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Articles

The power of sentiment analysis in Contact Centers  

28 November 2023 par Activeo

In customer service, every interaction between the customer and the agent has the potential to build or deteriorate the company’s image. Data analysis can be a determining factor by examining these interactions on a large scale and providing insights on how to optimize these exchanges. In this article, we will address the significant role of data analysis, particularly in the context of Amazon Connect. We will explore how Amazon Connect harnesses the power of data analysis and sentiment analysis to understand customer behavior, enhance agent performance, and optimize contact center operations. 

Amazon connect Contact Lens:  

The “Contact Lens” AI in Amazon Connect enables sentiment analysis throughout conversations between the customer and the agent. This tool allows contact centers to gain in-depth insights into customer behavior. 

 Contact Lens provides: 

  • Transcription of calls between the agent and the customer 
  • Sentiment analysis 
  • Real-time and post-call conversation categorization. 

Read our article on sentiment analysis in Customer Relations.

Real-time sentiment analysis for agent performance monitoring:

Managers have the ability to analyze real-time interactions with customers to determine the emotional tone of conversations. Through the identification of sentiments such as frustration, satisfaction, or confusion, immediate responses and appropriate solutions can be provided, thus contributing to the improvement of the customer experience. For example, in case of frustration, a real-time alert can be sent to the manager, giving them the opportunity to listen to the conversation and intervene if necessary to assist the agent. By assessing customer sentiments during live interactions, supervisors can intervene as soon as emotions take a negative turn, ensuring a more positive customer experience. 

Tailoring training using sentiment information:

Amazon Connect offers tools that enable contact center managers to make decisions regarding training programs. Sentiment data collected by Amazon Connect provides valuable insights for agent training. For instance, by identifying recurring issues, frequent concerns, or negatively themed topics in customer interactions, contact centers can tailor their training programs. This ensures that agents are equipped to handle specific scenarios more effectively. Sentiment analysis also helps identify areas where agents consistently excel or face challenges. This information can be leveraged to customize training programs and enhance overall agent performance. 

Strategic decision-making using sentiment trends:

The data analysis tools of Amazon Connect enable strategic decision-making based on sentiment trends. For instance, identifying long-term trends of positive or negative sentiments related to specific issues or products can inform and guide decisions regarding product improvements, service adjustments, or marketing strategies, ensuring a more customer-centric approach. 

Conclusion  

The integration of data analytics and sentiment analysis by Amazon Connect can reshape your customer service experience. By understanding customer behavior, improving agent performance, and optimizing overall operations, businesses using Amazon Connect can deliver more personalized and efficient services. 

This article is published by  

Rita Ammanouil,

Solution Architect - Activeo

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A global commitment to a sustainable future!
13 July 2023

Filed Under: Articles

A global commitment to a sustainable future!

13 July 2023 par Activeo

At Activeo, we believe in environmental policies that contribute to a sustainable future on a global scale. We are committed to CSR with our partners, customers and our entire ecosystem, including participation in certification programmes.

La certification Cisco Sustainability :

Cisco Sustainability certification is a programme that recognises organisations committed to sustainable practices and environmental responsibility. By achieving certification, companies demonstrate their commitment to reducing their environmental footprint, promoting social responsibility and fostering positive change.

Cisco Sustainability certification has many benefits:

  • It helps organisations improve their reputation by highlighting their commitment to sustainable development,
  • Attract environmentally conscious customers and differentiate themselves in the marketplace. It also encourages the adoption of sustainable practices throughout the supply chain and promotes innovation in green technologies.

Cisco partners play an essential role in the certification process by working closely with Cisco to implement sustainable solutions, integrate environmentally-friendly practices and promote sustainable development initiatives within their own organisations and with their customers. For example, recycling old equipment free of charge is an integral part of the programme, as is reducing the use of plastic in packaging and improving the durability of equipment.

Last June, Activeo was awarded the “Cisco Environmental Sustainability” specialisation, enabling it to recycle old Cisco hardware free of charge and obtain preferential rates on reconditioned hardware.

Environmental sustainability for all:

Environmental sustainability means the responsible use and conservation of natural resources to ensure the long-term well-being of our planet and future generations. It encompasses practices that minimise environmental impacts, preserving resources and promoting ecological balance.

