Desktop analytics is booming.
This is according to Ebrahim Dinat, chief operating officer at South African contact centre solutions provider, Ocular Technologies. “So much so that it will be a game changer in 2016,” he adds.
Saddletree Research estimates that in 2015, about 23 000 contact centres either purchased or evaluated the purchase of new desktop software and that it is among the top five technologies likely to be upgraded in 2016. DMG Consulting estimates that the desktop analytics market will grow by 30% in 2016, with similar growth in 2017.
“Before the end of this year, Ocular Technologies’ partner company, Aspect, will be releasing a significant enhancement to its Aspect EQ Desktop Analytics offering. The outcome of this software, which we’ll offer our southern African customers, is significant benefits for the agent, customer and enterprise alike,” says Dinat.
According to Doug Whitaker, director of global sales for Aspect Workforce Optimisation: “The agent desktop is inherently a treasure trove of valuable information, but until recently we did not have the tools to monitor, store and ultimately analyse the real-time activities of each desktop to extract valuable insights. With new lightweight workstation software applets, better analytical tools, and refined thinking about the usefulness of real-time desktop data, the next few years will see a leap forward in our ability to monitor the agent desktop, act on the insights and automate redundant and time-consuming processes.”
He adds that the information available on the agent desktop is so rich and so revealing that even entry-level users of desktop analytics can reap huge rewards.
“With the ability to capture desktop data in real-time and combine it with data from other contact centre solutions, you can create a much more accurate picture of operational challenges and successes,” says Whitaker.
Dinat points out that during the last few years, the rapid developments in technology have strongly influenced the way in which we communicate with one another and data analytics has proven to significantly increase operational efficiency and positively affect the bottom line. “We’re now in the midst of a global contact centre transformation and, just like any other industry, the contact centre has to keep up with changing information technology trends – making desktop analytics a critical part of any contact centre technology,” he says.