The Internet of Things is one of the most exciting technological developments since, well...the internet.

If you’re not familiar with this concept, all it refers to are objects - from toys to electric meters to watches - that are connected to the internet. There are plenty of these items connected and in use already. Most of those that have gained a lot of attention are in the private sector: the Amazon Fire TV Stick, for example, and the Apple Watch are both part of the Internet of Things (IoT).

While the public sector is also starting to use the IoT in interesting ways, public safety organizations are really only just beginning to take advantage of the IoT and the many possibilities it offers. Those that are, however, are finding that the IoT presents them with all kinds of opportunities. Check out some of the recent developments in this area below.

Wearable Gateway for First Responders

The winner of the 2016 IJIS Institute Innovation Award, the Internet of Public Safety Things Wearable Gateway is a wearable communications gateway for first responders. The device connects other devices already used by first responders - body cameras, heart rate monitors, public safety drones, and other sensors - and allows the first responders to share that information with command posts and other relevant parties.

The device can transmit multimedia information, making it useful for all branches of public safety. According to a press release by Mutualink, the company that developed the gateway, potential uses for the device include:

Cloud-based platforms for predictive policing

Predictive policing involves the use of analytics, technology, and/or mathematics to identify potential areas or instances of crime before they occur. One company, Hitachi Data Systems, has released a tool called Predictive Crime Analytics that uses real-time social media and internet feeds, along with analytics, to help police make predictions.

According to DataCenter Dynamics, this tool is the first to tie information from social media and the internet together with analytics. The platform is part of the Hitachi Visualization Suite, which brings together data and video from various public safety systems.

Like Physical Security Information Management technology, this kind of data integration tool can greatly improve law enforcement’s situational awareness, as well as provide the real-time information that can help prevent incidents from becoming crises.

ShotSpotter

ShotSpotter is a new technology that uses sensors mounted in high crime areas to identify the sound of gunfire (you can read about how this technology is being integrated into smart streetlights here). These sensors not only identify the sound of shots, but also pinpoint their location, analyze the sound, and then send all of that data to connected police stations and PSAPs within one minute.

ShotSpotter has been deployed in many cities around the country, and according to news reports, it’s been successful in lowering rates of gun crime. In Wilmington, N.C., for example, gun crime has been reduced by 2 percent, while homicides have decreased by 20 percent, since the city installed the technology. In addition, police response time to gunshot incidents has gotten faster.

As public safety organizations continue to embrace the possibilities of the Internet of Things, cities will continue to become safer places to live and work. To find out more about how public safety technology can help make your PSAP, command post, or security system more efficient and effective, read about KOVA’s software offerings here.

There’s lots of talk these days about omnichannel customer service, or omnichannel customer engagement. What this industry jargon term actually means is something pretty simple.

Essentially, it means that your customer is able to access your product or service no matter where they are - on their mobile devices, on your website, on your social media profile, or in your physical store or location.

But there’s another important facet of omnichannel. In addition to covering all the different channels through which a customer can interact with your brand, it also takes into account interactions that happen between channels.

For example, that could mean a customer who calls your contact center to set up a new account, then decides to finish the process at one of your physical locations instead.

While many brands are working hard to ensure that their online services are truly omnichannel, sometimes the physical locations end up getting left out of the loop. This means that the employees who deal with your customers face-to-face may be less able to help them than one of your contact center agents.

This can be a costly mistake. The last thing you want is for a customer to take the time to visit your store, then realize they can get a better customer service experience online.

So how do you make sure that your customer engagement is seamless across the virtual and physical worlds? How do you make sure you are truly an omnichannel brand?

Make the same customer information accessible to both your virtual and face-to-face employees.

One of the most important aspects of an omnichannel customer experience is that the transition from one method to another is smooth and efficient.

If you’re shopping on your phone and put something in your cart, that item should still be there when you go to complete the purchase hours later on your desktop.

Likewise, if you started a customer service inquiry on the phone but had to hang up before it was resolved, you should be able to go finish it in a bricks-and-mortar store, with an employee who can access your account and see your interactions.

This necessitates that the employee who is working with you face-to-face has access to the very same information as the one whom you talked with on the phone.

This can seem like a tricky thing to manage, but it’s quite possible with the right software. Employee desktop software that allows for access across channels can help you give all your employees, both at the contact center and in your physical locations, what they need to be successful.

