Real-time public safety technology has been on the market for years, but up until recently, it’s mostly been implemented in large cities - places like New York and San Francisco, for example.
From gunshot detection technology, to real-time video feeds, to facial recognition technology, much of what’s available seems almost futuristic. When it comes to crimes, police are coming ever closer to being able to respond almost instantly, and with a wealth of important situational information that they simply didn’t have just 10 years ago.
Cities that employ these new tools often house them in high-tech “crime centers.” These are essentially information- and data-gathering stations, where staff members can access and monitor surveillance cameras, access crime and private databases to gather information on suspects, and send information straight to police officers’ cell phones.
According to an article in Police Chief magazine, the first Real Time Crime Center was opened in New York City in 2005. Taking three years to establish and costing $11 million, the crime center was the vision of the NYPD police commissioner at the time, Raymond Kelly.
Kelly worked closely with a team of information technology and public safety officials to design and create the center, which allows officers and staff to access a massive volume of data. The system is able to access more than 120 million records of arrests, criminal complaints, and 911 calls that go back 10 years. This gives officers the crucial data they need when trying to uncover connections between seemingly unrelated crimes or revisit unsolved cases.
Of course, all the data in the world does little good unless it can be clearly sorted and analyzed. The New York center does this as well, employing tools like 911 call mapping, an event-notification system that relays information to officers’ emails, and mapping technology that can display layers of information on top of each other.
A recent addition has made it possible for staff at the crime center to send photographs of suspects to officers’ mobile devices. This technology will soon be available for police car laptops, as well.
Due to the massive investment of resources that a Real Time Crime Center represents for a municipality, it’s not surprising that for many years, it was only large cities that could afford to implement them.
After New York’s opened, places like Houston, Tex., Miami, Fla., and Seattle, Wash. followed suit with their own crime centers, employing tools like gunshot detection technology, among others.
These are sensors that are placed in high-crime areas that can detect the sound of gunshots - they can even differentiate them from similar sounds like cars or motorcycles backfiring - and send that information as well as location information directly to police stations.
Now, however, these high-tech public safety centers are spreading to smaller municipalities. This February, Hartford, Conn. opened its Real-Time Crime and Data Intelligence Center, a major investment in the city’s police department.
The center feeds police officers real-time information that, according to the center’s leader Sgt. Johnmichael O’Hare, has assisted officers in hundreds of cases that led to arrests.
Hartford isn’t the only city making this kind of investment in its crime-fighting capabilities. Wilmington, Del. and Springfield, Mass. have both opened similar centers in the past year, while Modesto, Calif., Bridgeport, Conn., and Wilmington, N.C. are all working on opening their own real time crime centers in the months and years to come.
It’s a true testament to the power that technology has to make not just our cities safer, but our police officers’ jobs safer, too. Armed with video feeds, photographs, and a stream of real-time information, officers can head into dangerous scenes more confidently, with much greater situational awareness.
Public safety technology isn’t just for organizations with real-time crime centers, however. Public safety answering points, airports, police stations, and private companies can all benefit from the increased knowledge and analysis that technology has to offer.
KOVA has worked with countless organizations to help them select and implement high-quality technology that serves their public safety needs.
To learn more about what’s available, check out our Public Safety Software Solutions section.
Like every other sector of business, the financial services industry is being reshaped by new and changing technology. These changes are happening in the way these organizations do business, but also in the way they market themselves and engage with their customers. Customer service and engagement are crucial to businesses in this industry, as it evolves, to keep current customers happy and attract new ones. Here’s a look at some of the most prominent customer service trends in the industry, and how they’ll help your business thrive in this new environment.
Mobile Banking
Mobile banking continues its upward trend as more people choose to do their banking online, from their phone or tablet. The attraction to mobile banking is simple—it’s easier, and it allows people to do their banking in between checking their email and scrolling through their newsfeed. Having an app for customers to download and use is an important part of staying ahead of the curve in customer engagement.
Customer Service
This involves listening to what your customers are saying to you, as well as listening to what they’re saying about you. In-person engagements are declining, thanks in part to the mobile banking we just mentioned, but also because people are using the internet to research and investigate products and services. Now that people have the ability to sift through multiple offers and claims, great customer service comes from providing them with the best product or service available.