Sustainable actions include :

  • reducing carbon emissions
  • protecting biodiversity
  • water and energy conservation,
  • promoting renewable energy sources
  • and adopting environmentally-friendly practices in sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and transport.

By embracing sustainable development, we aim to strike a harmonious balance between human needs and the health of the environment.

Key aspects of sustainable contribution to the global economy:

One of the key aspects of environmental sustainability is mitigating climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This requires a transition to cleaner, more sustainable energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro power. It is also important to adopt energy-efficient technologies and practices in the building, industry and transport sectors.

By reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and promoting renewable energies, we can work towards a low-carbon future and reduce the negative impacts of climate change (rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, rising sea levels, etc.).

Managing our international resources and those of our customers and partners:

Sustainable management and conservation of resources play an essential role in environmental sustainability, with responsible use of water, protection of ecosystems and biodiversity, and sustainable management of land and forests.

Efforts are aimed at preserving and restoring natural habitats, preventing deforestation and promoting sustainable agricultural practices that help protect our ecosystem. Waste management, recycling and the reduction of single-use plastics play an important role in our environmental impact. By valuing and protecting our natural resources, we can create a more sustainable future, a delicate balance of ecosystems where present and future generations can thrive.

Remember that sustainability is a broad and expansive concept, and there are many approaches to achieving it. In its own way, Activeo is more than committed to this eco-responsibility and participates in local and global programmes.

Contact us to find out more about our commitment, and take a look at our other content on this topic: the EcoVadis label, the United Nations Pact, etc.

This article is brought to you by Angrez Sangherra, Customer Engagement Manager at Activeo.

Filed Under: Articles, Non classé

Why and how should you outsource project management?

19 June 2023 par Activeo

Project management: a profession based on expertise

Project management involves planning, organising, directing and controlling all the activities required to complete a specific project. The aim is to achieve the objectives set within the deadlines set, while complying with resource constraints and quality requirements.

Ensuring risk management is also an integral part of the project manager’s remit, as is communication and coordination between all project stakeholders.

Finally, customers rely on the project manager to deliver concrete results, achieve the objectives set, meet the requirements and provide the deliverables. As the person responsible for the success of the project, he or she must demonstrate organisation, rigour and good communication and leadership skills.

Why entrust the management of your projects to Activeo and its team of experts?

In the field of customer relations, the project manager is constantly interfacing with back and front office entities in charge of interacting with the customer or stakeholders: communication services or HR when it comes to facilitating change management, the IT department when it comes to upgrading the technology base, the project management team when it comes to talking to the business lines in charge of production, quality when it comes to a NF certification project or setting up a quality reference framework, innovation when it comes to guiding AI, bots, automation or data processing projects, etc. As a two-headed team, the project manager handles business and technological issues with agility, managing both risks and unforeseen events.

Activeo’s experts bring a wealth of experience in the field of customer relations, with most of them having more than 10 years’ experience in CX issues, whether business, functional or technological. This combined expertise enables us to meet all the challenges of remote customer relations. Our belief in the keys to transformation lies in the simultaneous mastery of business, organisational and technological issues. With a high level of skills and expertise, most of our experts are certified (PMP, Scrum, Prince2, NF Customer Relationship Auditor, ISV Solutions) and have carried out dozens of projects. They challenge your certainties, and provide innovation and inspiration in disruption, evolution and transformation.

Activeo’s membership of professional associations such as AFRC, AMARC, AFNOR, and the Limebridge network, which contributes to the development of innovative concepts and shares best practice in CX, also encourages innovation, as demonstrated by the books and articles co-authored by its members. Following on from the BSINS and Me2B concepts, Frictionless Organization is the title of the new book co-authored by Bill Price and David Jaffe, which has already become the #1 bestseller in the Top 10 Business Books 2022.

Outsourcing projects: Top 3 benefits :

1. It is often a question of benefiting from additional resources over a given period, which can vary in length depending on the complexity and roadmap of the project.

