Verint Moves Into Financial Services With Workforce Optimization App

Analytics software solutions provider Verint is leveraging the workforce optimization capabilities it developed -- and acquired -- for the call center space so that it can move into other areas.

The company, having digested its acquisition of Witness Systems earlier this year, tailored its scheduling, monitoring and performance analysis platform for call center agents to mesh with the front- and back-office needs of the financial services industries.

The two apps -- Verint Witness Actionable Solutions' Impact 360 for Retail Financial Services and Impact 360 for Back-Office Operations -- focus on such processes as order fulfillment, customer administration, billing, claims processing, retail and commercial banking, mortgage banking, lending, insurance, securities, bank card servicing and transaction processing.

This is the first time Verint has ventured beyond the contact center space.

"When we were looking to expand our workforce optimization portfolio outside of the contact center," explained Darryl Demos, general manager of Verint's enterprise solutions group, "we were looking for a sector that would have a big uptake."

The financial services industry, as opposed to, say, the retail space, was the first obvious choice, he told CRM Buyer. "Branch banking has many of the same needs in terms of agent performance and optimization that call centers do."

What If

Features included in this general release -- the applications were available on a controlled basis in Verint's second quarter -- include the ability to perform "what if" analysis to predict how changes to staffing or customer service levels will affect performance.

For instance, the application can recommend the best times to pull agents temporarily out of circulation to provide training. It also can take into account new reps or reps in training to make sure enough additional staffers are available to pick up the slack as the new agents master the learning curve.

Other features include scorecards with performance alerts for managers that work in real time. They are then able to provide guidance or more training before a potential problem materializes. There is also a customer feedback survey functionality for customers to give their input in real time after an encounter with a particular bank.

Larger Trend

This extension of contact center functionality to other knowledge workers will be an emerging trend, Len Landoline, an analyst with the Yankee Group, told CRM Buyer. For instance, the screen pop functionality for agents in the call center would translate well for sales reps at a car dealership. "A call comes in from a customer and the rep would see its previous buys, its services, the value of the customer.

"Agents are now used to this functionality in the call center -- it helps with a service call and cross-selling opportunities," Landoline continued. "For some reason, it has never moved out of the call center."

Given that Verint is one of the top providers in this space, he added, "it is just a matter of time before we see other workforce optimization companies roll out their own verticals."