Mattersight Focus Group Video Demands 'Magic Button' Solution to Poor Call Center Experiences

CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - Jul 1, 2015) - When Mattersight Corporation (NASDAQ: MATR) surveyed a thousand North American consumers about their call center experiences earlier this year, the results painted a stark portrait of an industry plagued by rampant dissatisfaction, declining loyalty and a profound disconnect between customers and agents. 

The broad strokes of the problem were clear, but the analytics company wanted details. So they brought together a diverse group of consumers in a room and asked them a simple question: What do think of the call center? Then the cameras started rolling.

Their unvarnished answers -- by turns hilarious, heated and heartfelt -- are presented in a powerful 2-minute video currently being featured on Mattersight's all-new website, which was unveiled this week.

The bottom-line message? The call center is in crisis, and something needs to change fast.

In the video, consumers enumerate a litany of highly-relatable problems with the typical experience of phoning into a call center, citing everything from the "abyss" of long wait and hold times to "terrible" service to the indignity of not being treated "like a human being."

Jason Wesbecher, CMO of Mattersight and the producer of the video, says the variety of answers reflects the personality differences that exist among the typical cross-section of customers -- differences many call centers ignore at their peril.

"Good service means different things to different people. Consumers today are constantly interacting with technologies that get that, know them as individuals and serve up exactly what they want, the way they want it." Juxtapose that with the scripted, cookie-cutter interaction you get in a typical call to a service line, says Wesbecher, and the current level of dissatisfaction is understandable. "Something that was always unpleasant -- feeling misunderstood and mistreated by a company -- has become completely intolerable in an age when that almost never happens."

What's going to save the call center, says Wesbecher, is adoption of the same kind of analytics-based technology that has shaped consumers' demands for a more personalized and better experience in the first place. He points to Mattersight's personality-based software solutions, in particular, their Predictive Behavioral Routing application, as examples of tech that help companies meet their customers' emotional needs in the automatic way they've become accustomed to.

Mattersight® Predictive Behavioral Routing identifies an individual caller's personality type through analysis of customer history and a variety of behavioral data, then instantly connects that caller and the available call center agent with whom they're most likely to have a positive personality connection.

"When we asked people whether they would like to be able to push a button and be connected to the best agent for them, the response was an overwhelming yes. And in fact, 75% of agents want the same thing. That is exactly what Mattersight's routing solution does. It is that 'magic button' people wish they could have."

Indeed, businesses that use Mattersight's award-winning solution -- among them Fortune 50 companies across a range of industries -- have seen immediate improvements of up to 30% in key business metrics including talk time, supervisor escalations, sales and retention rates, service costs and more. 

Wesbecher points out that in today's world, a call to a customer service line is often the only human connection a customer has to a brand, which makes such interactions incredibly meaningful, for better or for worse. "Companies that can make the call center experience consistently personalized and positive are the ones that will buck the trends reflected in both our survey and our focus group. They're the ones who will get the great social media buzz, generate amazing customer loyalty and ultimately grab market share from competitors who don't recognize and prioritize personality."

To watch Mattersight's new 2-minute video on the current state of the call center, visit www.mattersight.com.

About Mattersight

Mattersight's mission is to help brands have more effective and effortless conversations with their customers. Using a suite of innovative personality-based software applications, Mattersight can analyze and predict customer behavior based on the language exchanged during service and sales interactions. This insight can then facilitate real-time connections between customers and the agents best capable of handling their needs. Mattersight's patented stack of SaaS applications has influenced hundreds of millions of shorter, more satisfying customer interactions. Organizations across the Financial Services, Healthcare, Technology and Telco industries rely on Mattersight to drive customer retention, employee engagement and operating efficiency. An independent research study documents the average return on investment for these organizations is 344%. To learn more about how Mattersight can help your company, please visit www.mattersight.com