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Every time a customer contacts your business, that interaction leaves behind information. At every point of contact you have the opportunity to gather that information and use it to improve future interactions. Unfortunately for the vast majority of customers out there, many businesses don’t effectively track this data.

It used to be that all you really had to worry about was answering phone calls, but that’s no longer the case. Customers now expect that it will be easy to contact your business, and that you’ll meet them wherever they are at. 

Enter omnichannel contact centers. Your customers can contact you however they like, over multiple channels if that suits them. Because of these added layers, the landscape of customer interaction has grown exponentially. If you aren't keeping track of how these engagements go, there's a good chance you're missing out on improving customer experience and overall satisfaction.

Data—Is It the Missing Piece to Your Puzzle?

Historically, contact centers have been able to provide loads of great information about the inner workings of your customer engagements. Accessing that data hasn’t always been easy, and that’s putting it mildly.

It’s hard enough to manage the data from a standard contact center where a simple phone call is the primary form of communication. Adding others channels to improve communication options for your customers is great, but now you’ve multiplied the problem. That would be true if you were using contact center software that hasn’t solved this challenge. Out of the box, a Cisco cloud contact center is very flexible and easily tracks almost anything about the call.

You might be asking why getting to this data matters. But what if you’re facing challenges in your contact center today? Basic issues might include: 

• Customer complaints are higher than you’d like

• Customers are stuck on hold longer than they should be

• Your abandoned call rate is through the roof, and you don’t know what to do about it

Chances are the answer is going to be found in this data. These metrics can be one of the most valuable tools for improving your customer’s experience.

Data. Everyone Has It, Few Use It

So if this data is so valuable, why did the survey conducted by Contact Center Pipeline show only 27% of managers consider their process of tracking agent performance to be very effective? To make matters worse, less than 25% track this information in real time.

A few reasons can explain why these numbers are so low:

1. Contact center software is cumbersome and it feels like trying to get to and use the data isn’t worth the effort.

2. There are so many metrics available managers don’t know where to start.

3. The data in canned current reports yield little to take action on.

It’s crucial that your software supports you in managing the contact center. Cisco Cloud Contact Center Analyzer is just one of several tools provided to bring data together. It allows you to analyze, understand, and manage your contact center and optimize for operational efficiency in new and innovative ways.

For instance:

• Standard real-time and historical dashboards as well as scheduled reports visually display everything going on in the contact center across channels and sites. This includes queues, call volumes, agent activities, and states.

• Scheduled performance reports detail performance against key goals and service levels on a periodic basis and are automatically distributed to key stakeholders.

• Exploratory and trend analyses tell you where your desired business outcomes and positive results come from, such as agents, teams, queues, and sites.

The list goes on, but suffice to say, Cisco Cloud Contact Center is a powerful tool to assist you in delivering a great customer experience. If you aren’t leveraging these kinds of tools and keeping track of customer engagements, there's a good chance you're missing out on improving customer experience and overall satisfaction. 

Analytics are the gold in every contact center deployment. It’s time to start mining.

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