Leaders Talk: Does Something Difference to Make a Business Change

October 29, 2021 – Interactive discussion initiated by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC), Leaders Talk: Cloud Contact Center Strategy, which invited three professional speakers in the Asia Pacific contact center.

One of the speakers who was invited to this discussion is Vikas Kumar. He is Solution Director for ASEAN & Strategic Accounts, Nice Ltd. In this discussion, Vikas explains that this time we have to learn and also unlearn a lot from the past. Because pandemics and lockdown make people change, they could no longer go out, have a face-to-face meeting, and do things like that.

Therefore, this is making a contact center became a kind of front door or first place to go whenever people needed any help or had a question from the business. Some people who never called up, never written email, or never chatted with the contact center, know they are doing that. 

People who were already comfortable doing face-to-face sales now had to go and build their contact center to be more scalable, easy to access and make their staff can answer many of those questions. He thinks that where the overall scale, speed, and efficiency that the cloud can provide it because now we can build up that speed sense into what the contact center can offer.

Vikas also shared the benefits of using the cloud in the contact center. He said that there are two key areas of benefit. He said that the first one is a machine cloud and the second one is a human cloud. Machine cloud is where we get the benefits of scalability. When we talk about cloud, we have a huge capacity which means we can have a data scale, find more patterns, and find more models. Then, the machining cloud will help us to reduce costs and increase speed.

The second one is the human cloud. He said that the human cloud is involved in the millennial style of working. The human cloud is more flexible, can be accessed from anywhere, can be accessed by any type of device, and mobility.

Vikas Kumar also gives a closing remark and his tips about today’s discussion. He thinks that the first one is we should be open about this. The service providers or vendors with technology providers have to be very open about what they can do and what they cannot do.

The most purpose of doing things differently is that we want to make a change to our business. Then, it can make something that is different.

Sometimes some things will have to change both on the people side. A lot of IT teams have been very comfortable taking care of a particular platform. But on the other side, there is an IT team that understands where the technology is going and they are ready to acknowledge it. Also, they are very open to getting retrained to learn new things.

The last thing is he said that we have to prepare for the pitfalls.  If there are any changes, which is that you want? Put back or keep a plan to be ready. He thinks that when you migrate, make sure that you have the right backups you have the right plan in place. At least in the short term, you will have a fallback option. (ANF)

Leaders Talk CC-APAC: Cloud Contact Center Becoming Strategic in Nowadays Situation

October 29, 2021 – The sixth Leaders Talk organized by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) discussed about Cloud Contact Center Strategy by inviting three professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.

This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Vikas Kumar, Solution Director for ASEAN & Strategic Accounts, Nice Ltd. The second panelist is Tommy Ng, Vice President, CCAM, Country Director, MT Microtel Technology Sdn. Bhd. And the last one is Hunady Budihartono, Country Manager, Genesys.

The first topic of discussion is regarding this current situation (pandemic). In this current situation, cloud technology become strategic for the contact center. Vikas said that this time, we have to learn and also unlearn a lot from the past. Because pandemics and lockdown make people change, they could no longer go out, have a face-to-face meeting, and do things like that.

Therefore, this is making a contact center became a kind of front door or first place to go whenever people needed any help or had a question from the business.  Some people who never called up, never written email, or never chatted with the contact center, know they are doing that. 

People who were already comfortable doing face-to-face sales now had to go and build their contact center to be more scalable, easy to access and make their staff can answer many of those questions. He thinks that where the overall scale, speed, and efficiency that the cloud can provide it because now we can build up that speed sense into what the contact center can offer.

Tommy also shared their opinion about how a manager can utilize the cloud in the contact center.  He said that some people think they are not ready for this technology or it’s too dangerous. They also asking, should they do it or not. But Tommy said that the contact center now has no choice. We have to make sure that the user, staff, or employee are safe.

It’s one of the key things that we have to consider before thinking anything else about how do we sustain our business because if we don’t, we will lose all our employees. Therefore, in this situation, we have to adapt technology that where we want is our staff to be safe because they can take care of our business and also our clients.

Tommy also said that remote working is convenient. But, there are two reasons that we have to consider before doing remote work. The first one is infrastructure. The second one is we have to be able to access anywhere. But there are a lot of considerations from the security department to say to allow everybody from anywhere. Therefore, let cloud providers take care of this security issue.

