Aspect Software, a leading provider of next generation customer contact and enterprise workforce optimisation, has announced an equity partnership with back office optimisation software and services expert eg solutions.
The agreement provides Aspect exclusive distribution rights to eg’s products and services in the Americas and the Asia Pacific region and formalises the partnership model for both companies to address customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“As the number of back office workers continues to grow in organisations, managers are being asked to improve productivity, cut costs, optimise employee utilisation and reduce risk, while at the same time improve the customer experience. Back office workforce optimisation (WFO) suites have emerged in the last two years to assist enterprises with this challenge,” says Donna Fluss, DMG Consulting president and contact centre/back office industry analyst.
“These suites are based on contact centre staff optimisation concepts and techniques that have been enhanced to address the dynamics of the back office.”
Fluss cautions that WFO solutions “can be highly effective as long as they are custom built to take into account the unique characteristics and needs of the back office”. It is the recognition of that market need that brought Aspect and eg together.
Aspect is the leader in workforce management, offering capabilities to align people’s time and skills for best-in-class customer interactions with the contact centre. The eg partnership creates the ability for Aspect to ensure that the people, processes and tasks that support these interactions across both the front and back office can optimise the total customer experience.
“The market is looking for a single solution to optimise the many different resources and tasks that affect customers directly or indirectly. Aspect will now be able to seamlessly orchestrate the people and processes that flow within and between the back office and front office to optimise how service is delivered,” says Spence Mallder, senior VP and GM of the Workforce Optimisation division and chief technology officer at Aspect.
“eg’s domain expertise in the back office along with the most open and flexible work distribution solution on the market made them a natural strategic partner for Aspect. The complementary software and expertise of eg and Aspect create a very powerful process optimisation solution that efficiently delivers a cohesive, customer-delighting service experience.”
When organisations optimise back office processes and employee performance in such areas as IT, HR and accounting, the benefits carry over to customer interactions. eg products and services are used to monitor work from any source, can integrate with multiple CRM and BPM environments, and provide a view into how work is being executed – all measured against operational goals and objectives that align to customer expectations.
“The partnership with Aspect creates true end-to-end insight into, and control over, the full customer service process which will deliver measurable value around tasks and resources, regardless of who is serving the customer – front office, back office, or both,” says Elizabeth Gooch, eg CEO.
“This global partnership creates new sales opportunities and opens up new markets for eg while providing investment capital for future development efforts. We’re very enthusiastic about the joint solution this partnership will bring to the market.”
“Early adopters of back office WFO solutions are realising very significant savings, ranging from 20% to 40%,” says Fluss.
The combined solution of Aspect and eg can help customers realise these savings by:
* Minimising repeat calls for the contact centre that arise from back office inefficiencies;
* Increasing overall customer satisfaction;
* Decreasing costs arising from errors, lags, and inefficient back office resource utilisation;
* Providing visibility into throughput, resource performance, quality of work and overall performance of all resources that affect customer deliverables;
* Managing back office knowledge workers and output against KPIs; and
* Automating common processes to enforce best practices and minimise error and inefficiency.
“As the number of back office workers continues to grow in organisations, managers are being asked to improve productivity, cut costs, optimise employee utilisation and reduce risk, while at the same time improve the customer experience. Back office workforce optimisation (WFO) suites have emerged in the last two years to assist enterprises with this challenge,” says Donna Fluss, DMG Consulting president and contact centre/back office industry analyst.
“These suites are based on contact centre staff optimisation concepts and techniques that have been enhanced to address the dynamics of the back office.”
Fluss cautions that WFO solutions “can be highly effective as long as they are custom built to take into account the unique characteristics and needs of the back office”. It is the recognition of that market need that brought Aspect and eg together.
Aspect is the leader in workforce management, offering capabilities to align people’s time and skills for best-in-class customer interactions with the contact centre. The eg partnership creates the ability for Aspect to ensure that the people, processes and tasks that support these interactions across both the front and back office can optimise the total customer experience.
“The market is looking for a single solution to optimise the many different resources and tasks that affect customers directly or indirectly. Aspect will now be able to seamlessly orchestrate the people and processes that flow within and between the back office and front office to optimise how service is delivered,” says Spence Mallder, senior VP and GM of the Workforce Optimisation division and chief technology officer at Aspect.
“eg’s domain expertise in the back office along with the most open and flexible work distribution solution on the market made them a natural strategic partner for Aspect. The complementary software and expertise of eg and Aspect create a very powerful process optimisation solution that efficiently delivers a cohesive, customer-delighting service experience.”
When organisations optimise back office processes and employee performance in such areas as IT, HR and accounting, the benefits carry over to customer interactions. eg products and services are used to monitor work from any source, can integrate with multiple CRM and BPM environments, and provide a view into how work is being executed – all measured against operational goals and objectives that align to customer expectations.
“The partnership with Aspect creates true end-to-end insight into, and control over, the full customer service process which will deliver measurable value around tasks and resources, regardless of who is serving the customer – front office, back office, or both,” says Elizabeth Gooch, eg CEO.
“This global partnership creates new sales opportunities and opens up new markets for eg while providing investment capital for future development efforts. We’re very enthusiastic about the joint solution this partnership will bring to the market.”
“Early adopters of back office WFO solutions are realising very significant savings, ranging from 20% to 40%,” says Fluss.
The combined solution of Aspect and eg can help customers realise these savings by:
* Minimising repeat calls for the contact centre that arise from back office inefficiencies;
* Increasing overall customer satisfaction;
* Decreasing costs arising from errors, lags, and inefficient back office resource utilisation;
* Providing visibility into throughput, resource performance, quality of work and overall performance of all resources that affect customer deliverables;
* Managing back office knowledge workers and output against KPIs; and
* Automating common processes to enforce best practices and minimise error and inefficiency.