Whether or not your company has the in-house skills to manage a project effectively, calling on the services of a specialist service provider means that, in addition to human resources, you benefit from dedicated expertise that has been tried and tested on many similar projects.
It’s an extra guarantee that your project will be a success.

2. Our customers are often faced with busy and ambitious schedules, with the need to involve their business units in several simultaneous projects. It’s therefore a key challenge to enable your resources to concentrate more on their core business, and thus relieve your internal workload.

Your teams can rest easy knowing that our project managers are dedicated to your project, from scoping to delivery.

3. Partial outsourcing of your project management can also be a good way of meeting budgetary challenges. By definition, a project is bound to have its share of unforeseen events – it’s part of its DNA.

But recruiting and training an in-house team can be costly and time-consuming.
By outsourcing project management, you benefit from a pool of qualified, experienced people who can adapt to the size and requirements of your projects.

What they have to say…

Our project managers have their say

outsource

Arnaud – Project & Cloud Practice Manager

Why outsource project management?

“Outsourcing means benefiting from the experience of a third party in :

  • phasing of operations
  • operational risks and limitations
  • knowledge of the integrated solution
  • gathering and respecting business needs

It also means limiting the mental workload of the customer’s in-house teams and providing real technical support for communications with key users”.

What is Activeo’s added value?

“A team specialising in Contact Centre and CX solutions and ecosystems. An agile approach and the ability to adapt throughout the project to provide a quality service in line with the customer’s needs. Advice and support to help you make the right choices regarding the proposed implementations. Follow-up and proactivity to discover and analyse new needs or changes in scope during deployment!

Carine – Technical consultant

Why outsource project management?

“It’s a winning combination that combines specialist expertise with an external viewpoint and, above all, risk assessment and control. In this way, the proven methodologies provided by the outsourcer encourage efficient execution, right down to the last detail.

What is Activeo’s added value?

“Value embodied in our understanding of different CX scenarios and processes. Activeo knows exactly how to develop engagement and improvement strategies based on robust market-leading solutions. With its focus on innovation, Activeo keeps abreast of the latest trends in customer experience. Activeo also has extensive experience in a range of sectors, including telecommunications, banking and finance, insurance and many others. Our in-depth knowledge of the specific challenges and needs of each sector enables us to offer relevant and appropriate solutions.

With contributions from

Fanny Lim, Senior Consultant, Activeo

Filed Under: ARTICLES, Articles, Non classé Tagged With: articles

Becoming a Customer Experience Champion: Best practices and innovative concepts…

5 April 2023 par Activeo

After « Best Service Is Nos Service », « Me2B », The Frictionless Organization is the new book proposed and co-written by Bill Price and David Jaffe, both members of the LimeBridge Alliance and renowned experts. Beyond these contents that you will certainly have the opportunity to browse, it no longer belongs to companies today to define what customers want; it is the customers themselves who decide! Additionally, we know the importance of the experience lived by the customer during their interaction with the brand or within the framework of the purchasing journey. Dive into the heart of these innovative concepts and become the champion of the customer experience!

The Frictionless Organization, or the organization without friction: Never contact the brand for the wrong reasons! A motto that applies in organizations that have chosen to offer the best experience throughout the customer journey. From product/service design to customer service, simplicity and ease are key. Reducing customer effort, also known as friction by the authors, is the best methodology for limiting interactions without value and increasing those that represent a strong business opportunity.

The Me2B concept

The book defines a simple methodology, based on over thirty practical examples from leading companies on four continents. The approach offers a radically different way for the entire company to focus on the customer experience. It explains how any organization can view all customer interactions as potential opportunities for improvement and ask whether they are useful or truly represent symptoms of friction. Low-friction innovators are disrupting established businesses in all sectors. This is a detailed guide to eliminating friction for any business, from start-ups to large multinationals. Being frictionless has become a strategic necessity. Many examples will be presented in the book, already considered the #1 Best Seller of « Top10 Business Books 2022 »: Airbnb, Amazon, Dyson, Nike, Progressive Insurance, Qantas, Tesla, Vodafone, and Zoom.

