So what should a call analytics and reporting platform do best? Provide real time information on agents? Make in depth historical reports on call management available at the touch of a button? Or how about allow supervisors to deploy call groups flexibly to meet peaks and troughs in demand?
How about all three?
Oak Innovation Ltd is not a company which is shy about shouting its credentials. The British-born company claims “we’re not simply a reporting company, but a rich seam of disruptive ideas and technologies that enable businesses and individuals to do things they previously couldn’t, or to do them better.”
Oak’s Evolve software platform is their bid to make contact centres run better. Described as “the next generation call reporting and management solution” which “takes call reporting to the next level,” Evolve combines a wide range of ‘live’ supervisory and monitoring tools with in depth analysis functions in a single pane of glass.
It is therefore positioned to offer the complete solution for the modern contact centre, from making queue management and call handling metrics visible to everyone, to providing the data-based intelligence on which businesses can build improved customer services.
In this review, we will unpick exactly how Evolve helps call centre management, team supervisors and staff ‘do things better’, and whether in this case Oak lives up to its claim to being more than “simply a reporting company.”
How Does It Look?
The UI is arranged somewhat like a spreadsheet, with data set out in tabular form on screen. There is a vertical menu of different functions to the left, opening different panes, such as a supervisor’s overview of live calls in progress, or the reports pages. Visually, Oak Evolve is one of the nicest looking wallboards on the market.
What Can It Do?
Evolve is a software application which provides real-time reporting and performance analytics for contact centres, both formal and informal. Built on the award-winning Oak Communications Platform (OCP), Evolve can be deployed as an on premises software solution, deployed in the data-centre, or can be virtualised in Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware.
Evolve connects with a PBX switch and mines the data generated by the telephone system via the CTI link, using a backend SQL database and analytics engine to process in real time. Built to comfortably handle extremely large data feeds generated by very large contact centres or multi-site operations, the licensing system also makes it very scalable, so you can increase capacity as and when you need to.
The speed and efficiency of the data processing is what powers Evolve’s real time reporting capabilities. The GUI dashboard displays live information including incoming call volumes, call queues, agent status, hunts group activity and measurement against targets.
This is coupled with a high level of supervisory control. Team leaders can pre-empt difficulties at the busiest times by moving calls from one queue to another, simply by dragging and dropping on screen. Supervisors can also access calls in progress as and when required, listening in without the customer knowing they are there, or using the ‘whisper’ function to offer advice to the agent.
A wallboard display shares key real-time information with the whole team. This can be customised to display whatever information is most relevant to the business, be it agent availability, average wait time, queue size or service levels. A neat touch is how the tiles can be programmed to change colour to reflect whether the team is missing, meeting or exceeding targets.
In addition to the wallboard, each agent also has their own app displaying personal details such as availability time and average call time. This also allows agents to escalate calls for supervisor analysis if they feel they need further support.
Beyond real time monitoring, Evolve also comes with a range of in-depth, customisable historical reporting tools for long term performance analysis. Reports can be accessed by agent, extension, hunt groups, caller number, date and call type, and are generated very quickly so the most up to date data is included. They can present an overview of data from any specified time range, or can be focused in to look at any individual call in greater depth, providing stats for the entire call lifecycle.
Clients are able to choose the KPIs they build reports around, whether that be average wait times, calls taken, average queue size or any other relevant metric. Reports then offer a detailed picture of performance over a specified time period, giving clear visibility to peaks, troughs and any other trends.
Detailed reports are also available on ‘lost’ calls, providing everything from top line percentages to individual caller details so there is the opportunity to call the customer back.
What do we like?
The GUI is very user friendly and designed to make life easier in a busy contact centre. Whether it is the ability in the supervisor’s interface to drag and drop calls from one queue to another, or the option to escalate call in the agent app with a single click, everything is very intuitive and easy to use.
This is extended into how onscreen reports can very easily be expanded over additional timeframes, or narrowed down to focus in on very small scales, or even individual calls. Calls can be listed at a click, and in depth details for each accessed from there.
Who is it for?
Because of the easy scalability offered by the licensing system, and the flexible range of deployment solutions, Oak Evolve is suitable for a wide range of customers, from small to mid-sized businesses looking to gain better insight on their call handling performance, to larger formal call centres.
What is it compatible with?
Oak Evolve is designed to plug into the PBX systems of most major developers, and is officially approved for use with the Avaya IP Office phones system as part of Avaya’s DevConnect programme. The Oak APIs are also available so Evolve can be embedded into other third party software platforms.
UC Today Opinion
Oak positions itself as an oft-copied trend setter in the world of call reporting and analysis software. Whatever the truth of this, Evolve certainly covers pretty much all of the bases you could hope for from a modern contact centre platform – real time analytics and reporting, live statistical displays, easy management via a very intuitive and usable interface, and excellent historical reporting capabilities. All round a very impressive product.
Have you used Oak Evolve? Do you agree with the opinions in this review? Whatever your thoughts, please feel free to share in the comments section below, and as always, don’t forget to share this article on social media and invite others to join in too.
