IQ Services provides outside-in, end-to-end measurement services for contact center and business communications technologies and infrastructures.  By initiating communication transactions via telephone, fax, web, chat, and email, IQ Services helps companies ensure their integrated communications solutions are performing and available for their customers and end-users.

2. What are the most common issues that you uncover during the test phase? 

The list of issues uncovered during StressTest™ performance and load testing engagements is extensive.  Each architecture and solution configuration is highly unique.  However, some types of issues are more common than others.  Most often, we help our clients uncover and resolve issues related to IP gateway performance, misconfiguration of telecommunication resources, improperly licensed and configured speech recognition software and inadequate bandwidth.

2b.  During the monitoring phase? 

For HeartBeat™ availability and performance monitoring, we detect the majority of issues at the initial/greeting step and host connectivity/lookup step of the transaction.  This reinforces our message about the importance of testing and monitoring integrated solutions, not just component technologies.  By testing the IVR or the host in isolation, you have no insight into whether or not the carrier services or host connectivity is properly provisioned.  Because we test multiple applications and flows for the same client, we also uncover maintenance mistakes where the most recent patches and updates have not been applied to each server and application.

3. There are several companies that also do testing and monitoring.  What differentiates IQ Services from its competitors?

Time and time again, our clients tell us we standout because no one in the industry can match our flexibility in meeting their requirements.  Quite often when customers need our services, they are dealing with project deadlines and significant technology issues and business requirements.  At those times, they really need a partner – not just a vendor – that is looking out for their best interests.  They need a partner that understands their project and budget pressures and looks for ways to help them be successful.  From our pricing models to our “available anytime” attitude, we make every effort to help our customers get the most value possible from our outside-in services.

4. Can you test for glitches in applications? 

IQ Services’ patented technologies and methods are all about detecting glitches or anomalies in the technologies, solutions and applications we test and monitor.  When we generate our automated voice, web, chat, or email transactions, we behave just like a real customer.  When something happens that we aren’t expecting, our patented technology easily detects the deviation and we report on it.  For StressTest™, we note the glitches in our online and post-test reports.  For HeartBeat™, we generate an immediate notification to our client’s team about the glitch as well as document it for online and summary reporting.

5. How do you handle self service applications?

We’ve been testing and monitoring self-service applications for over 14 years.  In fact, IQ Services was founded because the marketplace really needed a cost-effective managed service to test and monitor self-service and IVR applications.  At the time, many companies didn’t have the budget or internal resources to purchase and maintain their own expensive test equipment.  When we test or monitor a self-service application – whether it is a voice or web solution – we generate real transactions just like real end-users.  And just like real end-users, we exercise the end-to-end applications and solutions, not just the individual technologies.  This gives our clients an invaluable view of the solution’s integrated or end-to-end performance from the critical customer perspective. 

6. What areas are the most difficult to detect?

Our voice testing tools leverage a unique and patented audio patterns technology.  Typically, the volume or decibel level of audio coming from the systems we test is more than adequate.  But if the human ear has trouble hearing the audio, then it can be more challenging to analyze the results of our testing and monitoring efforts.  In these rare cases, we work with our customers to increase their volume and scrub their recordings and vocabularies.

7. This is the era of an increasing number of centralized data bases and the integration of contact center systems with other systems within the enterprise.   How does your testing methodology identify the location of problem areas in this environment?

It is important to remember that our managed services are always focused on the outside-in view of a solution’s performance.  This means we see the performance of the solution from the one perspective that really matters – the end-user’s perspective.  If you think about all the technologies that are engaged or leveraged during a single user interaction, you start to realize the quickest, most efficient way to check the status of all those integrated components is with a user transaction – not an internal ping, log or monitoring reports.  When you then realize the steps in a common user transaction map to the components and integrations within the end-to-end solution, you begin to see that step or point of failure within a transaction clearly points to the components or technologies that need to be reviewed and fixed.  For example, if there is an issue in the transaction after we enter a PIN and trigger a host lookup, then it points to a possible problem with the host connectivity and/or data.

We also make sure centralized resources can handle traffic from multiple channels simultaneously while still delivering the quality of service end-users expect.  IQ Services uses multichannel and voice quality test methodologies to look for issues that might only occur when resources are put under load via more than one channel (voice, web, and other network traffic).  By testing each channel individually and then simultaneously, we give our clients the opportunity to check, tune and revalidate solution performance so we all know it will work as required for end-users.   Our goal end goal is not to break the solution.  Our end goal is to prove the entire solution – including shared resources – works as required for end-users and for the business.

8. Please explain how IQ Services can simulate and test a call from a customer that goes through various options in an IVR system including transfers to various agents and/or knowledge experts.

IQ Services does not simulate anything.  We generate real transactions just like any end-user or customer.  Generating real traffic is what gives IQ Services a unique, outside-in view of IVR or self-service performance.   We help the customer define the appropriate transactions and load conditions through the test case and test strategy definition processes. 

The test cases include the series of touchtone and speech inputs we’ll make in the transaction as well as the responses we should receive after each input or action.  When we do not receive the expected response or if the response is delayed, it triggers a monitoring notification or a new error type in our testing reports.  If the customer wants us to transfer to an agent, then we make the inputs any caller might make to transfer to an agent.  Our automated test line waits for the agent to answer and then might proceed to prompt the agent for information about their desktop or transfer experience to make sure the correct information is being delivered to the desktop in a timely manner. 

The test strategy is very unique for each client. Some of our clients want to force failovers or disaster conditions during the test.  Others want us to send sharp waves of real traffic just like they would receive during peak calling or online shopping seasons.  Whether our client wants to make sure backup licensing swings over to the appropriate systems during a failure or if the centralized database can handle a full load of transactions from both the IVR and web application, we create the appropriate conditions so they can observe and tweak their solution’s performance.

At each step of every transaction, we gather actionable data about the system and agent responses and response times so our clients can resolve issues quickly and put their properly configured solutions into production as soon as possible.

9. For many years testing and monitoring were on the back burner for contact center/company management.  Has this situation changed?  If so, how? 

Yes, the situation is definitely changing.  Over the past few years, many of us were distracted by the promise of each new technology that hit the market.  We became very technology driven instead of market or customer driven.  We thought our IT departments could find the best technology, install it, and we’d all reap the benefits.  But the honeymoon is over for everyone from the IT and Telecom departments to Operations and the Contact Center to Management and Marketing.  We know technology isn’t the first or only answer.  Social media and the down economy forced us all to realize that the basics like customer service and well-defined business requirements are what really matter.  Customer service and customer experience are serious market differentiators and revenue maintainers if not generators.  When the bottom line and your brand can be seriously hurt by a few bad tweets about a contact center experience, it is time to make sure the technologies that support your customer and end-user interactions work as expected 24/7.

As more and more companies remember to focus on the customer’s needs instead of just pushing whatever gets the biggest commission, the entire business culture starts to shift to an outside-in perspective.  Things like surveys and social media monitoring keep the company’s finger on the pulse of the customer.  It isn’t a huge surprise that departments beyond IT now want to know if technology is working and delivering the desired user experience – not from the internal perspective, but from the outside-in.  IQ Services outside-in approach to testing and monitoring is a perfect fit for these companies as they refocus on what matters – the customer.