BenchmarkPortal Introduces iBenchmark - Automated Benchmarking Tool The Latest Innovation in Call Center Technology Best Practices

BenchmarkPortal announces the launch ofiBenchmark, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-benchmarking/ibenchmark). This automated benchmarking product puts patented technology and advanced processes to work for people who manage contact centers, providing benchmarking reports every month without the aggravation of manually finding and inputting a long list of metrics.

Participating centers receive easy-to-install software that transmits their ACD metrics securely and automatically to BenchmarkPortal's database, the largest in the world of contact center metrics. Managers are then able to access a series of useful, benchmark-related reports via their own, password-protected area of BenchmarkPortal's website.

The service includes time each month with a BenchmarkPortal certified expert, who is trained to help interpret the benchmarking results and guide managers through a process of discernment, decision-making and execution of improvement initiatives. This includes tracking the company’s metrics and calculating improvements in terms of costs, quality and customer satisfaction. In this way, iBenchmark will become a valued management tool on a continuing basis.

iBenchmark reports can become key components of presentations to senior management; they will show the progress managers are making and the value they are adding.

"iBenchmark represents a major step forward", noted Bruce Belfiore, CEO of BenchmarkPortal. "By automating the data collection process and providing a trained expert to help with interpretation, discernment of gaps and identification of practical solutions, iBenchmark is an exceptional management tool. Also, the ease of installation and monthly payment model makes it user friendly and extremely affordable. We can guarantee a positive ROI for those who use iBenchmark."

Monitoring call center performance on a monthly basis allows managers to make decisions and select improvement initiatives that will have measurable impact on the financial and operational performance of the contact center.

iBenchmark Can Empower Call Centers in the Following Ways:
●     Uncovers performance gaps compared with the industry
●     Points toward issues with people, processes, technology
●     Gaps can be quantified and monetized to show impact
●     Assists with decision-making and provides management with valuable insights
●     Provides basis for improvement roadmaps and goal setting
●     Key element in manager’s toolbox
●     Produces hard evidence of value brought to the enterprise by the contact center

The Advantage of Expert Advice – BMP’s Certified Experts:
●     Have years of contact center experience
●     Are recognized leaders, instructors and authors
●     Provide monthly updates via WebEx-style conference call
●     Are available for on-site assistance
●     Provide just the right level of support for managers’ individual needs
●     Can demonstrate savings and ROI - even EPS calculations

Monthly Technology Solution
BenchmarkPortal will provide call centers with the iBenchmark data connector that allows the ACD (and eventually IVR and Workforce Management Systems) to automatically encrypt and transmit metrics to BenchmarkPortal's secure database. To do this, BenchmarkPortal partnered with Symmetrics, creator of proven software that is simple to install and which makes the transfer of data easy and secure. Currently iBenchmark is available for Nortel, Avaya and Cisco ACDs. Connectors for other ACDs will be made available during the course of 2012. A series of useful reports turns your metrics into rich management information that will allow you to monitor your competitive performance and make important decisions on improvement initiatives for your center.

Security of Data
BenchmarkPortal has been the trusted repository of confidential contact center data for over a decade. BenchmarkPortal takes their responsibility in this regard very seriously. The software developed with partner Symmetrics Business Intelligence maintains and enhances this tradition of data security.

For additional information on iBenchmark, visit: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-benchmarking/ibenchmark

QBE FIRST Contact Center Achieves its Sixth Certification as a Center of Excellence

The QBE FIRST customer contact center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization.  “Only the top 10 percent of those benchmarked annually achieve this distinction,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore.   “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry.

To achieve certification as a Center of Excellence, a company must undergo a rigorous benchmarking process, which compares the organization’s operational metrics to those of its peers, using the world's largest database of contact center metrics.  During this process, BenchmarkPortal experts audit and verify key data from the contact center applying for certification.

Factors (called key performance indicators) such as first call resolution, cost per call, call waiting time, customer satisfaction, agent satisfaction and utilization of human resources are taken into account. BenchmarkPortal is able to scientifically gauge how the contact center being studied compares to other centers in the same industry, and if the performance of the contact center is superior.  Customer satisfaction, which relates to customer loyalty and business growth, is the goal, balanced by financial metrics which show that the center is being operated efficiently.