Comparison Shopping
The rise of price comparison websites has put even more pressure on financial institutions to provide better services and rates than their competitors. It’s important to provide a similar way for customers to simply and easily compare and contrast the benefits of certain deals. This is where customer service agents can come into play—offering “instant quotes,” on-screen chats, or offering an in-person meeting to help with the decision and establish trust. Gaining that trust is one of the big, ongoing trends in the financial services industry right now.
Data Analytics
One of the biggest advantages that financial services companies have is that they take in vast amounts of data on each of their customers. What bills people pay, where people regularly swipe their debit cards, and when people write checks—these are all signs that provide data about how people spend their money. Properly analyzing and using this data can help companies offer services based on what the data says their customer might need. For instance, if a customer’s behavior across different channels suggests a spike in saving, then why not offer them a free budgeting or bill payment app? This kind of personalization is going to be key in retaining and bringing in new customers as online options and comparison tools continue to grow.
Do you want to find out more about how your organization can improve customer engagement and retain customers? Then contact KOVA today and see what our innovative customer service solutions can do for your business.
Voice of the customer is a term used to describe the processes your business uses to get your customers’ feedback about their experiences and expectations of your products and services. VoC can be captured in a number of ways, including direct discussions or interviews, surveys, complaint logs, focus groups, and observation.
So why should you conduct VoC research? The short answer is that it gives you the information you need to connect and engage with your customers. And when you can successfully engage your customers, you then have the tools you need to improve your services or product, and in turn, improve your overall customer retention.
VoC is important in customer engagement, because when customers share their experience with you, whether it’s through a survey, a complaint, or a focus group, they expect you to listen and act on their feedback. There is almost always room for improvement when it comes to customer service, so using a VoC program is an important piece of making the necessary changes to improve.
If you’re looking for a way to start implementing your own VoC program, then contact KOVA today. Our Verint Media Recorder Customer Experience Survey Software can help you gather valuable feedback from customers at the end of their calls through IVR or email surveys. A browser-based solution, Verint Media Recorder Customer Feedback uses short, context-sensitive, dynamic customer surveys to collect data on products, processes, staff performance, customer loyalty and level of satisfaction.
So don’t wait—start improving your customer service today!
Did you know that one out of every 25 jobs in America is in the contact center industry? Or that a full 40 percent of contact centers have no analytics tools, even though analytics is predicted to become vitally important over the next five years?
Contact centers and the customer service they provide are hugely important to the country’s economy. And while you may have gathered plenty of anecdotal evidence of that truth from your time working in the industry, it never hurts to have a few numbers that you can rattle off at a moment’s notice. Check out this infographic to learn 13 stats that every contact center manager should know.
[gview file="https://www.kovacorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/kovacorp_infographic_01.pdf"]
If your company is one of the many that wants to improve its training programs, increase its analytics capabilities, or up its employee engagement, KOVA can help. Take a look at our workforce optimization and management solutions to get started.
What is “scripted empathy,” and why has it been taking such a beating lately? Scripted empathy is the term used to describe an interaction on the phone with a customer service representative that includes some kind of standard apology or explanation. Now, you might already be thinking that a scripted apology would be a bad idea, and you’d be right. Unsurprisingly, callers don’t love hearing an apology that hits all the right buzzwords, but leaves them feeling like they’re being spun in circles by a corporate entity.
The reason scripted empathy just doesn’t work is because you can’t script a genuine emotion like empathy. When you hear a scripted apology, you can easily imagine it was said to the ten callers before you, and it’s going to be said to the ten callers after you. And how can you be expected to even care at that point?
Loose scripts work in a lot of situations, giving call center agents a way to start a conversation and take it in the right direction, but when you take out any autonomy on the employee’s part, you’re also getting rid of any chance for an apology that feels genuine.
So what’s the solution? If you want callers to feel like they’re talking with a real person who feels their pain, then you have to allow your agents to respond as the situation requires. Most customers don’t need a big apology, or a scripted response to their anger, they just want the problem fixed. Giving an irritated customer a scripted response is only going to anger them further.
That means you have to encourage your employees to have actual empathy for the customers who are calling. Call centers are notorious for bored-sounding or unhelpful representatives, and a script only exacerbates this problem. You have to change your customer service training to incorporate deep listening, and encourage them to respond to a caller as they judge the situation requires.
