Contact Center Exploration & Discovery Workshops
The Contact Center Discovery and Exploration workshops allow us to gain a clear perspective of your contact center operations.  The discovery workshop is focused on developing an understanding of the current state architecture and IT support.
 
I’ve attached a contact center survey to collect information and context in advance of the workshop and is also useful to develop business cases.

# CX Exploration

## Background
How many distinct lines of business are supported in the contact centre?
 (eg, commercial, residential, retail, wholesale, etc)
Are you using contact center for internal Uses such as help desk, finance, HR, etc.?

What channels do you support?
	Apps
	Voice
	Video
	Chat
	SMS
	Email
	Social Media
	Digital Assistants

Payment card/PCI?

What are the availability SLAs or targets for your technology platform?

Mini org chart

Reporting structure
	- Executive leader

What is the structure of decision making in their organization?  Centralized or decentralized?
	- Who are the key decision makers for implementing a plan for changes to the contact centre?

How important is CX & EX to your organization's strategy?
	- Is there an executive that is accountable for CX? CXO, CDO?

Of your leading offers, what is the customer's top priority?

Competitive pressures?

Are their pending or recent acquisitions or spinoffs that require changes to their IT infrastructure and services?

What do they view as the problems in their contact centre today and what are the primary causes?

CX / Customer Success Leadership:
Are your contact centers managed by the same person?
	- Managers:
	- Team Leads:
	- Agents:

Who carries the cost of contact centre agents and supervisors?

What revenue is generated by the contact center?

Do you have KPI targets for CX?:
	CSAT: 
	NPS: 
	CES: 
	How are you doing?

Is there a VOC program in place?
	• ROI/business value known?
	• How do customers rate the experience they receive from your organization?  0-5


What are the key features of their corporate culture?

Is their a Voice of the Agent, or Employee satisfaction survey in place?
	- How are they doing?


Automation strategy?  

Any inflight projects?
	- Any CX or EX improvement initiatives?

Decision 

Channel management strategy?

Are your customer experiences personalized?  

Do you have a clear set of design guidelines for CX?
	Personas
	Journey Mapping
	Tools:

How are processes managed?

## CX Strategy
How is the value of Customer Experience defined within your organization?
	- CX is a key BPI, recognized & measured as a financial value 
	


Strategic Value
What revenue is generated by the contact center?

What are the key capabilities / services that are delivered by the contact centre?



Proposition 
How are you using CX innovation to create market disruption? 

How are competitors using CX to create competitive differentiation?


Organization Structure & Operating Model
Is there an executive that is accountable for CX? CXO, CDO?

Is there a CX team?
	Do the CX insights team regularly educate the business 

How are decisions made in the organization, is it centralized or decentralized?
	- Who are the key decision makers for investment and changes to the contact centre'?
	- Channel management strategy?
	

Who carries the cost of contact centre agents and supervisors?

Are they managed by the same person?


What are the teams?

How are processes managed?

Describe your automation strategy.  Are there any desires or goals related to the contact centre?
	- Who is your leader for Data & AI?
	


Are there any inflight projects that would impact the contact centre?

Are there recent or pending acquisitions or spinoffs?

Insight 
How do you use analytics & data to generate a consolidated view of your customer experience?


Is there a VOC program in place?
	• ROI/business value known?
	• How do customers rate the experience they receive from your organization?  0-5


Approach
Continuous Improvement
How is customer insight used to drive CX improvement, loyalty and profitability?
How do you anticipate needs?

Do you have a clear set of CX design guidelines for CX?
	Personas
	Journey Mapping
	Tools:

Do you have KPI targets for CX?:
	CSAT: 
	NPS: 
	CES: 
	How are you doing?


Employee Engagement
Please describe you about your employee / Agent engagement strategy

How engaged are your people in delivering the customer experience? 

Do you have a VoA/VoE program in place?  How are you doing?

## Channels

May 6, 2025
2:52 PM

Inbound 

Hours of operation

Who contacts the contact center?  (Demographics, their situation)

Are certain callers or groups prioritized?

Languages?
	English
	Canadian French
	Spanish

	Video
		Average number of active agents:
	Voice
		Average number of active agents:
		Toll Free numbers & DIDs:
			Approximate quantities or a list
		Hours of operation? Any 24x7?
		Average Wait Time: 
		Average Abandon rate: 
		Average Handle Time: 
		Average Call Hold Time:  
		Average After work call time: 
		Time to authenticate a caller: 
		% of calls transferred?
			Internally?
			Externally?
				3rd parties handling certain types of calls, or being conferenced in?
		Courtesy Callback/Virtual Hold
		Post Call Survey
		First Call Resolution Rate?
		Average revenue per call (sales)?
	Email, range of logged in users:
		○ Response time: 
		○ Email server
	Chat, range of logged in users:
		Web Chat Internal
		Web Chat External
		App Integration / embedded
		SMS
		Facebook Messenger
		WhatsApp
		Telegram
		iMessage
	Web Site Forms
	Mobile Apps
			
Top 3-5 Inbound contact reasons and approximate % of calls:
	1. 