Cultivate a robust knowledge management (KM) system.

The other element of a good omnichannel customer experience is to have a robust knowledge management, or KM, system in place. Having resources like articles, how-tos, and more at your employees’ fingertips is vital for good customer service at the contact center.

However, it’s just as important that your employees in your bricks-and-mortar locations have this as well. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to make your knowledge base - or at least, parts of it - available to your customers through your website. In this age of self-service, there’s less and less need to hide resources behind your company walls - especially since it makes not just your customers, but your employees happier, too.

Streamline your scheduling and management tasks with a workforce optimization system.

Managers tasked with scheduling, arranging training, gathering employee feedback, etc. spend enough time behind a computer. By streamlining these administrative, time-heavy tasks, they can gain more time for coaching and engaging with their employees - whether those are in a contact center or at a branch location.

Selecting a workforce optimization software solution that works across an enterprise, from the back office, to the contact center, to branch locations and more, is vital.

With this kind of multifaceted system, like the Verint Media Recorder Workforce Optimization suite, managers can see the entire big picture of the business. This allows them to schedule more appropriately and make better business decisions.

For more on how omnichannel customer engagement can help your contact center and business at large, read our blog post “The Future of the Contact Center.”

In the public safety arena, citizen confidence is paramount. The people that PSAPs, local law enforcement, EMS, and firefighters serve have to feel that these organizations are holding themselves to the highest standards - otherwise, the system just doesn’t work well.

That’s one reason that the strongest public safety organizations place such emphasis on accreditation. Accreditation is one way that public safety groups can prove their current excellence, as well as their commitment to continually pursuing that excellence.

Having the right technology in place can be of great help to agencies pursuing accreditation, as well as help defend themselves should litigation arise. Here are a few ways that software can help organizations streamline this important process.

Help with internal reporting

Technology that can keep track of documents like internal policies, memoranda, and more allows agencies to see who’s accessed or signed off on what. This can help supervisors ensure that all staff are familiar with protocols, rules, and agency policies. Then, when the time comes to renew or apply for accreditation, supervisors can be confident that the agency will be prepared.

Monitor training and coaching

Ongoing training and e-coaching are vital if an organization wants to keep its standards of service high. Workforce management software, like Verint Media Recorder for Public Safety, can help you focus on individual professional development opportunities for your staff as well as group learning.

Verint Media Recorder allows supervisors to use recorded interactions as “learning clips,” editing bits of audio into segments that can be sent directly to an employee’s desktop as a training tool. In addition, the software’s coaching tool lets supervisors schedule, track, review, and report on coaching sessions for call-takers or other staff.

Having these sessions and training opportunities documented can not only help an organization internally, by allowing supervisors to see whether and how continuing education goals are being met. It can also help boost public safety agencies’ applications for national accreditation.

Access recorded information easily

Good public safety software will allow users to search for incidents as needed, enabling supervisors to stay apprised of their organization’s overall performance, as well as that of individual employees.

This feature is especially important should litigation arise, as the organization will have the audio, video, text, or other assets necessary to defend themselves if the need arises.

Reliable recording systems are also valuable during the accreditation process, however. If an employee is failing to meet the national or international accreditation standards that the organization is maintaining, it can jeopardize the organization’s status.

Being able to identify any unprofessional behavior quickly allows for quick handling of the issue, whether through training, coaching, or if necessary, punitive action. This makes it easier to avoid a potential loss of accreditation.

Make upholding best practices an ongoing practice, rather than a one-time rush

Too often, public safety organizations that want to become accredited find themselves rushing to institute a host of new and improved practices to meet the necessary standards.

This puts a huge amount of stress on everyone.

Supervisors have to formulate new protocols and rules, as well as ways to train employees on them and enforce compliance.

Employees have to change the way they do their jobs to meet a new set of policies that, if they’ve been put together hurriedly, likely seem arbitrary.

Organizational leadership has to ensure that the new processes are moving along efficiently, and put out fires as needed.

Then, once accreditation has been achieved, these organizations may look at the policies they spent so much effort creating and find that they’re actually not the best possible fit.

On the other hand, if organizations can review their own policies on an ongoing basis, they stand a much better chance at ensuring that the protocols they uphold make sense and are relevant for their employees and the community they serve. With the data that public safety software makes easily available, supervisors and leadership can commit to regular review and recalibration of their policies, as needed.

