The author of the newly-launched The 2004 Quality Management/Liability Recording Product and Market Report predicts sales of QM and liability recording solutions will grow by 8 to 12 per cent and 10 to 15 per cent respectively in 2004, with even greater growth in 2005. The consultant who coined the universal queue term also estimates enormous market opportunity for QM and logging systems in the mid-market, where the current penetration rate of QM systems is less than 30 per cent. Donna Fluss served in as vice president and research director in Gartners CRM practice, where she doubled the revenue of the customer-service strategy area, and consulted to more than 3,000 clients.
Europe Contact Centre Which are the major trends for the Quality Management / Liability Recording market from both vendor and end-user perspectives?
Donna Fluss The six major trends driving the growth of the Quality Management (QM)/Logging market today are: legislation Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA) impacting health care and insurance companies and the Do Not Call provisions of the Federal Trade Commissions Telemarketing Sales Rule Registry that went into full effect (in the US) on October 17, 2003; the migration from cost centres to profit centre; the formalisation and centralisation of the quality management functions; the replacement of old and outdated logging equipment and the need to correlate customer satisfaction from surveys with quality management ratings.
Finally we have to consider the role of e-learning, performance management and analytics. New applications have been introduced to the market during the past couple of years, but tight budgets and the newness of the applications have prevented most organisations from investing in them. These solutions can improve the performance, productivity and quality of contact centres and increase revenue.
ECC Which countries are more likely to experience the biggest uptakes of Quality Management / Liability Recording technologies?
DF DMG Consulting expects the growth of Quality Management and Liability Recording technologies to be large in the United States and India. We also expect to see the growth rate of quality management applications increase in the UK and other parts of Western Europe.
ECC Will Quality Management / Liability Recording be a killer application for contact centre industry growth this year? Why?
DF 2004 is expected be a very good year for quality management and liability recording applications. We expect logging applications to increase by 10 per cent to 15 per cent and quality management applications to increase by 8 per cent to 12 per cent. We also expect to see growth in the areas of e-learning, contact centre performance management and analytics.
ECC From the vendor perspective, which will be the companies fighting for lions share in 2004? Are there any challengers?
DF There are 25 companies in quality management/liability recording market and the three largest are NICE, Witness and Verint, based on sector revenue. However, 2004 was also a good year for etalk and Envision, and they are expected to continue to grow. This market is changing and continuing to evolve from hardware-oriented solutions to software-based offerings. This is presenting challenges to some of the current market leaders. There are emerging companies to watch, one is Magnetic North based in the UK.
ECC Which will be the inhibitors for end-user adoption of Quality Management / Liability products and services?
DF The largest inhibitor continues to be the economy both in and out of the US. The worst appears to be behind the US, but it will take some time before the budgets are made available. We expect to see contact centre investments begin to pick up in Q2 and continue to improve throughout the year into 2005. Outside the US, the rate of adoption varies by country and region. The adoption rate in Western Europe has been significant but there is still huge potential in that region.
Products that have a strong value proposition and a quantifiable return on investment (ROI) of six months or less have a good chance of selling. Quality management and logging solutions both meet these criteria. Organisations with effective quality management programmes realise improvements in both quality and productivity. Logging solutions have gone from a nice to have in many organisations to a must have due to new legislation. If a logging solution prevents one frivolous lawsuit, then it is likely to have paid for itself.
End users are increasingly looking for vendors that provide functionally rich products, and understand their business, provide an outstanding and painless implementation experience and provide excellent and consistent support on an ongoing basis.
ECC Which are the procedures end-users should be aware of before, during and after the implementation of these kinds of solutions?
DF The overall quality of the products in the quality management and liability recording market is good and continuing to improve. But organisations that want to succeed with a quality management implementation must address their processes, in addition to their technology. Successful quality management programmes include well-communicated objective, identifying relevant evaluation criteria, well-trained evaluators and coaches and providing timely input.
Its also essential to use the programme to provide both positive feedback, in addition to pointing out areas where improvement is necessary. If agents view the programme positively, it will be well received and realise great benefits for the organisation and its customers. The best way to get anyone on board, including agents, is to involve them in all phases of the implementation from selection to implementation, training and rollout.
Training is always a critical success factor for quality management applications. These systems are relatively easy to learn, but enterprises need to make their team members available for training so that they can quickly realise the great benefits.
Filipe Samora
2004-02-10
Performance Management
Em Foco – Pessoa