Cost Per call?
Average Handle Time?

Busiest days:

Least busy days:

Seasonal variances?

What are your most difficult, commonly occurring calls?

What is the easiest commonly occurring call?


Outbound 

Hours of operation

	Voice, range of logged in users:
	Preview, volume
	Predictive dialer
	Email, range of logged in users:
	SMS, range of logged in users:
	Recorded announcement, ports:
	Self service applications
		Transfer to agent
	Live agent connect
	Campaign management
	DNC management

Top 3-5 outbound contact reasons and approximate % of calls:
	1. 


After call work?


## Agent & Supervisor Environment
Location types:
	- WFH:
	- Offices: 

	Hard phone
	Soft phone
	CODEC?
	Headset, wireless?:
	Agent greeting or pre-recorded messages
	Whisper announcement
PC
	Desktop
	Laptop
	VDI
Agent & Supervisor desktop (omnichannel?):
	Custom gadgets
	Screen pops
	Workflows
Standard browser:
SSO:
Applications used to handle calls:
Knowledge Management:

## Routing & Automation
	Self Service
		IVR Persona?
			Branding?  
			Style guides?  
			Voice actors?
		DTMF
		Speech
			Speech recognition
			Text To Speech
			Natural Language Understanding
			Voice Biometrics
		Self service applications: 
			ID & Validate
			Deflection
			Situational Offer (Outage/ Time of Day / Scheduled)
			API integration:
				CRM
			Intent Capture
			Intent prediction
				Offer push based on prediction/account attribute
        Virtual Agents
            Processes
	Agent Assist
	RPA
	Current challenges or desired capabilities
	Process management
	Desire to automate
	DevOps team?

Digital Assistant Apps
	Alexa
	Google Assistant
	Siri


## Routing & Automation
	Self Service
		IVR Persona?
			Branding?  
			Style guides?  
			Voice actors?
		DTMF
		Speech
			Speech recognition
			Text To Speech
			Natural Language Understanding
			Voice Biometrics
		Self service applications: 
			ID & Validate
			Deflection
			Situational Offer (Outage/ Time of Day / Scheduled)
			API integration:
				CRM
			Intent Capture
			Intent prediction
				Offer push based on prediction/account attribute
	Agent Assist
	RPA
	Current challenges or desired capabilities
	Process management
	Desire to automate
	DevOps team?

Digital Assistant Apps
	Alexa
	Google Assistant
	Siri


Workforce Engagement

May 6, 2025
2:50 PM

Call Recording/QM
	• How is call recording used?
		Compliance
		Screen capture
		Voice transcription 
			Real time
		Desktop analytics
		Retention period
	Quality Management
		Do you have a quality team?
			Who do they report to?
			How many people work for the team?
		Scorecards
		Score method and metrics?
		How many assessments are conducted?
		Coaching
		Live Monitor
	• Locations with CR
	• Number of Named Agents: 
	

Workforce Engagement
	• What is your recruitment process?
	• What qualifications are required for the call center?
	• What is the average staff tenure?
	• What is the attrition rate?
	• What proportion of the staff leave for other positions in the company per annum?
		○ Are staff hired for the CC from other parts of the organization?
	• Do you measure agent & supervisor experience?  
		○ How are they doing?
		○ What type of recognition program do you have in place?
	• Agent adherence measure?
		○ KPIs
		○ Gamification
		○ How long is a shift?
		○ What breaks are allocated
		○ What annualized utilization % do you calculate?
	• Forecasting & Scheduling
		○ Peak call volume days, time of month, year?
		○ Validate historical data
		○ How are calculations performed (algorithms used)
		○ WFM Interval (15/30 minutes)
	• Intraday/ Realtime adherence
		○ What happens when you are out of compliance, surprises happen?
	• Payroll Integration
		○ Payroll platform
	• Satisfaction with current tool(s)?
		○ Multiskilled agents
		○ FTE Calculations 
	• Agent self-service?
		○ How are absences reported?
		○ Shift bids / swaps
		○ Performance metrics
	• Number of Named Agents: 
	• Integration to 3rd party
		○ outsourcer / overflow:
		○ Payroll: ADP / Workday
	

Training
	• Onboarding process
		○ How long is it?
		○ Training format?
		○ Assessment?
	eLearning
	QM Integration

## Reporting & Insights
Reporting
	• Real time
	• Historical
	• What are the key metrics that you report on?
	Data source integration
	Dashboards
	Wallboards
	Agent & Supervisor status

Analytics & Insights
	Do you have an integrated view of customer details and contact history?
		CRM: 
	Does your contact centre collect and use customer insight?
		Predictive engagement:
	What sort of data analysis do you perform?
	Do you have an analytics or business insights team?
		How many people?
	BI Platform:
	What executive level reporting do you perform?
	Marketing Team interlock