The Me2B principle: To face this new reality and get ahead of their competitors, organizations must rethink their approach by adopting the customer’s point of view. This evolution, which disrupts the classic B2B and B2C business models, marks the advent of a new era in which customers take control of the relationship: Me2B. Now, they are the ones indicating what products and services they expect, how interactions should take place, and the price they are willing to pay. To do so, Bill Price and David Jaffe propose an original methodology focused on satisfying the « seven fundamental customer needs. » This method, which can be implemented by any organization, describes both the obstacles to overcome and the principles to apply to build an excellent and sustainable relationship with your customers.

The Me2B concept

The 7 keys to a successful customer experience.

 In the digital age, the customer dictates their relationship with companies. They become the owner and determine when they choose to interact with the brand, which now needs to integrate their point of view into its thinking.

For several years now, B2B and B2C have referred to the processes and customer relationship rules necessary to create value in the company.

Today, collaborative experience allows the consumer to design their product or service according to their needs, which requires a new relational mode that showcases creativity and agility.

In a few words, or even in a few letters: Me to Business, or rather Me2B (pronounced in English) defines these new rules.

 Bill Price and David Jaffe explain in « The Best Service Is No Service, » published by Wiley, how to achieve a successful Me2B experience, through 7 fundamental needs that value the customer and their experience, thereby consolidating their loyalty to the company:

You know me, you remember me You offer me choices You make my life easier You value me You trust me You surprise me beyond all expectations You allow me to be better and do more

Me2B leaders create experiences that meet fundamental relational needs in a complex and multiple universe like the Digital world, beyond just providing a product.


And you? Where are you with your customer promise?

Take advantage of an audit of the maturity level of your organization and recommendations proposed by our experts. Contact us!

Activeo, a French member of the LimeBridge Global Alliance and publisher of the French edition of “The Best Service Is No Service,” offers to discuss your relationship challenges by conducting a free diagnostic/audit of your organization, accompanied by recommendations.

During this opportunity, we will be happy to give you a copy of Bill Price’s book.

Filed Under: ARTICLES, Articles, Non classé

The Conversational Bot: Enrich, streamline and automate interaction

15 February 2023 par Activeo

Conversational bots are becoming increasingly popular in contact centers due to their ability to help customers quickly and efficiently. These virtual agents are able to complement the support of human agents to make them more efficient, improve the customer experience and reduce contact center operational costs. According to Gartner, by 2026, one in 10 agents interactions will be automated using a bot. In addition, bot deployments in contact centers will reduce agent labor costs by $80 billion [1]. In this expert opinion, we will try to demystify conversational bots, how they work, and their design tools.

IVR vs. conversational bot?

In a traditional contact center, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system is used. This is a sequence of menus and sub-menus that identify the intent of the call and route it to the right agent. Compared to an IVR, a conversational bot can directly assist users. The user can directly express his request and say “I want to make an appointment” or “I want to cancel my reservation” … the bot is able to understand this intention and route it to the right agent. If the customer’s request is simple, it can provide answers by itself. Compared to an IVR, interacting with a conversational bot is faster and more natural as customers are increasingly familiar with voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant.

What are the applications and advantages of the conversational bot in a Customer Relations Center?

A conversational bot can automate the entire customer interaction with a contact center, or a part of it, and then transfer it to the right agent. This automation, whether partial or total, helps the agent to process the request, reduce the interaction time with the agent, and therefore achieve significant optimization. Many of the less value-added queries encountered in a contact center are redundant and repetitive and can be automated.

  1. Find information: the bot can connect to databases to provide dynamic and personalized answers. It can find general information such as “What are the opening hours?”, “What is the price of a product?”, or questions specific to the customer’s situation such as “What time is my appointment?”, or after-sales questions such as “When does my contract end?”.
  2. Authenticate a client: Instead of the agent spending time authenticating a client, the bot can perform this task, ask the security questions and verify the answers by connecting to a database.
  3. Scheduling an appointment or modifying a reservation: the bot can identify the necessary information associated with this intention such as the date, time of preference, and request this information from the customer. It can then either make the reservation itself or transfer the customer to the right agent while providing the agent with this context information.
  4. Satisfaction Survey: The bot can conduct a natural and rich satisfaction survey by soliciting feedback instead of asking for a simple rating in an IVR. The bot can then analyze the feedback and even the customer’s sentiment.