To learn more about how public safety software like Verint Media Recorder for Public Safety can help your organization, read our whitepaper “Emergency Communications Training.”

As customers become more adept at solving smaller issues through self-service channels, the problems that they contact companies for are becoming more complex.

This is putting contact center agents in a challenging position, as they find themselves having to work harder, as well as smarter, in order to make sure customers leave the interaction with their issues resolved.

Because of this increase in issue complexity, knowledge management (KM) is becoming ever more important. In order to leave customers happy, agents need to be able to quickly access the information they need, whether that’s a list of technical instructions or something as simple as a customer’s shipping address and order history.

In many cases, an effective knowledge management program can mean the difference between an excellent customer review and a mediocre one.

And it doesn’t only affect customers. Employees who are empowered by an efficient, easy-to-use KM system are both more productive and more satisfied, as they don’t have to waste anyone’s time scrolling through endless files to find the one piece of information they need to help their customer.

Here are a few tips on how to improve your knowledge management program.

First, centralize your knowledge.

If your contact center is like most, your knowledge is spread out among many different places. There could be bits of important information in emails, spreadsheets, Word documents, housed on various social media sites...the list continues.

In addition, you may find that certain people or teams have specialized knowledge that you want to capture. Should that person leave or the team dynamic change, that knowledge could be lost. Prevent that loss by asking whoever holds the specialized knowledge to document it in an article.

Then, you’ll want to make sure that all this knowledge - articles, instructions, websites and passwords, etc. - is placed in one easy-to-access location.

Collecting this information and aggregating it into a single place can be difficult and certainly time-consuming. However, it’s vital if you want your KM initiative to succeed.

Second, update and maintain your knowledge regularly.

According to the report The State of Knowledge Management, by thinkJar Research, only 34 percent of companies have knowledge maintenance processes in place. This is in spite of the fact that maintenance has been proven to be the biggest factor when it comes to knowledge management program success.

If you have a specific KM contact center software platform, try seeing whether the system has an alert system built in. Many platforms offer reports that will show you when a section needs maintenance, as well as the amount of usage and user satisfaction.

Even if you don’t have a dedicated KM software platform, you can still create effective methods of maintaining your knowledge. Make your KM system easy to access and update, for example, to encourage agents to fill in any holes or update outdated articles.

Consider moving some of your KM to a customer portal.

Web-based self-service is immensely popular among today’s customers. In fact, according to a Forrester research report, in 2014 76 percent of customers reported relying on web self-service to resolve their issues.

Since customers have proven their preference for self-service over talking to representatives, why not give them access to some of your KM resources? Placing articles and other content on your website in a special customer portal will increase customer satisfaction while also saving your agents time. Making this information available can provide you with up to 50 percent incident deflection, according to Atlassian.

Make KM part of your workplace culture.

If you want your KM program to truly succeed, it needs to be valued as an element of your workplace culture - not as an afterthought. If agents are expected to contribute to your KM initiative, they need to be given the time to do so.

Too often, companies say they value KM but don’t budget any time or money to build up their systems. This will only lead to frustration for everyone, from leadership on down to employees. If you want to reap the many benefits of KM, you’ll have to devote the resources to building your program - and you can be assured that it will be well worth it.

To learn more about how contact centers are approaching knowledge management in 2016, read our blog post “7 Trends in Contact Center Knowledge Management for 2016.

It’s been said by many that 80 percent of technology users will use only 20 percent of that technology’s features. While at first, this might seem hard to believe - after all, most of us consider ourselves to be fairly tech-savvy, at least when it comes to things like tablets and smartphones - if you were to think about it, you’d probably come up with similar percentages.

This doesn’t necessarily have negative consequences when it comes to recreational technology, or the tech that we use in our daily lives. Maybe it means you spend a few more minutes uploading a video to Google Drive because you switch to your laptop, for example, instead of realizing you could do the same thing on your phone.

But when it comes to technology for the workplace, using just 20 percent of the available features can mean a whole lot of wasted time and effort.

Take workforce optimization software. If you’re spending time working outside the program to update your planning sheets, which is something the software already offers, then the tech that’s supposed to make your workload more streamlined is actually doing the opposite.

Workforce optimization software is an investment in your company, which is why it’s so important to make sure you’re getting everything you can out of the program. Here are a few tips on how to make sure you’re optimizing your workforce technology.