Different from other speakers, Hunady shared his opinion from the operational side. He said that COVID becomes uncertain. When the change going to happen, everybody was working from home and suddenly we have to put more agents at home. Then, that kind of uncertainty becomes the challenge.

Because of that change, now people also don’t want to be face-to-face. They want to make sure that 65% of them can work online. Therefore, that situation pushes everybody to go to the cloud. But before that, we have to think about what kind of cloud we want to do. Then, there is one direction to go and COVID just accelerated the adoption of the cloud. 

The other discussion is talked about the benefits of using the cloud in the contact center. Vikas said that there are two key areas of benefit. He said that the first one is machine cloud and the second one is human cloud. Machine cloud is where we get the benefits of scalability. When we talk about cloud, we have a huge capacity which means we can have a data scale, find more patterns, and find more models. Then, the machining cloud will help us to reduce costs and increase speed.

The second one is the human cloud. He said that the human cloud is involved in the millennial style of working. The human cloud is more flexible, can be accessed from anywhere, can be accessed by any type of device, and mobility.

Tommy also has the same opinion regarding this topic. One of the biggest benefits, he said “Of course, is scalability.” Tommy also shared one example. Our government agencies closed all the branches. Then, what can they do? Because they are front desk at their branches. Therefore, with the cloud, we can ask 200 staff from all the branches to log into the system and help us to answer the calls. Then, scalability is one of the benefits.

Hunady has already mentioned before, the benefit of the cloud is flexibility. Flexibility is become the key compared to on-premises uncertainty. It means that when we want to add on our capacity, we must be ready right away at the center. But the other really important thing is time to market. Like when we try to start with a contact center, with all the premises we may need like what, three months four months to be up and running. That’s where Hunady thinks the cloud becomes a key.

At the end of the discussion, all panelists give their closing remarks and tips about cloud contact center strategy. Want to know more about their opinion? For details, stay tuned for another article on the CC-APAC website. (ANF)

Leaders Talk: Prepare Your Team to be a Great Leaders

October 15, 2021 – Interactive discussion initiated by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC), Leaders Talk: Young Leaders in Contact Center, which invited three professional speakers in the Asia Pacific contact center.

One of the speakers, which invited to this discussion is Anne Purba. He is Corporate Secretary Vice President of KAI Commuter Indonesia. The company is engaged in organizing commuter rail transportation services using electric rail train facilities in the areas of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi (Jabodetabek). 

As a young leader, Anne needs to change the method from the traditional to the digital platform. She thinks that human touch and behavior change not about one or two years, but also every minute the technology is changed. 

Anne also agreed about how important communication is. Because make the expectation clear and with good communication, can also make it together even there is young people or old people. Our team can pour it and we make a communication to them and they also make feedback to us. Make your expectation clear and reasonable, make the communication building, and expectation clear. Also, make a winning team and then encourage them to do something and make it together.

At the end of the discussion, Anne gives some tips about how to be a good leader. First, you do not have to delay your past because it makes ease stress and then makes it hassle-free for others. Then, try to do one date every day. Within a year, there must be significant takes and beliefs. Regarding prosperity as a religious people, rest assured that it will not be replaced. 

For young leaders, don’t forget to prepare your team to replace you. As a good cleaner, we want a great leader to replace us. Therefore, we should make room to share our experience and get more feedback to make every single improvement and do our best. “Let’s get do the rest. And don’t forget to pray and call your mom and say thank you because she has warned you and made you a leader now,” said Anne. (MAF)

Leaders Talk: 5 Things that Young Leaders Should Do

October 16, 2021 – Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) present Leaders Talk discussion with the theme ” Young Leaders in Contact Center.” CC-APAC invited three professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.

One of the speakers is Dian Ratna Furi. She is the Operation Manager of VADS, Indonesia. Dian said that so many young leaders would be born. They came up and brought new ideas and new perspectives. It is affected to contact center to leave all the traditional methods. Contact centers need to change and fast adapt to the condition.

For all young leaders, Dian said that we need to lead by example which contains the action to inspire. As a leader, she explains that we need to commit to the vision, mission, and even share the passion during coaching when meeting or individually. She also shared the experience when she got a big challenge for developing people who were older than her. She said that good communication is important to do.

