1. © Communication Perspectives 20051 Messaging Metrics Productivity and ROI Development Marty Parker Communication Perspectives marty@parkerbiz.commarty@parkerbiz.com 408-420-5539 IAMP Conference October 18, 2005 If you can’t measure it, it’s just an opinion.

2. © Communication Perspectives 20052 Topics Major Forms of ROI The Roles of Measurements and Metrics Using the Information from Your Systems Action Summary

3. © Communication Perspectives 20053 Major Forms of ROI – Cutting Costs Cut Costs (always the favorite) –Avoid or stop payroll expenses Staff time/positions; Overtime Increase amount of Self-service –Reduce variable transaction/production costs Long distance tolls Cellular minutes/plan charges Administration –Reduce Equipment, Network and TCO costs Fewer, larger servers – leveraging Mr. Erlang Reducing admin, monitoring and maintenance staff time Reducing service contracts – number and prices

4. © Communication Perspectives 20054 Major Forms of ROI – Increase Volumes Increase Volumes, with Fixed (Same) Costs –Help each person complete more transactions per day Same payroll, same cell phone bill, etc. so more profitable –Queue transactions for group responses The “single bank line” concept Increase Volumes, with Variable Costs –Shorten transaction completion times, but still have costs of production, travel, proposals, service, etc. Extend the business day (e.g. 24-7 services) Eliminate transaction steps (e.g. auto-reply, training, presence) Shorten the time for each task (e.g. faster prompts, canned replies) Shorten the “inter-task” wait time (e.g. notifications, find-me)

5. © Communication Perspectives 20055 Two Basic Forms: Cost Based ExampleVolume Based Example

6. © Communication Perspectives 20056 Roles of Measurements and Metrics Prove the expected/promised results occur Get feedback for improvement or adjustments –Can good concepts be expanded, increased? –Can problem areas be addressed, mediated? –Can low value areas be eliminated entirely? Provide performance feedback –Are the services meeting their SLAs? –Are the users meeting their SLAs? –Does feedback allow self-improvement? Capture information for more accurate planning Build Credibility for future investments

7. © Communication Perspectives 20057 Using Information from Your Systems Most suppliers only provide reports to manage and maintain the systems. –Port use, Error Logs, Mailbox Configs, COS, etc. However, most also provide data output tools –Ability to get details out into Excel, Access, Crystal Creating a data base allows for “data mining” A good measurement system or “Dashboard” can be created with the extracted data –Allows for reporting over consistent time periods –Often requires correlation with other information

8. © Communication Perspectives 20058 AVST Information and Reports Good package of standard reports Well documented data export formats Embedded Crystal Reports tool

9. © Communication Perspectives 20059 AVST Information and Reports Example of a message usage report that could be very effective in analyzing message traffic and “hot spots”.

10. © Communication Perspectives 200510 Avaya Information and Reports Avaya offers a basic set of standard reports. All other reporting is based on either: –Exporting to a file –Extracts from the detailed Operational History file –Use of the iVize® package

11. © Communication Perspectives 200511 Avaya Information and Reports Example of a graph that shows the message elements by day, to highlight the usage and inferred value of the various system features. With the iVize package from Vitel/Concord Communciations eHealth

12. © Communication Perspectives 200512 Typical Data Output Formats Avaya Modular Messaging AVST CallXpress

13. © Communication Perspectives 200513 An Example at Microsoft Extracted 8 top metrics to produce a daily “Dashboard” –Included Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on: Caller and user experiences Internal system performance, queue lengths, etc. Produced periodic application summary –Published as a white paper at http://www.avaya.com/gcm/master-usa/en-us/resource/assets/whitepapers/mis2150.pdf –Shows that a UM system basically becomes a call answering engine, and with low voice traffic volumes at least for MSFT: 42,000 users 1.5 million calls per month; 78% from RNA; 15% from Busy 45% of callers leave a message (36% in Japan, 30% in Brazil) Only 2% press “0” 8% of calls are log-ins for messages (most use PC or mobile data) –I.e.: less than one call answer message per workday per user!

14. © Communication Perspectives 200514 Questions to ask… What is the feature usage? What is the caller behavior? What are the various levels of usage? How do those correlate to job types/titles? What are the trends in usage? –Total system as well as per user, per job types How can those be converted into analysis?

15. © Communication Perspectives 200515 Requires Going “Outside the Reports” In most cases, will require exporting to a database Importing related data will also be useful –E-mail use, if known and accessible –Cellular phone usage, if you control this –Autoattendant usage and reports related to the MBs Often better reporting in AA, IVR or Speech products –E.g. Avaya Speech Access gives feature usage/user/day –Cost tables or rates for the various elements With such information, real analysis can show how usage is delivering results for your company

16. © Communication Perspectives 200516 And, Just for Fun, but On the Point With measurements and metrics, Billy Beane and his analysts: –Put the Oakland As baseball team into the top quartile of all Major League teams –While keeping the player payroll in the bottom quartile of all Major League teams

17. © Communication Perspectives 200517 Summary Measurement and Metrics are essential to justification, operation and returns from your messaging and unified communication systems. Include metrics and measurements in all your planning and investments. All investments can be measured. ROI can be proven and tracked. There is no such thing as a “soft dollar justification”, there is only “soft data analysis”. mfp, 2005