Employee training is an investment with a high ROI.

Technology on its own is useless - it takes a well-informed user to unlock the benefits it can offer. In fact, a well-informed user can even compound those benefits, as the better she gets at using the software, the better and more efficiently she can do her job.

That’s why one of the most important elements of making any software work for your company is to make sure you and your employees know how to use it. Any software provider worth their salt will also offer, or be able to connect you to, solid training options for you and your team (at KOVA, we offer on-site training plus Help Desk support for all the systems we provide).

Because the effects of training can be hard to quantify, it’s often one of the things that companies aren’t too enthusiastic about. However, consider this data from a study that the Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) did to evaluate the value of their training.

BGCA needed to develop a new generation of leaders, and developed a training program that was targeted at specific areas of personal development, After conducting a thorough analysis of attendees performance before and after the training, the organization found that it had gained a fourfold return on the cost of the training.

Now, not every organization will attain these results, but it does go to prove that good training does, in fact, have a substantial - and measureable - effect on employee performance.

Take advantage of your system’s mobile capabilities.

Now that developers of workforce optimization and other workforce technology systems are prioritizing mobile capabilities, managers and supervisors can get out of the offices where they’ve traditionally had to spend much of their time.

Instead, they can access the programs they need while being out among their employees. This increased visibility has two major benefits.

First, managers gain a clearer picture of what’s going on with their teams. Instead of being sequestered in an office for most of the day, managers who can go mobile are able to spot issues as well as notice high performers firsthand.

Mobile capabilities can also be helpful for other back-office employees, giving them more freedom to complete their tasks without being tethered to a desk all day.

Utilize your analytics.

Today’s workforce optimization programs offer a wealth of data that companies can draw upon. The Verint Media Recorder Workforce Optimization suite, for example, offers voice of the customer analytics as well as desktop and process analytics. These all can provide an extensive array of data that can help greatly improve your decision-making capacity.

When you spend the time and money to invest in new workforce management or workforce optimization software, you want to make sure you’re putting it to the best possible use. To learn about how one company made the most out of the Verint Media Recorder Workforce Optimization software, read this case study.

No matter what industry you’re in, one of the most effective - and easiest - ways to help increase employee satisfaction and decrease turnover is to let your employees know how much you appreciate them.

In industries that run on tight financial and time margins, like public safety and contact centers, employee rewards often end up being pushed onto the backburner. While this can seem like it’s no big deal, the truth is that it may leave your employees feeling underappreciated or unimportant. That’s not good for anyone.

In fact, there are plenty of easy, inexpensive, yet meaningful ways that managers can show employees how much they appreciate their work. Here are a few ideas.

The gift of time

Offering more time for breaks or relaxation is one of the most effective ways to thank employees for their work. It’s true that these kinds of rewards can be harder to offer with shift workers, as is the case with, for example, Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) workers and contact center agents. Supervisors may need to spend some time working out how to manage giving one employee the extra time, while still maintaining necessary coverage of that employee’s duties.

However, the upshot to this fact is that employees will know just how valuable these extra minutes or hours are. That makes these rewards a low-cost, high-value option for supervisors.

Ideas include:

  1. An extra 30 minutes at lunch.
  2. Getting to leave an hour early or come in an hour later.
  3. An extra day of paid time off.
  4. Making one Friday a half-day.
  5. If possible, offer a one-day-a-week telecommuting option.

Small gestures

It doesn’t take much to show your employees that you care about them. As they say about gifts, sometimes it’s the thought that counts.

None of these items has to cost more than $50 (and some are free!), which means you may be able to implement them on a more regular basis. Doing so will go a long way toward not only making your employees happier, but also establishing a workplace culture of appreciation and gratitude. 

  1. Put a personal, handwritten thank you note on their desk or mail one to their home.
  2. Give a Starbucks card.
  3. Give a movie theater gift card.
  4. Give a gift card for dinner for two to a favorite local restaurant.
  5. Have a bouquet of flowers delivered to their desk.
  6. Put together a small gift basket of gourmet sweets and treats.
  7. Offer two tickets to a local sporting event.
  8. Give a gasoline gift card.
  9. Give a grocery store gift card.
  10. Keep one of their favorite drinks or snacks stocked in the breakroom.
  11. Give $50 cash.
  12.  Have a mobile car wash come to the office to wash their car.
  13. Institute a monthly catered lunch day for staff.
  14. Bring in coffee and bagels for the office or your team.
  15. Offer discounts to a gym, restaurants, spas, cell phone service, or other businesses.

