Contact centres’ IT infrastructure not meeting needs: Report

There’s a gap between the needs of contact centres and the IT infrastructure that is used to help run their businesses, according to Dimension Data’s Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2012.

The report, which surveyed 637 contact centres in 72 countries, including Australia, found that 12 to 16.6 per cent believe their core IT infrastructure does not meet their current needs, with 11.5 to 16.1 per cent believing it won’t meet future needs.

Call avoidance applications was identified in the report as the top technology that is not meeting needs (16.6 per cent), followed by customer relationship management and knowledge management systems (14.4 per cent), business support systems and channel routing applications (13.2 per cent), workforce optimisation systems (12.2 per cent) and CTI applications (12 per cent).

“When sourcing new infrastructure components or enhancements, organisations should consider both current and future requirements,” Dimension Data said in a statement.

“Vendors and service providers should share their roadmaps and specific investigations of modular enhancements to prevent an additional need for major upgrades in the future.”

The report also found when it comes to the design of business requirements for new technology solutions 30.4 per have limited to no involvement in the design and 40.2 per cent have limited to no involvement in sourcing.

“These results clearly highlight an industry transition point in terms of accountability and responsibility for contact centre business technology destiny, which may be out of step with the services it’s to deliver,” Dimension Data said in a statement.