1. Dictaphone has re-entered the monitoring market sector where there are many competitors, to say the least. What are your differentiators?
The biggest differentiator is that Dictaphone doesn't simply sell monitoring and recording systems. Dictaphone provides a complete solution for Workforce Relationship Management™ (WRM). Why is that important? Nearly all contact centers today employ some form of a quality monitoring to ensure excellent service. Typically, this involves recording calls, evaluating agents, and then coaching and training. But there are inherent limitations to this approach. First and foremost, a quality focus needs to begin with choosing the best agents for the job. Then, once they're hired, the challenge is to coach, train and motivate them to reach their maximum potential. This is exactly what our solution, ContactPoint™, was designed to do.
ContactPoint focuses on improving three major processes that impact contact center performance: recruiting, assessments and training. The centerpiece of the solution is a competency model that details the skills, knowledge, and abilities that agents need to be successful on the job. Once these competencies are identified, they can be systematically and consistently applied to a contact center's recruiting, training and assessment processes. Agents can be pre-screened and recruited based on specific competencies that are required for the job. The system also recommends and delivers focused training, based on individual agent competency gaps, and includes a complete learning management system to help contact centers manage and deliver training, either in a traditional classroom setting or in an e-learning environment. ContactPoint's competency-based approach to monitoring and assessments also helps agents get the exact training they need to succeed, and makes it easier to recognize, reward, and promote top performers. This competency-based approach is what makes Dictaphone's ContactPoint solution unique.
2. Since Dictaphone is a privately held company, please comment on your financial “health” of your organization.
One of the most enduring global brands, Dictaphone Corporation has been developing innovative technology for recording voice for over 100 years. We have a base of over 18,000 customers, and strong revenues that come from product sales and ongoing service and support of our established customer base. In some cases, our revenues from service alone exceed our individual competitors' revenues from new sales. With our investment in our new ContactPoint product line, we expect to capture even more market share in the contact center arena. Thus far, the response to this new product line has been extremely favorable.
3. The monitoring system vendors have become very aggressive in integrating with other solutions such as e-learning, performance management, and workforce management. What can we expect from Dictaphone in the future?
Our ContactPoint solution includes a built-in Learning Management System. This system continuously benchmarks an agent's assessment scores against targeted proficiency levels for key competencies. It then recommends and helps to deliver the necessary training to close competency gaps and improve agent performance. The system also helps contact centers manage their training resources more effectively, by facilitating the delivery of training in both online or classroom environments, and accommodating post-training testing and tracking of results.
In the future, there may be a number of opportunities for integrating ContactPoint with other core contact center solutions. We intend to enhance our offering through integrations where they add value to our product. One example might be to integrate to workforce management (WFM) systems. In many contact centers, the workforce management system is “in charge” of scheduling agents based on a myriad of criteria. In a contact center where agents are frequently taken off the phone for training classes, workforce scheduling may also need to take agent training schedules into account. In the future, ContactPoint could feed the WFM system information about which agents are scheduled for which training courses when, to better optimize and manage the contact center's scheduling needs. Alternatively, if high call volumes are anticipated, and if more agents are required than our available at any particular time, the WFM system might feed information back to ContactPoint to adjust the training schedule so more agents can be available and on the phone.
In addition to technology partners, Dictaphone is also partnering with companies like Answerthink, to help contact centers develop their own competency models that will ultimately serve as the centerpiece of their recruiting, training and assessment programs, as they make use of ContactPoint. Answerthink is a leading business and technology consulting firm whose capabilities include benchmarking, business transformation, business applications, business intelligence, and offshore application maintenance and support.
4. Dictaphone selected to re-enter the call center market in difficult economic times. How has the “soft” environment affected your game plan?
Over the past few years, we've learned that a soft economy doesn't mean that contact centers stop investing in technology. They just scrutinize their investments more carefully, based on the return on investment that they can expect to achieve from the technology. For Dictaphone, that is not a bad thing. It's a competitive advantage. The ROI from investing in Workforce Relationship Management can be substantial. For example, agent turnover in contact centers averages around 35 percent, and is even as high as 73 percent for entry-level reps. Whether agents leave because of poor pay, lack of a career path, lack of recognition, insufficient training, or simply because they're ill suited for the job, agent turnover is expensive. This cost can be calculated in terms of missed sales opportunities, lost customers, and high recruiting costs. (For every agent that leaves, it costs an average additional $6500 to recruit and train his or her replacement.) ContactPoint can significantly reduce costly turnover by helping contact centers pre-screen and hire the right candidates for the job. ContactPoint can also reduce training costs and improve agent effectiveness. More effective agents and more efficient training which ultimately translate into increased revenue or cost savings.
5. Has the selection process for purchasing monitoring systems changed significantly over the last few years? If so, how has it?
Yes, we've seen a significant change in the selection process for monitoring systems, and how contact centers are viewing monitoring programs in general. In the past, monitoring was just what the name implies, like the infamous “hall” monitor in school, waiting in the shadows to catch you doing something wrong. Today, there is a paradigm shift in the way that technology providers, contact centers and agents think about monitoring thanks to new competency-based approaches to monitoring and assessments that create a shared understanding of the skills, knowledge and abilities that agents need to achieve success on the job.
Also, contact centers are looking beyond monitoring to find new tools that will help them optimize the performance of their employees, from the time they are hired, and throughout each successive step in their career. Much more than a monitoring solution, ContactPoint and Freedom® Enterprise help contact centers achieve this goal by providing a total solution for Workforce Relationship Management that helps contact centers optimize agent performance through competency-based recruiting, training, and assessments.