Note that at any point in the conversation with the bot, if the bot is unable to fully understand what the customer is saying, or if the customer requests an agent transfer, the bot is able to transfer the call immediately to the right agent. As a result, the agent can spend his interaction time with the customer on higher value-added tasks. The agent’s workload is therefore reduced and his interaction with the customer is faster and more fluid.

Technically, what is a conversational bot?

A conversational bot is a computer program that can converse with a user via text or voice messages, respectively called chatbot or voicebot. Technically, a voicebot is just a chatbot with a voice. The main steps of a bot in general are the following:

  1. Voice to text transcription (for voice bot only)
  2. Understanding the intent
  3. Data query and synthesis of the textual response associated with the detected intention
  4. Voice synthesis from text (for voice bot only)

Conversational bots are built using “natural language processing” algorithms, which are part of artificial intelligence. Natural language processing is one of the most challenging problems in computer science; it requires Deep Learning algorithms that need large computations and huge volumes of training data. These algorithms transcribe (step 1), understand the words and the intended intent (step 2), and synthesize the voice from the text (step 4). Step 3 does not require NLP, but rather defining database queries to provide the necessary information. Then we build a personalized and dynamic response that corresponds to the identified intention.

However, several tools such as Amazon Lex and Google DialogFlow bring their natural language processing technologies to developers. These are the same natural language understanding engines used by their voice assistants, Alexa and Google Assistant. Tools such as AWS LEX and DialogFlow provide graphical interfaces where in a few minutes you can create and test a conversational bot without having any knowledge of natural language processing. All we need to do is define the set of intentions we are interested in and expect from users. In other words, we need to think of all the reasons why a user will call the contact center. For each reason, we then define the necessary queries and the bot’s response.

What does the design of a conversational bot look like?

Bot design tools provide natural language processing technology to allow us to focus on developing the scenario and defining the intentions. To create a bot, we simply specify the intentions we expect in the design console. Then, you can simply integrate the bot into the contact center flow. Typically, we define several independent or related intentions that correspond to several call reasons. For each intention, we need to:

  1. Provide some sample statements. In other words, how a user can communicate this intent.
  2. Define the parameters and questions the bot should ask to get the parameters needed for the intent.
  3. Define the function that the bot will call to perform the appropriate activity (query in a database, write in a database …)
  4. Define the answers that the bot will use to respond to the user

You create a bot to handle one or more related intentions. For example, in a contact center for a medical laboratory, you can automate calls from customers who want to change their appointment and find out the opening hours. You can create a bot with two intentions “Modify Reservation” and “Opening hours”. For each intention, you must complete the 4 steps described above. We will go through them for the intention ” Modify Reservation “:

  1. Provide example statements: For example, a user may say:
  2.  “I want to change my reservation”
  3.  “I want to reschedule my appointment”
  4. “Is it possible to change my session today?”

It is sufficient to give a few examples. It is not necessary to be exhaustive. When a customer says these phrases or another phrase that sounds like them, the bot should be able to understand that it is the “Change Booking” intent. Figure 1 shows the statements provided for this intent in the AWS LEX administration console.

  • Provide the Parameters and the corresponding questions: For example, to change a reservation, the user must be asked for the new date and time they want. The user must provide these values. The two parameters are: Date and Time. Figure 2 shows how to set the Date parameter in the AWS LEX administration console. For each parameter, we define the question to ask to obtain the value of this parameter:
  • Date: “What date would you like?
    • Time: “What time would you like?
  • Define the function or procedure to be completed: For example, the bot has to check in the appointment database that the new slot is available.
  • If the slot is available, confirm availability and make the reservation.
    • If the slot is not available, suggest other options.
  • Define the bot responses:
  • “Your appointment is shifted to DAY MONTH YEAR and TIME” where DAY, MONTH, YEAR and TIME are replaced by their values. In this way, the bot’s responses are dynamic and personalized.
    • “The requested appointment is not available, would you like to know what slots are available?”
Figure 1: Examples of statements for changing the appointment
Figure 2: Example of Date parameter definition

Conclusion

Conversational bots allow to provide a natural, human-like, personalized and interactive support. They contribute to the rapid resolution of customer requests. They enable the creation of highly personalized and enriching customer experiences. Moreover, they lighten the workload of human agents and allow them to focus on more complex and higher value-added tasks. Many benefits that confirm the trend of human/machine cohabitation and confirm that the AI wave is affecting all businesses and processes. Taking advantage of it to better address the challenges of customer relations and providing a great customer experience are the major challenges of the relevant use of the bot in the customer journey.