Dian also explains that having good communication for dealing with elder people is very necessary. The young generation needs to understand their sensitivity during the works and their sensitivity about what they need when they aim in this organization. On the other hand, she found a millennial who likes to speak faster than action. Like she said before, the leader needs to give them an example containing action that can inspire them.

At the end of the discussion, Dian shared some tips about how to be a good leader. Dian said, “Leadership is not based on your age, not based on your rank, not depends on your job title, not depends on your position.” Then, she said that leadership is a choice, we choose and decide whether we want to throw out the rest of our team. Whether we want to look after them or us you want to give them without any direction.

It is your choice and you decide whether you want to lift the others in your team. She also said that young leaders have so many steps that they can do in their leadership quest like, first their need to walk the top, and then the communication. Also, the engagement, young leaders should have inclusion and sensitivity, integrity, and trust here. (ANF)

Leaders Talk: Be a Good Young Leaders by Learning New Things Everyday

October 15, 2021 – Interactive discussion initiated by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC), Leaders Talk: Young Leaders in Contact Center, which invited three professional speakers in the Asia Pacific contact center. 

One of the speakers who is invited to this discussion is Somruedee Songsoengrit. She is the Distribution Manager in Roojai, Thailand. The company is engaged in insurance. Somruedee said that the young leader’s generation is changing very fast. That becomes a challenge for her to follow them. The impact is a consistently changing environment. It means one situation maybe work one way, but on the other hand, maybe can bring another huge problem. Then, Somruedee said, “And how do we do that? How do I develop my capabilities?”

She also said that to lead the contact center you will have to prepare yourself for that change. You must be ready, be positive, and also dealing with change, whatever it comes, and then we will use our skill set for any experience that we have learned from the past and apply it.  And to develop skills, Somruedee does from learning and practicing. She said that when she is learning, she is knowing, and then do coaching, especially when she led a contact center team.

Somruedee said to manage and communicate with older teams or generations, we should make a relationship with them. We should talk to them to understand them more because we need to spend time with this kind of generation more than the young leaders and the young generation. We should learn together and then, if we understand them for sure, we can work together with them. Team bonding is important. 

Somruedee also shares tips about how to be a good leader for the young leader, especially women, millennials, and the older generation. She said that every day we have learned new things from day-to-day routine. That those lessons we have learned in the day-to-day operations. Even if we are not at work, or our house, or outside the work, it can be helpful to enhance our development skills, especially communication which is very important nowadays. Then, do not stop learning. (ANF)

Leaders Talk CC-APAC: How To Be a Good Young Leaders in Contact Center

October 15, 2021 – In this Leaders Talk, the Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) discussed “Young Leaders in Contact Center” by inviting three professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.

This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Somruedee Songsaengrit, Distribution Manager, Roojai, Thailand. The second is Dian Ratna Furi, Operations Manager, VADS Indonesia. Then, the last one is Anne Purba, Corporate Secretary Vice President KAI Commuter, Indonesia.

Andi Anugrah as Chairman of ICCA Indonesia has led the discussion. The discussion started about the workstyle of young leaders can impact contact center operation. Somruedee said the impact is a consistently changing environment. It means one situation maybe work one way, but on the other hand, maybe can bring another huge problem.

Dian also said that so many young leaders would be born. They came up and bring new ideas and new perspectives, it is affected to contact center to leave all the traditional methods. Contact centers need to change and fast adapt to the condition.

Another opinion from Anne, she said that she has a work style urgency is efficiency. She needs to change the method from the traditional to the digital platform. She thinks that human touch and behavior change not about one or two years, but also every minute the technology is change.

The next discussion is regarding the capability that young leaders need. According to Somruedee, the young leader needs to get ready, be positive, and deal with a chance whatever is come. She also said that use skills and experience that learn from the past is necessary to apply. And to develop skills, Somruedee does from learning and practicing. She said that when she is learning, she is knowing, and then do coaching, especially when she led a contact center team.

For all young leaders, Dian said that we need to lead by example which contains the action to inspire. As a leader, she explains that we need to commit to the vision, mission, and even sharing the passion during coaching when meeting or individually. She also shared the experience when she got a big challenge for developing people who were older than her. She said that good communication is important to do.

