1. What new solutions/directions can we expect from Knowlagent in 2011?

Late in 2010, we released Knowlagent 8.5, a software upgrade that allows our patented Knowlagent technology to integrate with any application used by the call center. Traditionally, our technology found time in the call center agent’s day to push out our training and coaching applications.

Now, with the release of Knowlagent 8.5, our technology not only integrates with any learning management system, but also any other systems the agents and supervisors use – such as quality or performance management systems, or even Outlook – for reading important internal emails, policy or procedure updates and any systems used for completing after-call tasks.

This release drastically expands our offering and allows us to help clients reduce shrinkage by delivering many different types of shrinkage activities – beyond training and coaching – to agents during downtime. Essentially, we’re providing call center management with the ability to create personalized to-do lists for the call center agents. These activities are completed during idle time - which becomes active wait time.

2. Sounds like this product release has really changed the playing field for Knowlagent. What differentiates Knowlagent from the rest of the players in this market sector?

With this new capability to integrate with any application, we have moved out of the training and coaching space and entered a larger agent productivity space. We’re challenging call center management to think of the idle time in between customer interactions as usable, productive time. Along with that, it’s a new concept to consider reducing shrinkage in this way as it’s typically seen as a normal cost for operating a call center.

3. What criteria do you use to measure the effectiveness of Knowlagent’s technology?

Determining the ROI for companies that adopt Knowlagent’s technology is simple when thinking in terms of shrinkage. The technology was designed specifically to take activities normally categorized as secondary loss and shift these activities to be delivered during idle time. The reduction in shrinkage grows with each new activity that is delivered during active wait time instead of being scheduled for the agent. The number of hours delivered to each agent per month has a direct cost saving.

4. Could you share an example of results that Knowlagent solutions have achieved?

We have several examples of clients using our solutions to deliver more training and coaching in a shorter time frame than could be done previously, without our technology. One specific example that comes to mind is Sprint. They had a unique challenge where they needed to maintain their industry-leading pace of customer service improvements to thousands of agents without negatively impacting service levels. In one instance, using Knowlagent, Sprint was able to deliver more training in 5 days than in the previous month. Overall, this resulted in improved agent productivity, an increase in FCR as well as overall customer satisfaction.

5. Your technology identifies pockets of forecasted and unforecasted downtime for delivering training by creating active wait time.   Please explain how this is done.

Knowlagent integrates with the ACD in real time to identify small windows of idle time that occur naturally in between customer interactions. The engine collects these smaller increments of time from multiple agents, 1 – 2 minutes gaps for example, and aggregates that time into increments that can be used to deliver any type of shrinkage activity, creating active wait time.

6. With the increase in demands on the call center for maintaining customer experience and the increase of channels to manage against the backdrop of efficiency, what can we expect to see out of call center leaders in response? Where are the big gains to be made?

Productivity gains are hard to give back, even in the face of critical issues like customer experience. We’ve been focusing on how to help our customers be successful in that environment by chipping away at a $15 billion problem. That’s a conservative estimate of how much unproductive wait or idle time costs each year across the industry. When our customers take advantage of active wait time for shrinkage activities, they can either take those savings by scheduling less agents or re-invest into development for improving customer experience or other competitive issues and keep the agent count constant.

7. You’ve used the term to-do list in regards to how you deliver activities to agents. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Call center agents are usually the only employees a company has without a to-do list. It’s a very reactive job by nature. What customers told us is that they had very little control over the order of how agents attack the “other” activities they have to do outside calls. If there is a priority must-read, a new knowledge base article or a need for additional coaching, there was no way to prioritize those activities for the agent. We heard this and incorporated a way to build a personalized, prioritized activity queue to be served up to the agent during active wait time. Essentially a to-do list designed by call center management.