“Center of Excellence certification indicates that the contact center delivers superior customer service within a responsible cost structure,” said Belfiore.  "A great contact center operation reflects its management's passion for balancing the demands of high quality and low costs.  QBE FIRST has shown its ability to achieve that balance through its objective performance metrics.  We have validated its metrics and have certified that QBE FIRST is, indeed, among the best in its industry. I congratulate QBE FIRST on a job well done.”

“Benchmarking delivers a crackerjack profile of a contact center’s operations that can inspire management to move forward aggressively, even in a less-than-robust economy,” added Belfiore, who has been with the company since 2000.

BenchmarkPortal Announces a New Show on CallTalk Discussing The Positive Financial Effects of Contact Center Technology on a Company’s Financial Performance

BenchmarkPortal Announces a New Show on CallTalk Discussing The Positive Financial Effects of Contact Center Technology on a Company’s Financial Performance

BenchmarkPortal will air a new online radio show onCallTalk, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/calltalk-online-radio-show) discussing the positive financial effects of contact center technology on a company’s financial performance.

The host for this show will be Bruce Belfiore, CEO at BenchmarkPortal. The guest speaker is John Chatterley, senior research analyst with BenchmarkPortal and CallTalk co-host Dee Buell.

The online show will discuss the groundbreaking research that statistically ties technology to better performance of key metrics. Every year companies spend millions of dollars on technology in hopes of improving customer satisfaction, as well as a company’s competitive position and operational performance while reducing costs. Up until now there has never been a statistically valid research study, with data from hundreds of companies across a diverse set of vertical industries, that clearly indicates whether a relationship truly exists between more advanced technology and better company performance.

Dr. Natalie L. Petouhoff, a co-author of this research study, said, “While most companies still think of the contact center as a cost center, this study finally proves that adoption of more sophisticated technology results in not only improved customer and customer service agent satisfaction, but also in contact center efficiencies and effectiveness. For executives looking to justify management decisions regarding technology acquisition, they now have scientifically‐supported evidence that satisfying customers and enhancing financial performance are not at odds.”

The full report is available here: “The Impact of Technology on Contact Center Performance” (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/store/call-center-white-papers/impact-technology-contact-center-performance-bruce-belfiore-john-chat)

The free online radio show will air Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. Click here to listen toCallTalk, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/calltalk-online-radio-show)

Everyone Talks Too Much: The Reality of Increasing Customer Communications

Somewhere around the year 2000, we started noting that some call centers were experiencing dysfunctions caused by growth. Centers in certain metropolitan areas showed higher turnover rates and wage pressures that were not shared by all geographies. 

A few years later, we did a landmark study with CB Richard Ellis, in which we overlaid our performance metrics database with the CBRE geographic/demographic database and discovered some very interesting things. 

In effect, we noted that North Americans love to communicate with companies, and the desire to do so was only increasing over time. Even at that time, this growth was straining the ability of America to come up with enough call center agents to satisfy the voracious demand for information from consumers. Already somewhere between 3 and 4% of the working population in the U.S. and Canada was employed in contact centers, up from a fraction of that twenty years before. Our study showed that in certain employment regions (e.g., Phoenix, Tampa, Charlotte), the high demand for call center agents was causing dysfunctions such as high turnover and wage pressures. 

With no weakening of growth in demand for access and information in sight, we saw that there would not be enough American workers to meet the demand. Instead, three "safety valves" have served to relieve the pressure on brick-and-mortar centers tied to specific employment "basins": 

- Outsourcing. Both onshore and off-shore outsourcing have helped to spread out the geography over which brick-and-mortar agents can be found to answer calls. In many cases companies outsourced a portion of their calls while maintaining a sustainable workforce in-house. In other cases they have moved their entire operation to outsourcers, causing considerable pain to those affected. 

- At-home Agents. Technology introduced over the past decade has rendered at-home agents a reality. Here, as well, the operation is freed from a specific geographic locale, and a greater element of flexibility is introduced. Paying on-shore at-home agents on a per minute basis can be financially competitive with offshore outsourcing. Apple and others have been very successful with the at-home model, which has also been a blessing for people trying to piece family life together with work life, or people trying to reconcile physical limitations with career desires. 