Within the framework of a project, let’s not neglect the upstream phase which consists in defining the need, the expected uses, the context, the feasibility with the stakeholders. The recommended method BSINS – Best Service Is No Service – can facilitate the understanding of the need, the mapping of contact patterns to improve performance and rationalize incoming contacts without value. So don’t wait and contact our team to launch your project.

[1] https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-08-31-gartner-predicts-conversational-ai-will-reduce-contac

This article is brought to you by

Rita Ammanouil, Solution Architect, Activeo

Filed Under: ARTICLES, Articles, Non classé

What are the keys to an efficient transformation of the organization?

31 October 2022 par Activeo

Articles

How is transformation defined? It is “the action of transforming, the operation by which one transforms, the resulting modification”. The 3 important elements here are: action, operation and result. For a qualitative transformation, an organization must ACT in a more or less conscious way, define and set up the PROCESSES and/or procedures, coordinate and measure the RESULTS.

Our team sought to find and analyze the common success keys to the transformation projects that have been entrusted to us in recent years..

  • The Management as sponsor

A global or strategic transformation project WITHOUT the driving force from the Management is doomed to fail: let’s be honest from the start! Your Management must not only be aware of the project in question, but also follow it and find a strategic or tactical interest in it, even if it is different from the original objectives of the project. This means for a project manager to be able to ensure that the different objectives of ALL STAKEHOLDERS are taken into consideration.

1.  Start with the users

Many projects, such as the implementation of an IT solution, begin without asking the end users about the specifications of the tool. At best, before the “go-live”, it is necessary to start communicating about the arrival of a new product, then the users will participate in the training. But what about defining the specifications? Participation in design or specification workshops? Testing?

The best “guinea pigs” are the users themselves, and not the IT team that implements the new tool. Moreover, this is an essential step in change management since it allows them to become familiar with the solution well before the go-live: the fact that the end-users actively participate makes them actors and even “owners” of this solution and the flows that result from it.

2. What is the problem to be solved?

The Management rarely wakes up one morning and says “we have to change everything” (although…), it is often a long process during which everything has been done to avoid resorting to structural change. Maintaining and accelerating performance and competitiveness in the market requires revisiting the way the company operates. This need to transform can then be provoked by a new adaptation to the market, to the customers’ expectations, a regulation, the customers’ feedbacks, or employees’ feedbacks, etc. It is important for the justification of the project to keep the original history and to use it in the communication with the organization. It is also sometimes necessary to present the case study to the Management to justify the corresponding budget, and it becomes critical to explain the problem to be solved and its organizational impact. We do not give the same energy and attention to a full structural revamping that will benefit the whole company and improve the global cost/performance equation as we do with a “stone in the shoe” of a single department.

3. A change of paradigm

How many times have we, as employees, been pushed to use a new procedure that not only doesn’t solve our problems, but worse, creates new ones, or only caters to a portion of a company’s population and yet is applied to the entire organization? The world is full of conveniences that we like to get because they are shiny to our eyes, before we ask ourselves about their usage. Instead of buying features, let’s ask ourselves the right questions, think upstream about use cases and business needs – to be defined in the specifications document – and only then study the tools that meet those requirements, to validate the corresponding budget. This is a change of mindset in the way many companies operate. 

4. Quality vs Time vs Budget

These three elements form a triangle with a critical interdependence between them.

It is important for a project to be clear on the strategy to be applied:

  • Do we want to implement the best tool on the market?

We should expect to align the budget accordingly.

  • Is there a planning constraint, for example, for regulatory issues ?

If we have to rush, we will probably have to accept a level of non-quality, sometimes even at a high cost!

  • What if I want the best on the market while keeping a tight schedule?

It is possible with a certain budget.

