Is Your Vendor Just Vending?
When it comes to contact center technology, there are vendors -- and there are partners. Which do you have?
by Tom Goodmanson, President and CEO, Calabrio -
June 3, 2014
 Is your vendor just vending?
When it comes to contact center technology, there are vendors—and there are partners. Which do you have?
No doubt about it: the contact center of 2020 is going to be a whole new ballgame. The swiftly exploding Internet of Things—billions of devices connected wirelessly to the Internet—is driving businesses toward an all-embracing digital future and completely transforming the ways we interact with our customers. In this new digital, on-demand era, customers simply expect more. And in such a highly automated environment, the customer experience is swiftly becoming the competitive differentiator.
Forward-thinking businesses and their contact centers know this. And they are responding with new levels of personalized, proactive and seamless customer service.
The same goes for the vendors making the technology. Contact center leaders are—rightly—expecting more from the software and systems vendors that help them manage those interactions. We vendors that see ourselves more as true partners are doing everything we can to ensure that contact centers are getting the most out of their tools so they can accomplish more in their business. It’s in our best interest after all—the more measurable business value we can deliver, the more likely you are to stay with us.
In 2013, we’re proud of the fact that more than 400 progressive contact center customers became Calabrio partners. What’s more, Calabrio customers are integrating their WFO solutions (as opposed to buying point solutions) at a rate of 40 percent – well above the industry average. Why? When we ask our customers, we consistently hear six themes about why they upgraded to more integrated solutions – why they upgraded to Calabrio:
» Innovation - solutions designed with a vision of the future
» Solutions that are simple and easy-to-use - designed around people, not technology
» The flexibility to change - keeping pace in a dynamic service world
» Reliability that gives peace of mind
» Low TCO
» Service
Doesn’t that make perfect sense? Shouldn’t service be a top priority for vendors in an industry that serves customer service professionals? To provide excellent service, we employ a wide range of customer-centric strategies, but in the simplest terms, we strive to be three things:
Good listeners
Vendor-partners know that listening to customers is one of the most valuable, transformative things a business can do. Listening comes in different forms, from surveys to individual relationship managers to user groups, which give customers a forum in which to share best practices, provide input into future product roadmaps and network with other businesses to find out how they’re doing things.
Responsive
A true partner that is invested in your success takes it a step further. They respond to what they hear from you. It’s not just lip service. Calabrio’s User Group, which includes both business and technical users, gathers at national meetings and regional focus groups where our executive team eagerly listens to members’ ideas and needs. And I’m not ashamed to admit that some of our best innovation has come directly from our clients. In fact, over 60% of the new features in our award-winning Calabrio ONE suite were based on suggestions from customers.
Supportive—from beginning to end and back again
The goal for vendor-partners is relationship-building throughout the customer lifecycle, not just during the deployment phase. Trusted advisers believe in helping customers from start to finish, beginning with the planning and design stages, through to implementation, training and support. For us, that means having expert, dedicated people who get to know our customers - working closely with them through project milestones. It means real relationships between our customers and deployment and support engineers - even after the solution is up and running.
It’s a human-centered approach to technology, from ideation to development to implementation and beyond. We see our job as focusing on the success of our customers and meeting their needs so they can reach their goals.
If you find yourself settling for a vendor that simply sells and deploys, consider the six reasons. Consider service. The closer we get to 2020, the more critical it becomes to give—and receive—great customer service.
Find our more about the contact center of 2020 and the importance of the customer experience in the all-embracing digital future in Calabrio’s white paper, “2020 Vision: Contact Center of the Near Future” or by visiting calabrio.com/vision. To learn more about Calabrio’s solutions, call us at 1-763-795-7665.
Tom Goodmanson is President and CEO of Calabrio, one of the fastest-growing providers of workforce optimization solutions. Positioned as a the only Visionary vendor in Gartner’s 2013 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Workforce Optimization, Calabrio was also recently named a Workforce Optimization Service Leader in CRM Magazine.
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