Anne also agreed with Dian about how important communication is. Because make the expectation clear and with good communication, can also make it together even there is young people or old people.

In the middle of the discussion, there is some question from a participant regarding how to deal with the old and the young generation. Somruedee gives the opinion about how to deal with the old generation, she said that it’s a little bit difficult because they are experts in something and sometimes, they have more experience than the young generation. However, understand the older generation is needed and knowing them in person and make a good relationship is helpful.

Dian also explains that having good communication for dealing with elder people is very necessary. The young generation needs to understand their sensitivity during the works and their sensitivity about what they need when they aim in this organization. On the other hand, she found a millennial who likes to speak faster than action. Like she said before, the leader needs to give them an example containing action that can inspire them.

The Leaders Talk event closed with tips from all three speakers about how to be a good leader in the contact center, especially for the young, women, and old generation. Want to know more detail about their opinion? Check the newest article on the CC-APAC website. (ANF)

Critical Thinking

By Andi Anugrah

One of the questions we ask during individual competitions is about operational cost-efficiency. In the moderator’s question, “As a best Contact Center Manager, if you are asked to make operational cost-efficiency. Choose the action you will take, is it reducing the number of agents or providing digital services? Explain 3 reasons for this choice?”

If you were in that position, which would be your priority? Is it reducing the number of agents or providing digital services? Try to explain without connecting the two or try to explain using supporting data. Try to explain by paying attention to the risks and the development process that must be done.

One needs to train oneself to deal with certain conditions and one’s experience is forged from the various conditions one has experienced. It could also be from the references he read or it could be from studying the cases of other companies. The learning process gives us a broader insight into the aspects that must be prioritized when we have to choose.

Choosing to reduce the number of agents, of course, there will be risks. Choosing to provide digital services also has its risks. Of course, with the experience you have as a contact center manager, you will have many ways to reduce risk. When we choose these conditions for operational cost efficiency, we will be faced with calculations and tolerances for possible achievements.

What if you choose to provide digital services, and the impact causes the number of your contact center services to increase. Of course, it causes the need for agents to increase and your operational costs to swell. “Oh, is that so?” It can happen, the cause is because of different customer service patterns. However, many digital services are self-service, there are mobile apps or chatbots. Well, here you have to choose the right steps for services that suit the needs of your customers.

What if you choose “reduce the number of agents”. Well, you certainly have a more precise explanation. “Please. Come on, who’s answering?”

Keep the spirit up to welcome the morning, stay healthy and happy. (AA)

Workforce Optimization

By Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia

Friday two weeks ago, I invited three leaders from 3 leading technology vendors, Genesys, Nice, and Verint. Of course, contact center users are quite familiar with these provider technologies. We discuss workforce optimization in various aspects and its development. We increase labor productivity during the pandemic, in addition to balancing it with service quality. Also discusses the experience of agents and provides adequate tools for them to work.

Present as panelists were Andy Hardy from Genesys, Aryan Sunil from Verint, and Mark Harington from Nice. We also discussed the business objectives of the application of WFO technology. Along with technological developments, we also discuss sentiment analytics, especially customer analysis. There is a need to analyze more customer interaction data, both in real-time and historically. Not only limited to a certain sample but using technology to make it easier to capture various customer feedback. Likewise, we discussed gamification as a tool to motivate agents in various aspects of performance.

The three speakers highlighted that optimizing the workforce in the contact center needs to be a concern as part of the development strategy. For this reason, the contact center needs to integrate information about the workforce include performance management, e-learning, interaction analysis, quality management, and workforce management. It can involve a high-level framework that includes strategic contact center planning, agent recruitment, placement, monitoring, evaluation, improvement, and motivation, as well as corporate accountability and contribution.

Workforce optimization is a customer experience strategy that modernizes contact center technology and platforms. Through the use of digital channels, workforce optimization is for increasing employee engagement and increase customer satisfaction. Workforce optimization integrates technology into a single point of management to increase the visibility of customer interactions, employee performance, and business processes. By analyzing all customer interactions, businesses can leverage insights to train their employees and streamline workflows to improve the overall quality of customer service.

Not to forget, we also discussed the importance of collaboration in the application of technology. The importance of having a partner in building a contact center. For this reason, users need to build engagement with vendors, so they can get maximum results in the application of technology. Well, of course, all speakers are vendors, they hope to build relationships with users so that they can maximize the function of technology and provide benefits according to their business objectives.

