Agent turnover plagues the contact center industry. It has for so long that many companies have accepted it as an impossible cost to combat.
Yet, with agent recruitment becoming increasingly challenging, it is no longer all about costs. Understaffing leads to long wait times for customers and burnout for the agents that stay.
Add to this mix the impact agent performance has on customer loyalty, satisfaction, and sentiment, and agent management becomes a critical business consideration.
For these reasons, Ventana Research has assessed 18 leading contact center technology vendors, weighing up their agent management portfolios. Here is what they found.
A Market Definition of Agent Management
In essence, agent management is another term that Ventana Research has chosen above agent performance optimization, workforce optimization, and workforce engagement management.
Yet, as its study – the "Ventana Research Agent Management Value Index 2022" - states: "These are all flavors of the components but not the entirety of agent management."
Indeed, agent management is an all-compassing term for any process contributing to a contact center's strategy in monitoring, supporting, and coaching agents. Many of these are technology-driven, especially in the current remote working reality.
However, this reality is starkly different from the state of play before the pandemic. As such, many providers' agent management portfolios have undergone a seismic transformation in recent times.
Keeping its watchful eye on this climate, Ventana research has assessed the technology stacks of many prominent industry vendors, splitting them into four categories: Exemplary, Innovative, Assurance, and Merit.
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Ventana Research Agent Management Value Index 2022[/caption]
Exemplary
Agent management vendors in the "exemplary" category performed best against the product and customer experience requirements stated in the report. Product experience includes product usability, capability, reliability considerations, and the like. CX covers more of the support and knowledge the provider shares. This year’s exemplary vendors are:
- veri
- Verint
- Genesys
- Avaya
- Calabrio
- Talkdesk
- Content Guru
NICE
Highly commended across the CCaaS arena for its CXOne solution, NICE scored highest out of all 18 vendors for its adaptability, capability, manageability, and reliability. Much of this is exemplified by its quality management solutions, which come with the tagline: "Designed for quality. Built for simplicity." The vendor is also a significant player in WFM and real-time interaction guidance – critical tools within an agent management portfolio.
Verint
For many years Verint has crafted a fierce reputation for its analytics-driven technologies, which include many of those that sit within The Verint Customer Engagement Platform. Its real-time agent-assist, agent feedback, and quality assurance solutions are all excellent examples. Notably, Ventana Research ranked it as the vendor best for validation, a significant element in the CX requirements.
Genesys
Often the vendor spearheading analyst reports for CCaaS, Genesys has also performed impressively for its agent management proposition. The vendor was one of the earliest to proactively support agents with real-time automated support and still leads the pack with a lauded knowledge base, predictive routing, and co-browsing solutions. These align well with the staple agent management offerings, which Genesys also offers.
Avaya
Notorious on-premise contact center vendor Avaya is starting to accelerate its shift to the cloud with its Avaya OneCloud suite gaining momentum. Its seamless integration with native UC tools and Microsoft Teams enables next-level agent collaboration that is vital for remote operations. Ventana also praises the vendor for its client experience – scoring second overall in this area, with Avaya well-known for its expert consultants.
Calabrio
Since acquiring Teleopti in 2019, Calabrio has scaled the ranks of these industry reports, establishing itself as a market leader in WFM. Yet, the vendor has followed this up by developing a quality management toolset that automates a significant chunk of the time-consuming initiative, alongside impressive analytics and data management capabilities. All these are highly integrated.
Talkdesk
Alongside the more conventional agent management technologies, Talkdesk offers service reps an intuitive, unified workspace, a "Conversations" mobile app, and contextual recommendations delivered by an agent-assist bot. Most impressively, the vendor placed fourth for its client experience, thanks to its array of CX services, Talkdesk Academy, and Talkdesk Community.
Content Guru
Content Guru provides a comprehensive agent management portfolio with VoC, real-time reporting, and transcription tools. For its more fundamental workforce engagement solutions, it is always finetuning and advancing them, recently announcing upgrades for its WFM platform. Ventana Research lauded the manageability of these solutions as a significant strength.
Innovative
While the vendors classed as "innovative" can compete with the exemplary providers, they seemingly lag a little in terms of the client experience they offer. This year’s innovative vendors are:
- 8x8
- Cisco
8x8
With native UC tools and popular Microsoft Teams integrations, 8x8 empowers remote agents with powerful collaboration tools. Moreover, it recently released an agent-centric CCaaS solution, aiming to put service reps first. However, Ventana Research cautions that the vendor could deliver a little more clarity in what it provides to potential clients to maximize its value proposition.
Cisco
Through its Webex CCaaS platform, Cisco puts forward a robust hybrid work offering with the help of its renowned video solution. It also provides impressive WFM, quality management, and gamification capabilities, especially considering how new the vendor is to the market. However, it still perhaps has a little maturing to do, with Ventana Research pinpointing integrations as a potential area for improvement, specifically with business analytics tools.
Assurance
"Assurance vendors" have a track record of building positive relationships with clients to enhance agent management programs. However, Ventana Research deemed them to fall a little behind the leading vendors in product experience. This year’s assurance vendors are:
