As I my watch my teenage children work and study and play with content, I’m fascinated by their manner of information consumption and their trust in data. Today’s younger generation doesn’t necessarily question the accuracy of how applications manage information, but they do care about the “presentation” of the information.   What used to be endless and scattered data can now be consumed and processed in mere seconds by the user via widgets and social media-like feeds.

I think it’s this generation that has inspired such a focus on GUI in business to business applications today. Take contact centers, for example. Focusing on the GUI for customer interaction and management applications is a must if contact centers hope to attract a younger generation of agents and ultimately please their customers. Workforce Optimization software is not just about the data behind the applications anymore. What’s just as important is how that data is presented to users. Contact centers are seeing value in a better user experience – how contact center workers see and interact with the applications. It’s got to be clear, it’s got to be quick, and it’s got to be flexible.

I recently read an interesting article that validates how contact centers need to be working today. The article “The GUI is New Again” covers how companies like Microsoft are redesigning the user interface in their CRM applications. The author advocates for a role-based approach to design, where the software presents only those parts of the applications that are relevant for each individual user. The writer goes on to say that “Perhaps that leads to job satisfaction or at least less frustration and those are good things.”

I couldn’t agree more. The way I’ve describe it is that software is getting smaller. Users aren’t burdened with enormous software applications with tons of features that aren’t relevant to their jobs. Rather, software is rendered in digestible widgets or gadgets that each user needs to do his or her job, making tasks more manageable.

The principles are the same for WFO.  Contact centers are struggling to keep pace with an incoming workforce that grew up on mobile devices and social media. With this generation in mind, I think it is essential to embrace the way they work and adapt tools accordingly (or risk winding up like the contact centers in our HELP ads).

Personalizing and incorporating job and performance data in a format that is pleasing and intuitive to agents promises improvements in workplace efficiency and job satisfaction. And when software can help make an agent a happier employee, the customer is going to notice.

Tom

2011

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