In the 1990s, Bill Clinton’s Presidential campaign coined the tagline”It’s the economy, stupid”. That phrase continues to influence the political scene two decades later. The premise, which links the success of a President to the performance of the economy, has applicability to commercial contact centers. In the never-ending debate on ranking technology vendors, whether it involve the IVR, ACD, PBX, CTI, CRM, or countless other three letter acronym technologies, the political slogan needs to be adapted to state “It’s the application, stupid.” The simple premise, link the performance of a company’s contact center to the ability of it’s applications to meet all the business automation requirements and customer needs, not the ranking of the infrastructure vendor or the latest cloud technology that hits the market.
Technology Vendor Alignment to Business Strategy
On a recent customer visit, a client stated, Based on the industry report from “insert analyst name here”, we have decided to upgrade our ACD to vendor X in the cloud. Do you think we made the right choice? The response is always, “Can the technology support your business processes, use cases, and how will it reduce customer effort?” The standard response, “Well, I think so, they are the market leader.” One hour into a white board session, it was obvious that they were being forced to drive their operational strategy based on the choice of a technology vendor. Their evaluation and selection did not include an analysis of whether the vendor’s product really aligned with the business strategy, real-life use cases, and contact center priorities. In this case, the highly ranked vendor could not meet several of these critical requirements, but remained a politically popular choice. We suspect this customer’s experience is not unique.
The business requirements, or use cases, did not appear complex. First, the customers used an account number that started with a specific 3-digit code representing premium accounts which needed positioning ahead of any non-premium customer on hold in the queue. Second, if the customer had an open ticket, and the initiating agent appeared available to the ACD, the call needed to be routed to that specific agent. Fast-forward the customer example to production, they retained the ability to re-order customers in the queue but lost the ability to send a customer to the same agent on an open ticket. The business rule, now categorized as an “enhancement,” appears in a list of enhancements slated for unknown and un-funded “future phases” of the project.
Select Technology That Aligns With Use Cases
I am not opposed to industry rankings and have respect for the expertise of the analysts that issue various reports. However, we come across example after example in which companies, similar to the example above, procure a technology framework prior to finalizing all the business requirements and use cases to align the technology selection to the contact center strategy. Frequently, the resolution mirrors politics, the new incumbent is voted out and replaced by a challenger. Fundamentally ignoring the historical guidance, “It’s the application, stupid.”
Prior to upgrading to a new premise based technology, or opting to utilize an offering in the cloud, have you clearly identified all the business and technology functions requiring automation? If the technology vendor does not support the business strategy, have you fully challenged the cost of switching vendors versus maximizing the ROI still achievable from your current technology framework?
Just a thought. But remembering what is important in the end, “It’s the application, stupid”