Ventana Research Analyst Perspectives

Having covered workforce optimization systems for more than 10 years, recently I was contacted for a briefing by dvsAnalytics. I quickly learned that the analytics mentioned in the company’s name are focused on workforce optimization. Founded in 1983, dvsAnalytics is headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., and has thousands of customers in various industry sectors. Its Encore suite of products includes standard workforce optimization applications for call recording, quality management, workforce management and coaching as well as post-contact surveys, live monitoring, multiple forms of analytics and a range of APIs to support integration with third-party products, especially telecommunications systems. The products have mostly been developed in-house although workforce management is provided through integration with Community Workforce Management from WorkForce Management Software Group. DvsAnalytics makes its products available on-premises, in the cloud or in a hybrid environment; unlike some vendors, it builds all three options on the same code base. Most of its sales and post-sales support are provided through a network of partners in various locations.

Our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index shows that this market is mature and highly competitive: We rated seven of the 10 vendors we evaluated – which did not include dvsAnalytics – at the highest Hot level, and only 3 percentage points separate the seven Hot vendors. In addition, our benchmark research into next-generation workforce optimization finds that user companies expect any workforce optimization vendor to support core capabilities such as call recording (78%), quality management (70%) and workforce management (59%).

For its part, dvsAnalytics supports all of these, and some other capabilities are noteworthy. As well as phone calls, its recording product captures email and chat sessions, plus agents’ use of their desktop systems. Thus companies can assess how well agents are handling these newer forms of customer engagement. Encore Desktop Analytics enables companies to spot inefficient processes and difficulties in accessing information to resolve interactions, and to identify the best- and worst-performing agents. These capabilities make it easier for companies to understand which agents are delivering the best customer experiences and determine process changes and training or coaching that could improve performance, which in my view is essential for companies to remain competitive. Encore Live Monitor allows supervisors to monitor interactions from smart mobile devices, making it possible for them to take action in real time if, for example, an agent is not meeting customer expectations or the caller is becoming abusive.

Its business analytics can ingest multiple forms of data such as CRM records, calls, survey data and desktop usage. A combination of data, speech and desktop analytics allows companies to gain a fuller insight into agent performance, its impact on customers, and the business outcomes of interactions. It also supports searching through interaction data to extract information from specific interactions, which can become part of the quality monitoring and coaching processes. Our research into next-generation customer engagement shows that companies increasingly deploy these types of analytics and guiding metrics to better understand interaction handling from agent, customer and business perspectives.

Several of these workforce optimization  capabilities cannot function fully without tight integration between them, and with external systems such as communications channel management systems. To meet these requirements dvsAnalytics has worked to ensure its products are closely integrated and built a portfolio of standard integration capabilities with the most common communications platforms such as those from Avaya, Cisco, Mitel and NEC. Like other vendors it needs to continue these efforts as companies deploy more channels of communication and turn to communications platforms emerging in the cloud. It also is developing visualization capabilities for analytics which, along with modernizing its user interface, are essential to continue competing in this market.

Overall I find that its products meet most companies’ requirements for workforce optimization. It also has broad analytics capabilities that it is continuing to enhance, and the products are tightly integrated for ease of administration and of taking actions that cross product boundaries. As noted, dvsAnalytics has clients in various industries. I therefore recommend that companies seeking to enhance the people side of handling customer interactions add it to the list of vendors they evaluate.

Regards,

Richard J. Snow

VP & Research Director