- Self-Service (voice, Web, social media). Making it easy for customers to find the answers they need by interacting with technology is the key to self-service - and self-service has increased customer contact capacity hugely over the past ten years. Self-service through the IVR and through the Internet has made a major dent in agent-assisted calls, especially in certain vertical markets such as financial institutions. Most customer contact functions are still trying to understand how to harness social media 

- and we see exciting things happening. 

The key is to anticipate demand for information and to provide seamless quality of service that makes it a pleasure to deal with your customer contact function, whether that be through IVR self-service, chat, telephone agent or other. Remember, there are not enough workers in North America to handle every inquiry by phone the way it was done at the turn of the millennium. If everyone were to talk to a living North American every time they had a question, the volume and cost would simply be unsustainable. You need to determine how to optimize your operations by using all of the technology and personnel options available to you. 

If you would like to talk about ways to optimize your contact center operations or discuss how social media can be your friend, please contact us at Info@BenchmarkPortal.com or at http://www.BenchmarkPortal.com

Bruce Belfiore

CEO & Senior Research Executive

BruceBelfiore@BenchmarkPortal.com

BenchmarkPortal Announces: Ameritas Group Contact Center Achieves its Fifth-Consecutive Certification as a Center of Excellence

BenchmarkPortal Announces: Ameritas Group Contact Center Achieves its Fifth-Consecutive Certification as a Center of Excellence

About the Center of Excellence Certification:

The Center of Excellence recognition is one of the most prestigious awards in the customer service and support industry.The certification process is management's best path to a World Class Quality Call Center. Contact Centers achieve the Center of Excellence distinction based on a best-practice metrics drawn from the world’s largest database of objective and quantitative data that is audited and validated by researchers from BenchmarkPortal.

A contact center that has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal has met and/or surpassed rigorous standards of efficiency and effectiveness. This certification is unique in that its achievement is ascertained strictly “by the numbers.” This means that the BenchmarkPortal team audits and verifies the center’s key performance indicators and compare that data to data from other peer organizations. This is different from other types of contact center certifications that typically focus on less results-oriented measures, such as process handling methods and procedures. 

BenchmarkPortal awards the "Center of Excellence" designation to customer service call centers that rank in the top ten percent of the call centers surveyed. They are judged against a Balanced Scorecard of metrics for efficiency and effectiveness. Those contact centers that demonstrate superior performance on both cost-related metrics and quality-related metrics compared with their industry peers earn the award. 

BenchmarkPortal Announces The 2012 Top 100 Call Centers Contest Winners

BenchmarkPortal Announces The 2012 Top 100 Call Centers Contest Winners

BenchmarkPortal, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com.) a leading call center consulting services group, recently announced the winners of its 2012 Top 100 Call Center Contest. Participants submitted performance data on key operating metrics. The three winners in each of three categories had the highest statistical values for efficiency and effectiveness, as computed by BenchmarkPortal's expert formula, using the world’s largest database of call center metrics.

The highest ranking centers in the large center (250+ agents) category are: Cigna (first place); Affinion Group (second place); and Regions Bank (third place). Medium-size center (100 to 249 agents) winners, from first to third place, respectively, are: the City of Edmonton (Alberta), BMO Harris Bank, and New York Life Insurance Co., AARP Operation. Small-size center winners (5 to 99 agents) are, from first to third place: Delage Landen, Neill Corp., and Delta Dental of Wisconsin.

“BenchmarkPortal salutes the winners – they are definitely leaders in the call center industry,” said Bruce Belfiore, BenchmarkPortal CEO. “Our Top 100 Award places a contact center among the best in the industry in terms of quality of service and cost efficiency. Their key metrics were benchmarked against our database – the largest in the world of contact center metrics. This is a great accomplishment.”

The contest participants were judged on their key performance indicators – including first call resolution, cost per call, call waiting time, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction. Each participant received a complimentary 22-page customized report benchmarking their company against their peers, as well as a confidential web-based readout of the report with a certified BenchmarkPortal expert.

“The award process is based on actual performance,” stated Belfiore. “Recipients of the Top 100 Award have demonstrated, on a very objective basis, that they provide superior service and financial performance as compared with their peers. We congratulate them.”

