Indicee at Symmetrics

Measure what matters. That is the mantra of Symmetrics as they bring reporting and analytics to contact centers.

“Through our domain focus, we help contact centers measure what is meaningful, not just what is easy,” says Richard McElroy, Symmetrics Chief Operating Officer. “Our on-premise software helps large customers gain this insight. But the software and therefore the insight were out of reach for smaller contact centers. We wanted to change that.”

Insight for contact center challenges

Symmetrics’ on-premise nVISION solution helps large contact centers produce meaningful reports based on data consolidated from their ACD, WFM and IVR systems. No matter the industry—Symmetrics customers are in healthcare, government, technology, financial services, retail and many others—contact centers share similar concerns. Because costs tend to be 70 to 80 percent personnel, managing staff scheduling and skills is top of mind. The intelligence they gain from nVISION by monitoring productivity, workload and traffic metrics lets contact centers match staff to call volume, improve service levels, develop agent skills, and much more.

Smaller contact centers left in the dark

Smaller contact centers have the same challenges and information needs as large ones. The reports native to their ACD, WFM and IVR systems are very restrictive in the amount and type of data permitted, and the systems do not talk to one another.

“When analysts want to go beyond the few simple metrics provided by their systems, they tend to find the answers they need in the traditional way: by manually extracting data from those systems and copying it into spreadsheets,” says Richard McElroy.

The Symmetrics solution to this onerously manual, error-prone process lets contact centers escape the spreadsheet labyrinth. Because nVISION is purpose-built for contact centers, it automatically extracts data from all relevant data sources and provides analysts with the reports and insight they need without customization.

While it makes sense for a 500-seat contact center to deploy nVISION on-premise software, the cost and maintenance burden for a small contact center is out of proportion. Contact centers of fewer than 150 agents usually have minimal infrastructure, limited financial resources and only a couple of IT staff, largely focused on telephony. For them, on-premise software isn’t the answer—but software as a service (SaaS) is.

On demand analytics and reporting

By partnering with Indicee, Symmetrics can now offer the same rich contact-center-focused reporting and analytics functionality to smaller contact center customers through nVISION On Demand, a Symmetrics solution running on Indicee’s business intelligence platform, for a fraction of the cost.

“Indicee provides a subscription-based service at a very reasonable cost per seat,” says Richard McElroy, “so that we can offer this solution to smaller centers.”

With nVISION On Demand, Symmetrics customers just upload the native reports from their systems and distribute monthly, weekly or daily reports that answer their most critical business questions.

Fast insight

According to Technical Product and Support Manager Jason Pape, Symmetrics customers’ excitement over the product speaks to a clear pain in the industry.

“People in the smaller contact centers are saying they wish this had been available years ago. And they’re surprised at how easy it is. We can get them set up in 20 minutes over the phone, and working with data sets in half a day.”

Once a customer is set up, it is a matter of 10 minutes a week to upload the source data from their systems into nVISION On Demand and share reports with the appropriate users.

“Contact center agents are usually left in dark,” says Jason Pape. “They’ll get a report at the end of the month, when it’s too late to do anything about what they’ve learned. With nVISION On Demand, they can get self service reports through a web portal whenever they want and act immediately on the insight.”

Working with Indicee

To create nVISION On Demand, Symmetrics simply incorporated their platform-based reporting and analytics (built for specific switches such as Avaya or Cisco) into Indicee’s business reporting platform and put their skin on it.

“Integrating our analytics with the Indicee online reporting solution was very straightforward,” says McElroy. “We were up and running in no time and able to start providing immediate value to our customers. It would have taken us years and cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars to build our own true SaaS solution. We simply would not have been able to do it.”

Indicee worked closely with Symmetrics to ensure their online reporting tool offered customers the same superior contact center analytics available from their on-premise tool.

“Because Indicee technology is solid, accommodating our industry QuickStarts was uncomplicated,” says Pape. “There was no change to the underlying Indicee code.”

A simple low risk solution

Leaving on-demand business intelligence to the experts at Indicee lets Symmetrics focus on their core business: creating analytics products and providing services for contact centers. In turn, Symmetrics software and services lets contact centers focus on their core business.

“The on-demand solution is almost risk free for us,” says McElroy. “On the technology side, Indicee supports and will continue to upgrade their product. Our investment was not even close to the up-front investment we would have made to do it ourselves. This business and technology relationship it is already showing a big payoff.”

Cloud computing

“Indicee is a great answer for on-premise software and services providers looking to get into SaaS and cloud computing,” says McElroy. “It gives their customers access to higher end reporting, data warehousing and data mining at a lower price tag. And it provides rock solid security to dispel the fears of any organization uncomfortable with the idea of data beyond their firewall.”

Conclusion

Through the Symmetrics-Indicee partnership, smaller contact centers can deliver and manage against a much richer set of actionable measures, letting them optimize staff and maximize income per call.

“Our strategy is to provide solutions that are right-sized,” says Symmetrics COO Richard McElroy. “With nVISION On Demand, small centers can afford analytics because of the lower cost and the technical simplicity. Now any contact center, regardless of size, can benefit from our domain-focused analytics. The Indicee solution fits into our product line very well, both technically and strategically.”