Tag: Technology

Leaders Talk CC-APAC: Enable Ecosystem for CX Innovation

Friday, March 11, 2022 – The 11th Leaders Talk CC-APAC hosted by ICCA discussed “Enable Ecosystem for CX Innovation” by inviting a professional speaker to the Asia Pacific contact center. This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The speaker Manoj Menon, Founder/CEO Twimbit.

Manoj starts the discussion by asking about the new definition of CX. He explains using a Gashapon machine as an example. “How many of you have played on this Gashapon machine. You know, how many have a lot of you played on this machine? Or you have children or you have taken the children to this machine?” ask Manoj.

He said what usually happens in this machine, the child will come, take a coin, and then play with this machine. Manoj also said that after we or our child get the toy, we 99% of the time don’t even use that toy. “We will leave it there and we go back to the machine to do it again,” said Manoj.

Then, Manoj explains that the machine is not for us to buy the product. The machine is making an experience for us. He said that we have to learn from Gashapon and make some more money from it. He also said that is what has happened in the world today. The only way we can differentiate is how you orchestrate that experience. And he said that is why we know and believe the experience is about the customer journey to use our product.

Manoj explains it is from the moment that the customer even thinks about using our product to the journey then consuming the product then to be a community member of our product for the rest of his life.

Manoj also shared about the ecosystem. He said that he is not making any money from the ecosystem, “I’m a research company,” said him. He wants every company to build a better strategy to grow their business. He also thinks building the ecosystem strategy is very important for every company. Either we build and develop our ecosystem, or you become part of somebody else’s ecosystem then, that we can innovate them because the future is an ecosystem.

Now, Manoj said that we got to move to the new era of strategy, which is to build that digital. Then, that is why he is talking about the ecosystem. We help companies develop and define and design their ecosystem strategy that is what we do (his company) as one of my offerings, but that is not the only offering. The ecosystem becomes a platform where everybody will be networking, such as networking for their potential and competency to deliver something.

For a closing statement, Manoj said that we have to learn about what is the ideal experience. And also, if we can start doing that automatically, he thinks we will see the improvement. For him, the biggest inspiration for customer experience is in sports. Because sport has fans and the fans are very loyal to their club. “Manchester United is not doing well for so long, but the fans are still so loyal,” said Manoj.

He said that what made them so much obsessed with it? Because there is that human connection. Then, now how do we create that because he thinks the sporting clubs do it very well. Technology is important but it is not the technology, it is about ritual. He explains that is about a great stadium, great stories of great players.

Then, the point he said is that customer experience for the companies is about great leaders in the company. “It is about the great physical storefront of the company. It is about great technology, and it is about great employees,” said him. Therefore, he asks all leaders to draw inspiration for their company and country, “Let’s make Indonesia very well known globally, for great customer and human experience,” said Manoj. (ANF)

Leaders Talk CC-APAC: Data Science and Data Analytics in Contact Center

Friday, March 4, 2022 – The tenth Leaders Talk CC-APAC hosted by ICCA discussed ” Data Science and Data Analytics in Contact Center.” by inviting a professional speaker to the Asia Pacific contact center. This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The speaker is Manish Shah, Vice President SE Asia Verint, Customer Engagement Solutions.

He thinks that basically, the biggest science is a practice that is happening right now because organizations are building analytics, who’s working there, and those with these rich datasets, like voice conversations and email conversations and chats. Then, he said that data science is more used to gain lessons that can improve marketing campaigns, improve customer service, or increase cross-selling opportunities to gain sales insights. In addition, it can also measure the best quality metrics for agents for employees and empower them to make decisions for successful outcomes.

Meanwhile, Manish explained that data analytics are used within the contact center where they focus on the entire company. Analytical data is not only applied to the voice channel or just to the email channel, but also to the entire channel.

Manish said that data analysis is more about how to study the practice, learn about what customers like and don’t like, and anticipate the next customer’s needs. Companies rely on data analytics not only to determine actions that are more focused on the contact center but for those who are more focused on the business. Then, data science is not only needed today but also needed in your future and it makes you ready to face the competition in the future.

He also gives tips for leaders if they want to develop their contact center in the era of data analytics in data science. He thinks that the most important is identifying the right partners, the right technology, and the experience behind supporting your companies.

