evaluation forms, which once published can be used by anyone assigned to carry out evaluations. Evaluated interactions can be annotated and shared with agents to help identify areas for improvement. One feature I especially like is the capability to take clips from call recordings, Web pages or other documents and create a short video to show agents best practices and point out areas where they can improve. New analytics capabilities can analyze all captured data and present summaries of trending topics or words used during interactions, while showing which applications were opened at what time during an interaction and what fields were used within applications. This process shows how agents go about handling interactions, including when they use practices or unsatisfactory techniques.

In short, the Envision suite helps companies manage the people side of customer interactions. Also important is the close integration between the applications, which nearly half (48%) of participants in our research into next-generation workforce optimization said is very important. Integration enables companies to link processes that previously were disconnected because they were handled in discrete applications. The same research finds that  workforce optimization efforts are not far advanced: Only 13 percent of participants reach the highest Innovative level of performance. The research shows that the top reason holding back adoption is lack of budget, which some cloud-based systems such as Envision’s click2coachcloud can help to overcome by reducing upfront costs and the number of skilled resources required to implement and run the system.

Our workforce optimization benchmark research and Value Index show that the market is very competitive. They also show that companies have been relatively slow to adopt advanced systems, and even slower to adopt cloud-based systems, even though companies that have adopted such systems have realized a variety of benefits, particularly improved coaching (for 64%), increased customer satisfaction (52%) and more adoption of best practices (45%). I addition our research into the agent desktop and customer service finds a link between agent satisfaction and how well companies perform against key customer-related metrics; highly satisfied agents twice as often meet such targets. Envision’s products don’t include all the bells and whistles of some more established products, but their core capabilities, tight integration and availability in the cloud should put them on the list of companies evaluating potential vendors.

Regards,

Richard J. Snow

VP & Research Director

OnviSource Opens Up Workforce Optimization for Contact Center Excellence

OnviSource is a 10-year-old vendor of workforce optimization software whose core product, OnviCenter 7, includes interaction capture, quality monitoring, workforce management, coaching and training, and workforce analytics. The company is rated a Hot vendor in our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index. It scored highly in the Manageability, Usability and Reliability categories but was held back by lack of compensation management (for which it provides input to third-party products) and some analytics capabilities. The 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index shows how competitive the workforce optimization market is: The top seven vendors are separated by fewer than three percentage points, OnviSource ranking fourth.

OnviCenter has three main components, OnviCom, OnviForce and OnVision, all of which sit on a common network infrastructure called Onvify.OnviCom includes capabilities that support connection with communication technologies – PBX, IVR, email, chat, fax and social media – and transaction systems such as messaging, social media applications and CRM. OnviForce receives data from these systems, and a suite of analytics tools – speech, desktop, text, social media and data – provide analysis of interactions and employees’ handling of those interactions. OnviForce also includes quality assurance capabilities that enable users to monitor how well individual employees handle interactions. This in turn allows the system to calculate key metrics. OnVision produces a series of reports that show what actions are needed to improve performance and to improve alignment across all customer-related activities. The final three capabilities – multichannel, predictive and prescriptive analytics – produce automatic alerts and actions, or analysis that can be used to drive actions and thus optimize performance. Together the OnviSource modules enable understanding of current performance, identify changes required to align actions and enable automation of some of those actions. They run on Onvify, which provides a single, scalable, networked-enabled architecture that can be deployed across multiple locations while still administering and operating the system as one. OnviCenter also includes centralized management and administration capabilities that for example allow users to set up a single set of filters and rules that govern how the system works.

To differentiate its offerings, OnviSource has developed a comprehensive set of supply and support options. OnviCloud is a SaaS-based version of its products that includes hosted PBX services. OnviServ is to my knowledge a unique service that offers customers outsourcing based on OnviSource’s own products, thus enabling companies without the skills or resources to take advantage of its capabilities. All these options, including the standard on-premises version, are backed up by professional services that run from presales analysis of the customer company’s current situation and configuration of the system to meet those requirements and a business case to justify purchasing the systems to post-sales support for deployment, operations and optimization of the system. OnviSource is working to maximize its market potential with the new architecture enabling it to scale from small and midsize centers to very large centers.

Our benchmark research into next-generation workforce optimization shows that companies with very large centers most often have deployed advanced workforce optimization systems. Companies that have deployed such systems reported that they have realized a variety of benefits, most often improved agent coaching (44%), improved customer satisfaction (52%) and improved adoption of best practices (45%). The capabilities of OnviCenter 7 and the supply and support options offered by OnviSource open up benefits to a wider range of centers that may lack the skills, resources and finances to follow a more conventional approach. I recommend any companies seeking to improve handling of customer interactions evaluate how OnviSource can help.

Regards,

Richard J. Snow

VP & Research Director