3 Common Data Challenges Contact Centres Face – And How to Overcome Them

They say data is now more valuable than oil, thanks to the array of opportunities it presents to make efficiencies, outmaneuver competitors, and of course, make a profit.

But the modern contact center typically encounters a problem here. Leveraging data to its full potential isn’t easily done at the best of times, but time easily gets away from you in the busy contact center environment. And that’s not all.

Contact centers often have specific data challenges that stop them from being able to really capitalize on opportunities. Here, we list three of the main challenges – and how you can overcome them.

1. Too much data

Let’s start with the most common one. Most contact centers are generating reams and reams of data across tons of metrics. This isn’t a bad thing, but it does present a challenge in terms of how you wade through that sea of data to find insights.

How to overcome it:

First things first: you need to have a clear idea of what you want to report on.

This might sound obvious, but lots of people go into reporting hoping a discovery will present itself in amongst all that data. Instead, the most efficient way to go about this is to have a series of questions you want to answer, that matter to either your customers, your employees or your business. Ideally, all three!

Think of things like:

• Which area of the business received the most complaints?
• How many interactions were flagged as non-compliant?
• In which areas do we achieve positive sentiment?
• Which types of interactions have the longest average handle time?

Done manually, this type of in-depth reporting might take days. Today, there are sophisticated platforms that can help you pull all this information and more at the touch of a button.

Alongside reports, be sure to build useful dashboards tracking metrics that align with your CX strategy, so that you can keep on top of things and course correct in real-time too.

2. Lack of meaningful, actionable insight

Now, while you might generate a report quickly and easily, distilling the data into meaningful, useful insight is a different skill.

Let’s say Returns and Refunds attract the lowest NPS ratings. So what? Should you go and invest tons of time overhauling a process, or is this an expected outcome?

Further analysis is needed to avoid making assumptions or unfounded judgements about what the data is telling you, unknowingly correlating unrelated findings, or focusing your efforts on the wrong thing altogether.

How to overcome it

The real answer here is people investment. Either you’ll need to upskill people internally who have the aptitude for or interest in analyzing data, or you may want to consider hiring a data specialist to join your team or operate externally.

There are pros and cons to both. Upskilling internally will take time, but you’ll benefit from having people who understand the business and its wider context already. External analysts are experts at sifting through data to find great nuggets of wisdom but may lack the nuance and insight of your industry.

In any case, data analysis is a real skill, and it’s only going to become more important as time goes on – so it’s well worth getting on top of this now.

3. Working with legacy data and platforms

Most organisations established before the advent of cloud computing are run on a patchwork quilt of technologies. This inevitably leads to fragmentation, with teams having to navigate legacy systems that don’t give the full picture – costing time and resource. 

How to overcome it 

This won’t be a popular answer, but the goal here is to try and centralize as much of your data as possible. Getting all your data into one consistent, usable format is not a simple matter, but it is essential to helping you get closer to achieving the bigger picture. 

evaluagentCX integrates with other market-leading tools to help you do just that. Pull reports in seconds, automate repetitive processes and bring all your interactions into the platform for 100% coverage of your customer service with AI-driven QA workflows. 

Better customer experiences start here – no more spreadsheets, pivot tables or spreadsheets. Just a super-smart platform that does the heavy lifting for you, so you and your team can focus on what really matters: making your customers happy! 

Discover how contact centre leaders are using data to improve CX

Want to get the inside track on how other contact centers are leveraging data and overcoming its challenges? Download CCMA’s research, supported by evaluagent, today.