EyeMed Vision Care Contact Center Achieves Its Third Certification as a Center of Excellence

The EyeMed Vision Care customer contact center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization.  “Only the top 10 percent of those benchmarked annually achieve this distinction,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore.   “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry.

To achieve certification as a Center of Excellence, a company must undergo a rigorous benchmarking process, which compares the organization’s operational metrics to those of its peers, using the world's largest database of contact center metrics.  During this process, BenchmarkPortal experts audit and verify key data from the contact center applying for certification.

Factors (called key performance indicators) such as first call resolution, cost per call, call waiting time, customer satisfaction, agent satisfaction and utilization of human resources are taken into account. BenchmarkPortal is able to scientifically gauge how the contact center being studied compares to other centers in the same industry, and if the performance of the contact center is superior.  Customer satisfaction, which relates to customer loyalty and business growth, is the goal, balanced by financial metrics which show that the center is being operated efficiently.

“Center of Excellence certification indicates that the contact center delivers superior customer service within a responsible cost structure,” said Belfiore.  "A great contact center operation reflects its management's passion for balancing the demands of high quality and low costs.  EyeMed Vision Care has shown its ability to achieve that balance through its objective performance metrics.  We have validated its metrics and have certified that EyeMed is, indeed, among the best in its industry. I congratulate EyeMed on a job well done.”

“Benchmarking delivers a crackerjack profile of a contact center’s operations that can inspire management to move forward aggressively, even in a less-than-robust economy,” added Belfiore, who has been with the company since 2000.

Benchmarkportal.com Announces First Ever Study: The Positive Effects of Contact Center Technology on a Company’s Financial Performance

Benchmarkportal.com Announces First Ever Study: The Positive Effects of Contact Center Technology on a Company’s Financial Performance

Every year companies spend millions of dollars on technology in hopes of improving customer satisfaction, their competitive position and their operational performance, while reducing costs. Until now, there has never been a statistically valid research study, with data from companies across a diverse set of vertical industries, that clearly indicates whether a relationship truly exists between more advanced technology and better company performance. This report entitled, "The Impact of Technology on Contact Center Performance," can be found here:http://www.benchmarkportal.com/store/call-center-white-papers/impact-technology-contact-center-performance-bruce-belfiore-john-chat

Bruce L. Belfiore, Senior Research Executive at BenchmarkPortal and co-author of the study states, “The key findings in The Impact of Technology on Contact Center Performance report are that advanced technologies are potent enablers of superior performance. By looking at validated data sets from 143 contact centers, we are able to provide CEO’s and senior executives with evidence that investments in advanced contact center technologies reduce costs and increase the quality of service. For instance, we found that a contact center that handles 2 million calls a year could save $707,000 annually by using the right technology to improve an important key performance indicator: First Contact Resolution (FCR).”

The study did not ask contact center managers for their opinions, feelings, plans or experiences regarding technology. Rather, states John Chatterley, Director of Research, BenchmarkPortal and co-author, “We asked them only for their data - data on their center's technology and data on their center's performance. The team used a Contact Center Maturity Model™, co-developed by Cisco (which sponsored the research) and BenchmarkPortal. The model places technologies into six silos corresponding to the flow and management of contacts from beginning to end: Receive, Recognize, Route, Queue, Resolve and Review. The sophistication and advanced capabilities of technology were analyzed for each silo vs. contact center performance.”

Dr. Natalie L. Petouhoff, also a co-author of the study, said, “While most companies still think of the contact center as a cost center, this study finally proves that adoption of more sophisticated technology results in not only improved customer and customer service agent satisfaction, but also in contact center efficiencies and effectiveness. For executives looking to justify management decisions regarding technology acquisition, they now have scientifically‐supported evidence that satisfying customers and enhancing financial performance are not at odds.”

Using a correlation analysis and t‐tests, the study found that technologies that ensure proper staffing, connection and recognition of inquiries; that promote proper routing, queuing and resolution / escalation of contacts; and that provide reporting and analytics to both agents and management are statistically related to superior performance. The study showed that among the many key performance indicators studied, more advanced technologies provide higher FCR, lower Cost per Call, increased Calls Handled per Agent per Hour and reduced Queue Time.

