BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - September 6, 2007) - Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Best-in-Class
(BIC) firms see optimizing their service delivery model as a way to reduce
up-front technology costs to increase availability, according to Aberdeen,
a Harte-Hanks company (
NYSE:
HHS). Furthermore, by utilizing a hosted
model, 65% of BIC companies see benefits from flexible On Demand licensing
and an increase in available functionality. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of
survey respondents also say they use or plan to use an outside firm to
manage their contact center resources, further positioning themselves to
cut costs and provide around the clock service to customers.
A large percentage (50%) of BIC organizations indicate that top pressures
to continued success are Total Cost of Ownership and increasing
availability to customers. To further mitigate TCO, Best-in-Class firms
(72%) look to moving support traffic to the channel best equipped to handle
customer issues. Although 50% of Laggard companies see this as a pressure,
the other half do not and thus may be missing a major opportunity to cut
costs. A top challenge BIC organizations face when providing increased
availability of contact center resources is providing the right mix of
tools such as automatic call distribution, which is implemented by 90% and
43% of BIC and Laggard organizations, respectively.
How do companies know which technologies they should be using? "I can't
stress enough the importance of measuring key performance indicators
(KPIs)," says Alan Hubbard, SVP Customer Management Technologies Group at
Aberdeen. "Our research has shown time and time again that on average
Laggard companies don't measure KPIs about 80% to 90% of the time. If a
company doesn't measure its performance it is has no idea what technologies
are most needed and when they are needed. At the very least, its business
operations run inefficiently, clearly not an indicator of a Best-in-Class
business." With approximately 90% of all BIC companies measuring KPIs,
Best-in-Class companies undoubtedly see value in measuring.
The research educates companies on how to increase the availability of
their contact centers. The report also provides the results BIC
organizations have seen across several key call center metrics and compares
these results to those of the Industry Average and Laggards companies. This
report is made available due in part by the following underwriter: Five 9,
Neocase Software, and UCN. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report,
visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4186
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market
intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more
than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely
positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating
demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment
analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement -
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen
http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more
about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to
http://www.harte-hanks.com.
© 2007 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110-3112
Telephone: (617) 723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
Alan Hubbard
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(617) 854-5301
alan.hubbard@aberdeen.com