Finally, almost everything is possible if we accept that the three points of the triangle evolve in relation to each other. With a little flexibility and imagination, we can find solutions.

5. Measure in a SMART way

When transforming, you need to know where you are starting from in order to determine the point of arrival. What is the current status? How big is the problem? How do we measure it? Then, we will be able to monitor the evolutions during the transition period (what is the rate of usage of a tool? what is the customer satisfaction? etc.), afterwards provide reports at the end of the project. Finally, the presentation of Return on Investment (ROI) to the Management will allow to validate the invested effort. Management guru Peter Drucker once said: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. Many forms of measurement exist, the SMART method is excellent for defining KPIs: an indicator should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Temporally defined.

6. Supporting change

Many people think that training is enough to support the changes resulting from a new process or technology.  It is indeed a step in managing the transition, but often one of the last! It is critical to evaluate the efforts that will be necessary for the change depending on the organizational impact, and then to define the actions plan that will follow: the involvement of users according to their profile, level of responsibility, skills, availability and state of mind (we may prefer motivated people and leave out the naysayers, or on the contrary, we may want to train the diehards, the resistant ones, to convince them from the beginning…), and finally, communication & training. Do we need to organize “getting started” sessions, individual coaching? How can we ensure that the “newcomers” welcome guides are properly updated and that the access rights are managed accordingly? All these questions must be asked before or during the project.

7. Standardize the best practices

As a project progresses, the organization begins to change, new practices will emerge, and some will be better than others. It is imperative to detect and apply them to everyone, in order to homogenize practices and standardize the organization. It is also a good way to shine light on the employees who had this good idea and encourage feedback in the company! At the same time, this means that we cannot afford to launch a new product in the wild without monitoring its usage and the way it evolves over time…

8. Continuous improvement

The notion of Continuous Improvement is much abused, however it is not always implemented in organizations, because it requires significant efforts, especially at the human level. The idea that a project never ends is hardly acceptable. Indeed, once the implementation is completed, we wish to monitor its evolution in terms of uses, satisfaction, to keep an eye on “updates or upgrades” in terms of technology, and above all to introduce a loop that will continuously retrieve new needs to implement the following improvements. By integrating this process into the company’s culture, we will progressively allow to boost performance, reduce costs, optimize efficiency, productivity and profitability of the organization at different levels. A continuous improvement approach focuses of taking actions to eliminate non-quality, while reinforcing the elements that generate value. We commonly use the Deming wheel, Plan Do Check Act to pilot those.

Activeo‘s Business Transformation team specializes in supporting change and improvement initiatives around business processes related to or having a direct/indirect impact on the Customer Experience. We ask you the right questions to diagnose the problems, we help you to look for solutions, evaluate their feasibility, and finally, we accompany you in the steering and the implementation of the corresponding projects.

This article is brought to you by

Yolande Le Mercier, Country Manager, Activeo Suisse

Filed Under: ARTICLES, Articles, Non classé

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Le stockage ou l’accès technique est strictement nécessaire dans la finalité d’intérêt légitime de permettre l’utilisation d’un service spécifique explicitement demandé par l’abonné ou l’utilisateur, ou dans le seul but d’effectuer la transmission d’une communication sur un réseau de communications électroniques.
Préférences
Le stockage ou l’accès technique est nécessaire dans la finalité d’intérêt légitime de stocker des préférences qui ne sont pas demandées par l’abonné ou l’utilisateur.
Statistiques
Le stockage ou l’accès technique qui est utilisé exclusivement à des fins statistiques. Le stockage ou l’accès technique qui est utilisé exclusivement dans des finalités statistiques anonymes. En l’absence d’une assignation à comparaître, d’une conformité volontaire de la part de votre fournisseur d’accès à internet ou d’enregistrements supplémentaires provenant d’une tierce partie, les informations stockées ou extraites à cette seule fin ne peuvent généralement pas être utilisées pour vous identifier.
Marketing
Le stockage ou l’accès technique est nécessaire pour créer des profils d’utilisateurs afin d’envoyer des publicités, ou pour suivre l’utilisateur sur un site web ou sur plusieurs sites web à des fins de marketing similaires.
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Voir les préférences
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