Hard facts and hard figures boost the bottom line
New business intelligence software from Bristol-based firm, XTAQ, is reducing calls to call centres and improving back office productivity. Plain Words reports.
Whether a business is big or small, it's not always easy to work out the true costs of individual products and services. The overall bottom line might be healthy. But what about the segments? A little analysis might uncover that a product or service isn't as profitable as was first thought. The activity and people-hours devoted to it in a call centre, for example, might be taking the shine off the return-on-investment.
The problem is that it isn't easy to gather the data and intelligence necessary to sort out the winning products and services from the losers.
This looks set to change, however, with a new software suite called Nuqleus, developed by Bristol-based software firm XTAQ (www.XTAQ.com). With 50 blue chip financial services clients in the UK, and with arms in the U.S., XTAQ were well-placed to recognise the need for business intelligence software that can be put in place quickly and produce measurable cost savings in a short space of time.
"Nuqleus is designed to help organisations understand, manage and improve their operational business intelligence and performance," says Spencer O'Leary, senior consultant at XTAQ. "Nuqleus achieves this by measuring and reporting the key metrics that define superior performance."
Nuqleus consists of a number of products, which are plugged in according to a firm's field of interest. Besides the main back office and call centre applications, there are also specialist tools for professional staff and for work-study and activity sampling.
Nuqleus in the call centre
The call centre product is positioned as part of a new wave of thinking when it comes to the way firms deal with the hundreds of thousands of calls they get every year.
"Nuqleus in the Call Centre has been designed as a tactical tool for call centres to fully understand the nature and content of calls." says O'Leary. "By qualifying the root cause and effect of calls, Nuqleus provides the information to proactively influence performance in terms of customer experience, efficiency and cost."
There has long been a culture in the corporate world of hiring ever more staff to meet the increasing levels of calls to call centres. This is now beginning to change.
"It's only over the last couple of years that call centres have been questioning why call volumes are going through the roof. They want to know why buildings are becoming over-occupied and why more and more seats have to be provided for agents to take calls."
Performance improvement
Increased call volumes have prompted various strategies - including Customer Experience Management (CEM), Activity Based Management (ABM) and Six Sigma. But many businesses do not have detailed and accurate information about customer contact to make these strategies work.
"Nuqleus provides for the capture and analysis of detailed measures about the performance gaps within a call centre operation. Measurement is one of the five pillars of the DMAIC business improvement methodology, and is a core methodology of companies who lead their industry in the drive for performance improvement."
Talkers, not writers...
When XTAQ finished developing the Nuqleus product they needed documentation explaining how to use it. "All of us at XTAQ had previously worked for companies where verbal communication was involved. We just weren't used to explaining things with the written word. So we decided we needed a professional author," says XTAQ.
XTAQ contacted Plain Words to see if they could find them an author who could lead a complete overhaul of everything from Help and technical documentation to marketing materials and training modules. After an extensive search and careful vetting, Plain Words came up with Mark Sellings - an all-rounder in the world of business writing.
"Mark Sellings was exactly what we had hoped for," says XTAQ. "He has made a significant impact and contribution to Nuqleus. Our clients' feedback confirms they are very appreciative of the levels of support and understanding they now have available with the written word."
Capturing knowledge
The Nuqleus in the Back Office product has been designed as a process management tool for back office processing centres to fully understand the performance of their operation through detailed measurement of processes and productivity.
"Our back office product is predominantly used in financial services organisations, including banks, building societies, insurance companies, and more recently BPO's (Business Process Outsourcers)," explains O'Leary. "Some of the process based metrics we have helped to design for our clients include the processing tasks undertaken relative to service reasons and outcomes, product types, customer requirements and service levels. These metrics all aim to establish the 'what and why of a process', that balances the 'how many and how long'."
Nuqleus is not designed to capture information from existing databases or other applications. Instead it creates its information from the most knowledgeable part of any business - the staff. As O'Leary points out, they are on the front line and have the closest relationships with customers.
From the moment a member of staff logs on in the morning to the moment they log off at the end of the day, Nuqleus records everything they do. A dialogue box pops up each time they finish a piece of work that the management have decided should be measured. All the member of staff has to do then is answer the questions in the dialogue box.
Reaping rewards
Measuring activities in this way is reaping real rewards for the firms using the Nuqleus Back Office and Call Centre applications.
"Nuqleus sourced information in the call centre allows you to proactively influence performance in terms of customer experience, value analysis, efficiency and cost. Nuqleus Return on Investment (ROI) studies focus upon potential benefits realisable by reducing agent handled call volumes by 1 to 5 percent - with resultant savings based upon staffing capacity cost savings," says O'Leary. "Our client ROI experiences indicate a pay back following deployment of Nuqleus within 6 to 9 months."
As the word gets out, growing numbers of blue chip businesses are adopting Nuqleus. O'Leary puts the popularity down to the ever-increasing need for change: "Nuqleus allows companies to focus on what is important to them. Costs, and more importantly profit, are always the ultimate goal. But mixed with customers' demands for enhanced services and product diversity. Nuqleus provides the operational opportunity for businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors."
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