Your agents also have to be able to see things from the customer’s perspective, while not losing track of what they need to do to fix the situation. Again, allowing your agents to be independent during their calls can help them respond appropriately to any concerns that the caller may have. And when the call becomes a conversation, rather than a customer banging their head against a script, that’s when your agents will be able to display real, genuine empathy for what the caller is going through.
That empathy is an integral part of making sure customers hang up the phone satisfied with their call. Offering great customer service is a complex directive, but the payoff is well worth it. To learn more about how to help your contact center improve its customer experience,watch our video Call Center Solutions for Superior Service. And if you’d like more information on how Kova can help your call center, contact us today!
Happy employees are productive employees -- that’s why continually improving your contact center for your agents is critical. In fact, a well-designed contact center can increase productivity by up to 20%.
To help you make your call center a more ideal (and productive) environment, we've put together these helpful tips.
Contact centers are noisy by nature. That doesn’t change the fact that noise is a major distraction — you should do everything possible to keep your center as quiet as possible. There are a number of ways to reduce background noise, including installing acoustic ceiling tiles, using a white-noise system (ideally an adjustable one), installing internal communication systems (so people don’t shout from one cubicle to another), creating a designated conversation space, restricting the use of mobile phones, adding cubicle padding, and turning up each agent's voice feedback volume.
While contact centers are generally designed for the maximum number of agents, this can cause personal space issues. It can be hard to make agents feel comfortable at their desks due to “real estate” constraints, which is why added spaces like break rooms, lobbies, and kitchens are vital. We once saw a meditation room, which was quite effective. Make the shared spaces feel personal by adding plants (for that connection to nature), comfortable furniture, and refreshments.
Lighting can make a significant difference. Poor lighting can strain your agents' eyes, cause headaches and fatigue, and can even create irritability. A good lighting concept, conversely, can invigorate users, stimulate calmness and reduce overall body fatigue. So, take advantage of natural light wherever possible, pick softer bulbs, use lighting that adjusts with the time of day, use ambient lighting, and use task lighting in areas that are especially dark.
It's hard to focus on selling or customer concerns if you're fussing around with your chair trying to get comfortable. It's even harder to focus if your back is hurting. So, invest in comfier chairs for your agents. And yes, it is an investment, as they aren't cheap—but productivity gains will eventually pay for them in the long run.
If you haven't checked the success and safety of your agents' ergonomics recently, now is a great time to do it. Are their eyes between 24-36 inches from their computer screen? Is the monitor at or under eye level? Can their feet rest firmly on the floor? Are their chairs ever-so-slightly reclined?
A cluttered desk can lead to a cluttered mind, so encourage your employees to declutter their workspace. But don’t go overboard and ask them to keep their desks bare -- there will be items they need to use regularly, or that simply mean something to them (like a framed picture of a loved one).
Changing a paint tone from a bold one to a more relaxing one, like a faded blue, can have a calming effect on your agents. This is because office color affects not only our emotions, but also our physical comfort.
Bad scents are a definite distraction, but a subtle scent can increase focus and cause positive emotions. For example, cinnamon increases focus, and pine and lavender increase levels of alertness.
Ask your employees how the room temperature is working for them. If it’s too cold, it can be easy to lose focus on the task at hand. If it’s too warm, your agents could get sleepy. The ideal temperature for productivity is between 65-68 degrees Fahrenheit.
For more tips on how to improve your contact center, stay tuned to our blog! And if you're ready to upgrade your contact center in terms of software improvements - which can make the biggest difference of all! - check out our selection of enterprise-class software.
Contact centers are living organisms. They grow, fluctuate, and change. Most importantly, with the right team, they improve. Whether you're looking to add to your call center after a change or growth in your company, or even pushback from your customers, we've got you covered.
Below are a number of ways to improve your contact center. You can also visit our case studies page for data-driven information.
Who knows better how to improve your call center than the people who sit there for 8+ hours a day? Your workers are your greatest resource when it comes to improvements. And if you ask them, they'll tell you. Still, you should be sure to ask the right questions, including those about software, headsets, desks, comfort, decoration, noise, customer complaints, and more.