The full report can be purchased here: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/store/call-center-white-papers/impact-technology-contact-center-performance-bruce-belfiore-john-chat

BenchmarkPortal Announces a New Show on CallTalk Discussing The Cisco Sponsored Research Ties More Technology To Better Performance of Key Metrics

BenchmarkPortal Announces a New Show on CallTalk Discussing The Cisco Sponsored Research Ties More Technology To Better Performance of Key Metrics

BenchmarkPortal will air a new online radio show on CallTalk, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/calltalk-online-radio-show) discussing The Positive Financial Affects Of Contact Center Technology On A Company’s Financial Performance,

The host for this show will be Bruce Belfiore, CEO at BenchmarkPortal. The guest speaker is John Chatterley, senior research analyst with BenchmarkPortal and CallTalk co-host Dee Buell.

The online show will discuss the groundbreaking research that statistically ties technology to better performance of key metrics. Is there a statistically proven relationship between higher levels of technology in the Contact Center and performance metrics? Now there is! This research is destined to be one of this year's most discussed white papers and will give attendees insights into the statistical relationships found during this broad-based study.

Every year companies spend millions of dollars on technology in hopes of improving customer satisfaction, as well as a company’s competitive position and operational performance while reducing costs. Up until now there has never been a statistically valid research study, with data from hundreds of companies across a diverse set of vertical industries, that clearly indicates whether a relationship truly exists between more advanced technology and better company performance.

The free online radio show will air Wednesday, March 14th, 2012 at 10 a.m. PT. Click here to listen to live CallTalk broadcasts and CallTalk archives.

About CallTalk
A fun and exciting online program for education and learning, for the customer service industry. Once a month, broadcast directly over the Internet to your desktop, covers informative and educational topics impacting the contact center and customer service today.

BenchmarkPortal Launches Outsourcer Call Center Certification Program

BenchmarkPortal Launches Outsourcer Call Center Certification Program

BenchmarkPortal’s Call Center Certification, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-certification), helps your company attain world-class call center performance. BenchmarkPortal is expanding its Center of Excellence (COE) program, to offer Certification to Call Center Outsourcers, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-certification/call-center-outsourcer-certification).

Having your operations certified as a Center of Excellence shows your commitment to high standards and your interest in leading-edge best practices. BenchmarkPortal’s proprietary “balanced scorecard” methodology focuses on metrics relating to quality, on one side, and to cost, on the other. The statistics are determined through continuous processing of thousands of performance metrics stored in our data warehouse of thousands of call centers, which is the largest of its kind in the world. Those centers with superior performance on both sides of the equation become certified.

The statistics are determined through continuous processing of thousands of performance metrics, from thousands of call centers, which are stored in our data warehouse, the largest of its kind in the world.

Call center managers seeking outsource partners to handle their calls want assurance that these calls will be handled efficiently and effectively. BenchmarkPortal can help outsourcers prove that their operations are both efficient and effective according to objective, industry-based standards. With its database of call center metrics (the largest in the world) and its 17 years of experience in benchmarking and certifying hundreds of Global 500 call centers worldwide, BenchmarkPortal, through its certification process, validates outsourcer services. The outsourcer certification can help outsourcers with their marketing efforts, client satisfaction metrics and bottom lines.

Since companies spend vast amounts of money implementing and operating call centers to ensure a competitive edge in customer service, it has become mandatory that the call handling process be conducted at best practice standards. This need to function at best practice levels has created the need for third-party certification that call centers are operating at this high level of call handling performance.

BenchmarkPortal’s rigorous certification process has the advantage of referencing all performance goals to its best practices database of thousands of call centers. Call center managers will be held to performance levels that will improve their company’s competitive position.

"The certification process is well worth the time and effort. Our management staff learned a great deal through the process and are putting those lessons learned into everyday practice. Our call center staff was energized by earning the Center of Excellence Certification. We all take a great deal of pride in this accomplishment and are eager to keep improving our customer service experiences."
John Harcourt, 2nd VP Client Servicing and Operations, Allied Solutions

Click here to learn more about our Call Center Certification programs.