Want to optimize that CRM system? Monitor the end users.
Knoa doesn’t sell CRM solutions. But, many of our customers use Knoa’s end-user monitoring solutions to measure the experience their CRM system is delivering to their end-users, and to improve end-user productivity and performance when using that CRM system. In the course of working with our customers, we have discovered countless examples where insight into agent experience and performance was used to improve the business results from the investment in CRM systems. So it wasn’t surprising that earlier this week I was asked by the editor of a CRM publication, to explain why an effective end-user management program should be a core part of a CRM implementation.
Why: It’s all about the end-user
No CRM system will deliver the anticipated ROI unless the users of the CRM system adopt the application, use the right functionality for their roles and use that functionality well. That is true whether or not the end-users are field-based or in a contact center; it’s true if those end-users are sales or support or servicing professionals. Without effective use of the software your top line KPIs (e.g.improve forecast accuracy, decrease average handling time, increase cross-selling or drive customer satisfaction) will not improve, and could in fact decline. Because, too often, CRM systems are built around the constraints of the software and not around an understanding that it is only when the CRM system is being used by an end-user to accomplish a business task or process that the CRM system will deliver any value.
What: Which Metrics to track:
End-User Experience Metrics: Are the transactions slow? Is the end-user being presented with incomprehensible system errors? These are clear impediments to productivity that are all too often invisible. These metrics are used to identify and eliminate impediments that technology is presenting to the agent. Forrester research reports that up to 80 percent of system errors experienced by end-users are not reported, and that only 25 percent of performance problems are caught by existing monitoring technologies.
End-user Performance Metrics – Are agents using the correct transactions for the process? Are they following the prescribed call flow? Are they using the applications effectively or making errors? Are they utilizing all the tools available, such as the knowledge base? These metrics give managers insight into the problems with agent performance that are impacting business results. Any lack of proficiency is transparently communicated to ensure that the problems are identified so that resolution – possibly in the form of one-on-one training or coaching – is taken.
Metrics that correlate end-user behaviors with business outcomes need to be a big part of CRM performance management. The only thing that really matters is how your employees are using the CRM system to impact business outcomes. If you are only monitoring and managing those outcomes (and not the underlying behaviors that drive them) then you do not have a comprehensive management perspective of our CRM system.
The Pay-off: Top and Bottom Line Results
Here are some examples Knoa has documented while working with our customers
• Capturing Agent Innovation. By analyzing agent behavior at one high-performing contact center, this provider of consumer services was able to identify very specific agent behaviors that improved productivity by 25%. This innovation was implemented as standard practice for hundreds of advisors, a productivity improvement worth approximately $3 million.
• Reduction in Average Handling Times. The Knoa EPM system highlighted countless ways to strip seconds from the AHT by streamlining the workflow and removing meaningless error and warning messages.
• Faster On-boarding. With real-time feedback on user errors during the crucial early stages, sales reps were fully operational four times faster.
• Improved Agent Effectiveness. The EPM system identified a number of errors that the agents were making because of a non-intuitive user interface or cumbersome process. For one particular error, it was taking 9 seconds, on average, for the agents to recover. Usually a small change to the user interface corrected the problem.
• Improved productivity due to the rapid identification of technological bottlenecks. The EPM system highlighted that the company needed to increase capacity for more than 600 inside sales desktops. The uplift enabled an increase in response times and increased application uptime, which enabled a 10% increase in productivity for its business service advisors. The company estimated the revenue protected to be more than $2 million.
