InStranet Names "Top 10" Information Technology Challenges For Today's Call Centers
 
Integrating CRM with customer service procedures and documents, applying analytics to content to identify operational inefficiencies among the top issues faced
 
Chicago, August 27, 2003 – InStranet, Inc., a leader in knowledge-based applications, has today released results of a recent survey conducted to identify the “Top 10” information challenges now facing the contact center industry.

Among the leading contact center challenges cited by InStranet are:

• Integrating CRM data with marketing promotions to maximize cross-selling and up-selling opportunities;
• Measuring and analyzing data – determining which content is driving call resolution and selling success (“customer service readiness”), while eliminating or improving content that is stale or underutilized;
• Integrating volumes of information across multiple enterprise data repositories in format types ranging from Microsoft Word and Excel to proprietary database systems; and,
• Helping agents manage and access current time-sensitive information on multiple, constantly changing marketing promotions.

Other contact center industry challenges discussed in the paper include the use of existing document repositories and knowledge-based systems to measure and improve agent training; addressing the problem of “interface overload” that results from requiring agents to interact with too many databases and knowledge bases; and reducing the search, navigation and look-up time required for finding critical answers for the “live on-call” customer question data.

“Contact centers are under enormous pressure to increase operational efficiency while maintaining the ability to deliver premium customer service,” stated Clinton Stark, Director of Marketing at InStranet. “In this paper, we’ve identified the top technology issues that stand in the way of achieving these goals, and provide ‘best practices’ that can help move the industry forward.”

As part of the study, InStranet also polled over 300 call center executives across the US to determine current spending priorities and top business challenges faced over the next 12 months. Highlights include:

• Agent productivity and access to information was cited as the number 1 initiative by over 78% of respondents;
• CRM and knowledge management were identified as the top 2 technologies to most likely receive investment over the next 6-12 months;
• The top 3 purchasing criteria when making buying decisions for call centers were: price, performance, and ease-of-use;
• Just over half of all respondents continue to use some type of homegrown system to address agent productivity challenges, while the remainder has invested in some type of pre-packaged vendor application.

InStranet is a worldwide leader of multi-channel knowledge business applications. Global 2000 companies rely on InStranet's solutions to automate content and knowledge delivery for contact centers, field sales and Web self-care for servicing and sales initiatives. InStranet's Multi-Channel Knowledge Applications enable businesses to securely create, manage and deploy critical profile-based content for enterprise channels, and to analyze results to identify key successes or areas for improvement.

InStranet applications are currently deployed in many high-profile global enterprises, including 3M, AXA, BNP Paribas, Credit Lyonnais, France Telecom, Manpower, Orange, and Zurich North America. Global partners include Aspect Communications, BEA Systems, Genesys, IBM, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems. InStranet is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Paris, and technology and distribution partnerships throughout Europe and Asia.

For more information, contact:

InStranet, Inc.
InStranet EMEA
Andrew Zinger
(312) 629-4577
azinger@instranet.com