In the last four months, we regularly invite contact center industry leaders to be part of the discussion forum. This is a regular event and activity for the Contact Center Association of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) to build relationships and networking with contact center leaders and executives. Hope you can participate in the next opportunity. Make sure to watch the recording on YouTube, Greetings are healthy and happy. (AA)

Leaders Talk: Realization What Is You Want to Achieve

September 24, 2021 – Interactive discussion initiated by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC), Leaders Talk: Workforce Optimization in Contact Center, which invited three professional speakers in the Asia Pacific contact center.

One of the speakers, who was invited to this discussion is Aryan Sunil. He is Director Practice Backoffice and Retail, Asia Verint. Aryan also explained that optimization or workforce engagement management is evolving and has become very important, especially for the contact center.

This optimization concept is the way for us to develop them to be more engage in work. We must be able to determine the right number of people at the right time or look at the quality. That will have a lot to do with how we deliver better and faster results to our customer and in order to optimize the workforce in the company, we must consider the perspective from the employee’s side while trying to achieve what our contact center is. 

For example, a receptionist. Some people’s perspective of a receptionist is they job is just to answer the call, no one saw them that they were here for company business purposes. We don’t see them as a fancy calculation mechanism. We treat them well. They are here not to just answering the call, but they are here doing business and have taken a very remarkable journey. 

Aryan’s opinion of that strategy is sometimes we need to look at it from a third perspective view because we need to look at what matters to the center at that moment. Are we looking at cutting down costs or are we trying to increase our service because it depends on the stage of the organization? We may have to take one of those steps.

Workforce optimization integrates technology into a single point of management to increase the visibility of customer interactions, employee performance, and business processes. By analyzing all customer interactions, businesses can leverage insights to train their employees and streamline workflows to improve the overall quality of customer service.

Sunil Aryan also gives a summary and his opinion about today’s discussion. He said that the world is changing, and of course, vendors will try to bring something which will make your life easier. They are those who know your business better than you. The first point is you must realize that what is it that I want to achieve. The questions like, what is target to buy or target to fix a problem, please do not consider that solution.

None of these solutions work without a comprehensive. Sunil said that do the consultative approach with the person who needs to do it. That person who took a step forward to think of which solution needs to fix the problem.

The second point is, he thinks every one of us said that employees are the ones who give customer experience that they can be digital. Aryan said for example, all human beings always empower intelligent virtual assistants. Then, he asks a question to those bots. “Why is that answer different from what you are agent call center telling me or what is written on the website,” Sunil said. Then, don’t find these things in sight. He said that let’s have that as a unified platform. (ANF)

Leaders Talk: What Managers Should Do First Before Making a Strategy

September 24, 2021 – Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) present Leaders Talk discussion with the theme “Workforce Optimization in Contact Center.” CC-APAC invited professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.

One of the speakers is Andy Hardy, Strategic Director of Employee Engagement for Genesys in Australia, and New Zealand. Andy explained that optimizing the workforce in the contact center is very important at this time. Investment in employees is typically the most expensive cost to any organization and business. Therefore, it’s more appropriate not to replacing our employees with new ones because it will cost more. Then, it will help us manage employees easily and engage them to be more involved in the work. Because by keeping our current employees, we will get a better level of service.

The next discussion is talking about the strategy of optimizing the workforce in the contact center. Andy said that we need to use the information and insight that we have on our employees. He tried to get back the basics of service, such as what service to provide to customers. Then moving on to the employee experience, think about service providers. 

Andy also shares some tips for managers regarding the implementation of workforce optimization. He said that we must think bigger and higher when we are starting a strategy.  Think about our customers first and what service we are trying to give to our customers. Then, build our strategy off the back of that for our employees, align the two. “If they are going in two different directions, neither are going to be successful,” said Andy. He thinks that is an important thing to do.

About the workforce, there is a study that said. If we keep our employees within our business and keep them engaged, then we are going to see higher productivity. We can notice this claim of 17 to 20% higher productivity by engaged employees. If we have engaged employees, we are going to see much lower attrition then, our investment isn’t just about people, but it’s about our organization. Then, he thinks that the engagement thing is important. (ANF)