This tip is compliments of Angie Gibbs, an Altivon Implementation Specialist. Implementation specialists are responsible for providing design, engineering, and application consulting services on a variety of implementation, upgrade/migration, and/or add-on or system extension projects for both large and small customer engagements.

You can define Client Templates to provide a consistent layout and "look-and-feel" for users of both the traditional IC .NET Client application as well as the newer Interaction Desktop Client. Note that these tips apply to CIC 4.0 SU4 or later releases.
 
Consider the Client Size.
This sounds like a "no-brainer" but it is one of the hardest things to overcome when creating a Client Template because users will be able to resize the Client. To find the most logical size, log into the Client as a new user on an agent-equivalent machine this will identify the default size of the Client in your environment.
 
Once you find the most logical Client size make sure you create the template in this size. Do NOT edit the Client Template when you have your Client maximized to full screen because you will misjudge what content will actually be visible to the user.
 
Consider Content.
The Contact Center is the best resource for finding out what content needs to be displayed in the Client. My rule of thumb is, if the information does not help the agent do their job, remove it.
 
Consider Navigation.
An agent is typically navigating multiple applications while carrying on a conversation. Make sure that there is not anything that would cause them confusion while they are navigating. One thing that I have found to cause confusion for agents is having multiple Toolbars on the screen. Toolbars are found on the My Interactions, Queue, and Directory views. If you need to utilize more than one of these views in a single workspace, arranging the views behind one another (having the agent navigating to the tab they need) can save time troubleshooting and retraining later.

A-Teamer Spotlight

Krisinda Bleau, Principal Solution Engineer

The four years Krisinda Bleau has been at Altivon have flown by, she says. As a principal solution engineer, she takes a lead role in CIC implementations, often participating in requirements gathering and always working hand in hand with solution architects. Kris particularly enjoys working with customers to ensure that their needs are met.

Kris has worked with contact center technology for twenty years, starting with an entry level computer support position after college. Although she currently resides in Indiana, most of her life has been spent in various parts of New York, with one year of college in Mississippi.  Krisinda loves to travel for work and pleasure (most recently in Italy).

She is also a stargazer with multiple telescopes and a specialty camera for astrophotography. Although Kris can see the moons of Jupiter and Saturn's rings from her home she hopes to vacation sometime soon at a designated Dark Sky Park.

Here is what one of our customers, a leading North American utility, has to say about Kris:

"I have worked with many contact center solutions experts and consultants over the past 20 years and Krisinda has surpassed them all, with her depth of knowledge and experience with contact center technologies. She is extremely dedicated, committed, and passionate about CIC. And she is a techie with a personality, which is all too rare in this industry.  It is an extreme pleasure to work with her."

Omnichannel is the New Normal

Digital interactions for customers (email, web chat, social media and self-service channels in addition to voice) are rapidly becoming the new normal.

• 74% of customers use  3 or more channels to access customer service (ICMI research).
• 92% of organizations that see customer experience as a differentiator offer multiple contact channels (Deloitte).
• More than 35% of all interactions today are digital and at the current rate will overtake voice in two years' time (DimensionData).

Contact centers are now adopting an omnichannel approach to ensure continuity of customer experience. Omnichannel lets customers choose the channels they prefer throughout their customer journey. It enables more self-service, greater agent efficiency, lower customer effort and strategic insight into customer behavior related to the contact center and every other aspect of the organization.

Key characteristics of an omnichannel contact center are:

• Customer-Driven-each individual customer chooses the channels for their journey, and new channels are added based on customer choice
• Mobile First-mobile devices and their many interaction channels replace the traditional phone as the expected communication device of first choice
• Connected-data collected along the journey can be leveraged by customers, agents and apps
• Expansive-omnichannel integrates new channels and reaches beyond the contact center

You can read more about omnichannel challenges and opportunities in " How Omnichannel is Delivering on the Promise of Multichannel" by leading contact center analyst Sheila McGee-Smith.

Customer Experience Testing - TekVision

Thorough testing and real-time monitoring of voice systems are critical for good customer experience. A high quality caller experience supports greater use of self-service and fewer zero outs. We partner with TekVision to deliver these testing services via a highly secure hosted environment.

Testing services enable you to quickly identify and resolve customer experience problems in your production environment. You can test any type of voice system any time, at any location.  Real world experience shows that a surprising number of calls have quality issues related to bad network trunks, internal LAN/WAN latency,  poor response times from back office systems, dead end IVR paths and more. TekVision testing and monitoring can identify those for resolution before they get escalated by customers.

Other available testing services include Health checks, Load testing, Soak testing, Regression testing, and Cutover testing. Let us know if you would like a demonstration and a detailed discussion on how testing can improve your results.

Question: How can I get a list of users and/or stations that are configured on the system?

Answer: You can export a list to a csv file within Interaction Administrator that can be opened later in Excel.

• Select File, then Print.
• From the Topics drop down list, Select either Users Phone Directory or Stations Phone Directory.
• Check the available fields you want in your export.
• Click the Save As button.
• Choose a location to save the file.
• Name the file and click save.
   

Let us know what you would like to see in future newsletters. Help make this publication most useful to you.