Customer happiness is the holy grail of the contact center. While most effective call centers have quality-assurance plans in place, many still randomly select from less than 2% of calls to check for quality. This tiny sampling is not likely to be an accurate representation of either your worst or best calls. And the only way to improve your center is to learn from the worst experiences and continually expand from the best. Using tools like data and speech analytics will help you identify trends and potential call issues.
If quality assurance is a big priority for your business, consider leveraging modern technology to begin scanning 100% of your calls. Thanks to modern advances in speech analytics, you can now do something you've never done before: monitor 100% of your calls. You can set up predefined modules, such as a predefined greeting, information verification, empathy tracking (incredible but true!) and proper closing procedures and techniques. Keep in mind that speech-tracking software isn't perfect yet and none have 100% accuracy. So when you're alerted to an improper greeting or close you need to look at numbers for that agent overall, and not just on that single call.
Quality assurance and client satisfaction aren't necessarily the same thing. It is possible to have a high quality-assurance score on a call with an agent but then a lower rating for the service provided (via a client survey)--and vice versa. So treat and handle the situation accordingly.
Quality assurance shouldn't be a punishment that your agents are afraid of. If that's what it has become for you (which happens often), reframing it in a way that takes the sting out will help your agents become less defensive and more participatory. This can be accomplished by involving them more in the process and creating a reward system for positive QA. So, ensure they are well aware of the evaluation process, and ask for their input on how to improve from your end, too.
Another great way to reframe quality assurance is to offer a self-evaluation process. By evaluating themselves, employees become more educated about and invested in the process. Yet another way to get agents involved in the process is to empower them to flag calls that they find challenging without a QA score, so that they can learn how to better deal with a call without fear of punishment.
For more tips on how to improve your contact center, continue to follow our blog —or contact us.
There is a disconnect between the agents who use contact center technology and the upper management who control the budget and could approve its upgrade. This disconnect can make it hard for workers and middle management to get the technology they need to improve their productivity and results. It isn't a lost cause, however; you just need to frame it in a way that upper management will understand—because they think differently than those of us on the frontline.
To convince upper management that your office could benefit from new technologies, you need to use high-level strategies, like the following presentation tips:
New forms of technology and software offer valuable analytics-powered tools that allow your company to better measure their success. By starting with baseline numbers, you can highlight for your upper management teams the areas that are lacking, and illustrate how the new tools will help improve on and measure those numbers. Setting (and then meeting) the proposed improvements and goals you make will help build credibility on this and future technology projects.
Before presenting your proposed technology, you'll want to come up with all the potential pushback concerns. For example, if you're proposing new analytics-based tools that can help them improve the overall customer experience, they may say, “But then I have to learn a new toolset, and that takes time.” Your rebuttal can be a demonstrated learning curve that takes only X amount of time.
One major issue that upper management commonly sees in new technology implementations is the time needed to upgrade or switch to it. By setting forth a plan that details exactly how implementation will be handled, and then demonstrating that any time spent there will save time and money going forward, you can win management over by defusing that objection.
While this advice might seem counterintuitive, for management, many times it all comes down to the bottom line. Without knowledge of the costs, the rest of your presentation may be moot, so it’s important to include this information. However, it is definitely also important to include how much money this new technology will save your company, in order to put those costs into perspective.
In terms of the types of technology that your call center might be upgrading to, there are a number of upper management-friendly benefits to point out. Let's discuss the two biggest ones in the contact center industry: Workforce management/optimization software and voice of the customer software.
A workforce management and optimization software suite is likely exactly what your upper management didn't know they needed. It turns call recordings into a searchable-by-criteria action items, provides analyzation tools for quality assurance, offers dynamic customer surveys, and offers web-enabled staffing management tools . And, those technologies integrate with each other—a true powerhouse of benefits.
Voice of the customer can be the ideal software for an upper management team as it helps turn quality-assurance monitoring from a stagnant data center full of call recordings into a real-time, speech-analytics-powered monitoring solution that is actionable.
If you're still unsure that you have enough points to convince your upper management to move to a workforce management/optimization or voice of the customer software, don't hesitate to call us here at KOVA. We've helped a number of companies pull the trigger through an upper management tech buy-in, and we’d love to help your business, too.
Slowly, but surely, data analytics is beginning to see use in nearly every facet of our lives. Compiling and analyzing huge amounts of data can bring about some surprising and advantageous discoveries. For instance, police departments across the nation have found that they can use big data to predict and help prevent crime.
The Los Angeles Police Department may be the most famous story about the power of data analytics. It started with a mathematical model to predict aftershocks during earthquakes. Predicting earthquakes is difficult, but predicting the aftershocks is actually much easier. Once an earthquake occurred, the mathematical model was able to accurately predict the aftershocks that would follow.
Interestingly, the model for predicting aftershocks had a lot in common with the patterns of criminal activities. It seemed that whenever a crime was committed in an area, more crime was likely to occur—much like the aftershocks from an earthquake. So after tweaking the model, police had an idea not only of where crime already occurred, but where it was most likely to occur in the future.
At first the police officers were reluctant to use the software over their own ideas about where to patrol, but were quickly convinced of the software’s effectiveness. The model is now being continuously updated with new data, helping to make it even more effective at predicting where crime may occur next. LA saw an astounding 33% reduction in burglaries and 21% reduction in violent crimes in areas where the software is being used.
And it’s not only robberies and violent crime that data analytics can help prevent. In Durham, police were able to break up an insurance fraud scam involving an organized crime group defrauding insurance companies. There were so many accidents in the area that insurance premiums jumped well above the national average. With analytics, it was easy to spot a core group of suspect claims, and 70 people were arrested.
In the past, law enforcement just didn’t have access to this kind of information, or they weren’t able to use it effectively. Collecting data on crime in a city is one thing, but using that data to determine where crime may occur takes a lot more work.
When law enforcement works with the best new technology, they have the ability to make our streets safer, and help prevent crime. That’s why KOVA created SilentPartner, a revolutionary new app that turns your smartphone into a mobile recording device. SilentPartner allows you to capture photos, videos, and sound, and easily label them and securely transmit the data to an office database.
Like we saw in Los Angeles and Durham, collecting and analyzing data is becoming vital to police work, especially as criminals upgrade their technology, too. SilentPartner is exactly what law enforcement, or anyone who works in the field, needs to gather data on-site, and easily label, categorize, and transmit that data.
Check out our FAQ page, or contact KOVA today to see more about how SilentPartner can revolutionize the way you do your job.
Call centers are known for having some of the highest turnover rates in any business. This means the hiring process is nearly constant, and that can put a lot of strain on management, taking up time and energy. The best way to cut down on the amount of time spent hiring is to do it better in the first place. Hiring the right candidates for the right reasons will go a long way towards cutting down on your turnover and keeping the hiring process manageable. Here are just a few ways you can improve your hiring process and save time and money at your contact center.
Before you actually interview and choose candidates, you should have an ideal candidate in your head. Work with your team, including your best call center agents, and draw up a list of characteristics or abilities that would make an ideal candidate for the job. You might not get a candidate that displays all of those qualities, but you’ll be closer to finding a good fit than you would be otherwise.
Look at your recruiting tools and decide if they’re working for you as well as you’d like. For example, if you’re always using the same job boards, career sites, or recruiters, then you may be getting a certain type of candidate. Try switching up the ways you recruit to find the type of candidates you want to attract.
It’s important to disclose everything about the job that potential employees want to know. Tell them about all the requirements, any unconventional work schedules or shift requirements, and anything else that will be important for them to know. You’re less likely to have high turnover if employees know exactly what the job requires going in.
If you’re hiring call center agents, that means they’re going to be on the phone quite a bit. So why not have the initial interview over the phone? Their communication skills are going to be tested every day, so it makes sense to figure out right away if they just don’t have what it takes.
Once you hire new agents, you would be wise to survey them at different points along the way. During recruitment, a few weeks after they start, and a few months into the job are good times to get feedback. You’ll end up discovering new ways to improve the process, and possibly prevent turnover before it happens.
Building on this, conduct exit interviews to see exactly why your employees leave. You’ll probably see some trends, and from there you can work to improve the process or change the type of candidate you hire next.
It may seem like high turnover rates are unavoidable, but they don’t have to be if you put the work in during the hiring process. If you want to get the best out of your contact center agents, then check out our Verint Media Recorder Workforce Optimization suite. Contact us today for more information on how we can help free up time in your schedule and increase your contact center’s productivity.