And then identifying the right process and executives bringing executive sponsorship to it and then allowing the insight to be axed enable creating the process of culture to apply those inside to measure his impact. “I think this is what the leaders of today’s CXO and CEOs should be doing so that they could keep learning and keep improving,” explain Manish. (ANF)

Leaders Talk CC-APAC: Contact Centre as a Service Implementation Strategy

Friday, February 18, 2022 – The ninth Leaders Talk CC-APAC hosted by ICCA discussed “Contact Center as a Service Implementation Strategy,” by inviting a professional speaker to the Asia Pacific contact center. This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The speaker is Kenneth Chong, Chairman of CCAS Singapore, Amazon Web Services ASEAN Partner Segment Lead.

With this nowadays transformation such as cloud platform, Kenneth said that he can set up a call center in 10 minutes, then we can get it done. He said that the point is when we get into our service utility model, the time that we spend on the getting staging of the data center, then your infrastructure is taken away from you. And he thinks the time to value as call center operators and all you focus on what’s most important, He said, “five to value for your customers, your access to technology that’s now on-demand. That you can experiment and try. Also, we can customize and add some within minutes here.”

Kenneth also explains how leaders can take advantage of the current situation with strategic action. He thinks from the leadership side of it, he sees some of the lead in some of the industry and call center operators. What they should be looking at from a success? The first one is we should be agile. That agility gives you the speed, your time to value, and time to market because that now becomes your accelerator.

The second is that he encourages everyone to be bolder. Don’t be constrained by what we have today because access to technology is now so easy and they are cloud-based services that are highly accessible. We should be bold and make our changes. It means that we can create a safe environment, allow people to raise ideas, and that will give us the innovation culture.

That innovation culture will help us to create meaningful things that are beneficial to our customers that I should replicable. The third one is being creative and adopting changes. We should think out of the box, don’t let our legacy bring us down our ideas. Think again of a way that you can get more creative and pre-emptive.

The last one you must be ready to be dynamic. We have to be able to react fast because we are in a world that is fully and highly dynamic. We realize is that technology is highly available nowadays. We can start looking at new technology or rather a new environment for us to pilot an experiment. (ANF)

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)

Digital

By Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia

The development of telecommunications technology has driven the transformation of digital services. If we pay attention, the transition of digital contact center services is more inclined towards used self-service technology or the use of new media. We can feel this transition is initiated by the service using the Interactive Voice Response or IVR engine. Self-service with IVR helps customers to solve various information and transaction needs independently.

Then the use of email and the internet became the next service medium, although the presence of an internet contact center with VoIP at those times was less successful due to network limitations. When the development of cellular telecommunications networks dominates, then the use of SMS as a service line becomes the solution and continues with service codes.

The development continued with the presence of live chat, social media, and various other message-based media. That encourages written communication to become an exhaustive way of communicating services. Likewise, the presence of Artificial Intelligent or AI technology has encouraged the use of chatbots applications. The ability of Artificial Intelligent applications that can recognize sound or images or writing to provide various variations of self-service services to customers.

The presence of various mobile applications has supported customer service carried out by self-service. Customers only select the menu available in the application then they can perform many activities include getting information, making transactions, registering, changing status, or various other requests. The convenience provided by the mobile application, allows customers to solve many problems self-service.

More increasing the number of applications used will make customers depend on the availability of these applications. On the other side, the need for assistance also increases with various personal problems. When the customer does not get adequate service from the application, the choice is to contact the contact center through chat or chatbots. They can also use e-mail or even they choose to use the telephone.

The challenge faced with digitalization is the reduced number of workers used because most of the services are already done by self-service. The next challenge is that digital presence causes customer expectations to be higher. With that automation or digitization, they hoping can provide faster, more accurate services, even with greater service capacity. For this reason, contact centers that implement digitalization need to implement new standard procedures that can accommodate these changes in service patterns.

Sometimes these changes are not a concern because they assume that the digitization of services will run automatically. That is the challenge of transitioning the service automation process. However, this change requires the workforce to be more creative and use digital technology effectively in reducing various routine jobs. The rest of the workforce’s abilities should emphasize services that are relational, personal, and something that requires more complex feelings or thoughts.

Enjoy the era of digitizing contact center services. I hope to be a part of that change. (AA)