Professional development

Gone are the days of professional development being seen as a tedious requirement. Instead, young employees especially are embracing training as an investment in their future. In fact, according to HR Bartender, they’re telling their employers that training is of major importance to their decision to stay with a company long-term.

Basic training that covers a company’s operations, computer systems, and day-to-day functions is and will always be a requirement for everyone. However, there’s something to be said for making further training something that is offered as recognition of superior job performance. That could be preparation for a supervisory or team leader position, for example, or more in-depth training on dealing with a specific group of customers or callers.

  1. Offer a day of team-building to several of your most outstanding employees.
  2. Invest in a day of off-site classroom training.
  3. Offer the chance to take a webinar or other online training course.
  4. Invite high-performing employees to catered “Lunch and Learn” sessions.

With these easy tactics at your disposal, there’s no reason not to start rewarding your employees today. Want to learn more? Read our other posts on how incentives and rewards can help make your organization perform better.

It’s no secret that customers today are demanding effective self-service options from the contact centers they interact with.

From financial services to retail to technology services, contact centers in industries of all types are realizing that offering self-service options is the only way to keep their customers loyal and happy.

But offering self-service and getting it right are two different things. How can contact centers ensure that they’re employing self-service options in the right situations? Here are some tips on ways to make sure your contact center is getting self-service right.

Why self-service is important

According to research by the Aberdeen Group, contact centers that employ self-service measures have a 67 percent customer retention rate, compared to 48 percent for those that don’t. Likewise, contact centers with self-service programs have a 6.8 percent annual growth in the average customer profit margin, compared to just 1.8 percent for contact centers without these programs.

However, these numbers are achieved only when self-service strategies are deployed correctly and in the right context. When deployed prematurely, or for the wrong issues, self-service options can instead result in longer contact times or a decrease in the first contact resolution rate. This, of course, will only mean more frustrated customers.

Common issues with self-service

When used well and supported by a strong contact center software system, self-service can be a huge timesaver for both agents and customers.

But there are a few common stumbling blocks that many contact centers deal with when implementing self-service.

  1. Self-service is suggested for issues that are too complex. This is one of the top reasons that customers end up being unable to resolve their problems through self-service, according to Aberdeen’s report Self-Service vs. Assisted Service: When’s the Right Time to Use Them?
  2. Self-service options are best for simple, easy-to-resolve issues - things like updating credit card information or very basic troubleshooting. This option is also great for answering questions about things like a return policy, business hours, or how to change or cancel a subscription plan.

    If, however, a contact center gets too caught up in the self-service craze, customers may find themselves being directed to a self-service tool or section of a website for an issue that could be much more quickly resolved by an agent over the phone or via live chat. The result is a cranky customer who now has to spend even more time trying to fix their problem.

  3. Customers aren’t given choices of whether to use the self-service menus or not. A surefire way to anger customers is to shunt them all through a self-service menu before you allow them to actually speak to anyone.
  4. Companies do this in a couple of different ways. One is to make it prohibitively difficult to find a phone number to call, perhaps by hiding it deep inside a website or not including it anywhere on promotional materials. Another is to force callers through a self-service menu before giving them the option to speak to an agent.

    Instead, contact centers should make it easy for customers to choose how they want to resolve their issues. Do they want to look at the Frequently Asked Questions page? Or would they rather just talk or live chat with someone immediately? Offering this choice will almost certainly have a positive impact on your customer’s perception of your business.

  5. The self-service portal is hard to navigate or poorly organized. This is another top reason that customers have issues using self-service tools. If the user experience is poorly designed, customers may either give up after a few minutes, or continue searching for extended periods of time without finding the exact information they need. Either way, you’ve now got a frustrated caller on your hands.
  6. Contact centers that are focusing on their self-service options must take the time to ensure a smooth, seamless user experience. That means not only having thorough, easy-to-read, and well-written articles available, but also making them easy to access via an intuitive self-service portal.

For contact centers, self-service tools can be a great way to increase customer satisfaction and decrease the time agents spend answering the same simple questions. However, for self-service to be successful, it must be integrated into the entire customer service experience.

To find out more about ways to improve your customers’ experience, watch this video on Call Center Solutions for Superior Success.

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