Transforming aspect of contact centers

Today's customers expect companies to deliver devices with exemplary features and, most importantly, want their issues to get resolved in the blink of an eye.

With the changing times, customer service organizations need to transform their traditional approach to customer support. Acquiring new technology is not the solution to create great customer experience but they should also provide the means to support closer customer involvement and build loyalty. Aspect is one such company which is laying the stepping stones in this direction.

Aspect's new Mantra-‘Enhance Customer Engagement'

Riding high on a new logo, new branding, new approach, and new ‘Aspect' the contact center solution provider kicked off ‘Aspect Ace 2013' on March 6 in Goa, giving out a strong message of being exactly where the customer engagement is.

"With the ever-changing dynamics of customer experience and the emergence of omni-channel communication, organizations need to incorporate a more holistic approach to customer intimacy pervading all touch points," said Sanjay Gupta, managing director, India, Middle East and Saarc, Aspect Software.

Aspect announced new branding-with new logo, new vision, and new approach; it thrusts upon certain key areas this year namely-mobile, social, cloud, touch, multi channel, and most importantly moving on from voice.

"We are focused on improving the customer engagement and more importantly providing the flexibility, effectiveness, and depth of that engagement," said Bryan Sheppeck, sr vice president, worldwide sales, Aspect, during the 3-day Aspect Ace 2013 event.

With over 300 customers across the globe and with the largest R&D support center in Bangalore, India; Aspect is bringing in new and improved tools and solutions to meet its new vision.

 

Strengthening Indian Focus

In India itself, Aspect plans to increase its R&D workforce by 10% in 2013, confirms Robert Walker, VP, customer experience, Aspect Software.

"We are increasing 25 % YoY in R&D support investment along with 25% increase in headcount in 2012 in our R&D support centers across the globe," said Walker.

Explaining the current situation in the market, he insisted that the market has undergone a huge change over the last decade.

"We saw Indian IT enterprise market very immature initially. But over the last 5 years, it evolved at a remarkable pace helping us to grow in turn. That's why we are focusing excessively on this market," he added.

Today, Aspect has close to 500 customers in India and Middle East. It is building strong portfolio of solutions to engage with its customers where opportunity lies, and that is through new innovative streams.

"India has always been on the leaning edge of technologies, we get very healthy and eager responses from our customers here in India. Today huge volumes of data is generated by enterprises, which adds to the channels communication growth, hence more scope for us to grow and leverage this opportunity," explained Jagannath Narendran, SVP, Asia Pacific and Middle east, Aspect.

Aspect ‘Social'-Engagement through Social Media

One such transforming solution Aspect has launched this year and displayed it to its customers at Aspect Ace 2013, was Aspect Social.

This solution can be termed as one of its kinds which is enhancing customer engagement over social media. The tool enables the agents to engage with their customers over social media and leverage this engagement with customer satisfaction and value.

"By extending the discipline of the contact center to the social sphere, organizations can consolidate and orchestrate conversations in a way other groups-like marketing-cannot achieve in a more efficient, effective social dialogue," explained Saumya, head, Aspect Social.

The company is cashing in on its flagship products namely Aspect ‘Social', ‘NGCL Navigator', and ‘Kbase'. It has also started many other initiatives to maintain its customer loyalty like starting of an online Aspect user community, etc.

About Aspect Customer Engagement 2013

ACE India 2013 brought together close to 100 C-level customer and partner representatives from India and Middle East along with the Aspect executive team.

There were also some deep-dive sessions on best practices and approaches focused on mastering analytics and social interaction, optimizing back office and workforce strategies, discussed by customers and Aspect business leaders.

Besides, the gathering also got a taste of a true game changer from Chetan Bhagat, reputed author and columnist, who addressed the gathering on how customer service can be a game-changing strategy for increasing growth and the value of brands.

(Author was hosted at Aspect ACE India 2013 in Goa, India)