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Creating an effective contact center solution can be intricate, particularly for organizations with distinct needs. This blog presents a foundational methodology that encompasses standardized procedures for discovery, documentation, and development. By adhering to this framework, businesses can create a dependable and scalable contact center that aligns with their present requirements and can be easily maintained and enhanced over time.
Discovery and Requirements Assessment
The initial phase in constructing an Amazon Connect contact center involves a comprehensive discovery process to ascertain business needs and requirements through the formulation of use cases. These use cases describe specific scenarios in which a product or service may be utilized by customer personas. A Business Analyst (BA) plays a vital role in assisting the technical developer in grasping the operational landscape. Important operational queries include “What types of contacts (voice, chat, text) do agents manage?”, “Do agents possess specialized skills for certain contacts?”, and “What are your business hours and holiday schedules?”. Technology transitions often lead to the inclination to merely inquire about the existing solution’s agents, their tasks, and operational hours, striving to replicate the perceived understanding. However, this functional equivalence-based approach risks overlooking opportunities to grasp business leaders’ aspirations for contact center transformation. Perhaps the leader envisions implementing an AI-powered self-service solution to handle calls and address inquiries, thereby alleviating agent workloads while ensuring customer satisfaction with their interactions. To avert this misstep, it’s essential to adopt a comprehensive approach that thoroughly investigates business requirements and long-term strategic objectives.
A Standardized Approach to Development Operations
A fundamental aspect of our method is the establishment of a standardized development operations cycle that is straightforward, complementary, and repeatable. The process is ineffective without the synergy of business, development, and quality. A business analyst collaborates with an Amazon Connect developer to lead a discovery phase focused on use case development. Together, they design a solution that meets the minimum viable product criteria for the business. Following the design phase, a quality assurance engineer (recommended if available in your organization) meticulously evaluates the design to create test cases and provide an objective perspective on the sometimes subjective processes. If your organization lacks a quality engineering team, someone in the business analyst role can fulfill these crucial tasks. Once the developer tests the solution, it is moved to either quality assurance or user acceptance environments. The cycle of development—testing—bug fixing—retesting is open-ended and continues until the minimum viable product functionality, as agreed upon in the design phase, is achieved. Testing in either environment provides an opportunity to experience the solution from the end-user’s perspective, offering feedback to the development team to ensure that their version of the solution meets the business needs. Upon obtaining business sign-off, it’s time to prepare the solution for production and repeat as necessary.
Here are some high-level user stories for the suggested epics of Discovery, Design, Development, Test, and User Acceptance to help you get started:
- Discovery: As a BA, I need to review existing documentation to gather requirements for the business unit contact flow and objects.
- Design: As a developer, I need to design a solution that meets the business unit’s requirements.
- Development: As a developer, I need to create the contact flow based on the agreed-upon design.
- Test: As a QA tester, I need to perform testing to confirm that the solution aligns with design parameters.
- User Acceptance: As a BA, I need to conduct UAT with the business unit to validate the solution meets their needs.
Organizational Change Management
Effective organizational change management is crucial when transitioning to a cloud-based contact center platform like Amazon Connect. Shifting from merely supporting a product to owning it requires introspection regarding the personnel in your organization, the processes currently in use, and the intended direction of your product ownership. We recommend initiating with a business strategy that addresses the question, “What does success look like?”. Explore online documentation and blogs from AWS, attend conferences and workshops, and utilize those experiences to shape your product vision and support strategy. Do you have the right people? Is there a product roadmap? Are there budget commitments to follow through to the completion of your product roadmap? It’s advisable to establish a clear hierarchy for change management, defining roles and responsibilities for key stakeholders, such as an executive sponsor, project manager, and feature/component owners who are subject matter experts. An equally important aspect is a well-structured communication plan to address employee concerns, secure buy-in, and foster adoption throughout the organization.
Amazon Connect Center of Excellence
To ensure the ongoing success of your Amazon Connect implementation, we recommend forming a dedicated Center of Excellence (CoE), following the same principles as Amazon’s Cloud Center of Excellence. This centralized governance model provides best practices, continuous support, and a framework for ongoing improvement and innovation. The CoE promotes efficient knowledge sharing and collaboration across various technical and business domains, fostering teamwork that empowers your teams to optimize the contact center over time. The CoE should comprise various specialized roles and skill sets, including:
- Contact Center Domain Experts: Seasoned professionals with extensive knowledge of contact center operations, customer experience strategies, and workforce management. They provide subject matter expertise to guide the overall vision and roadmap.
- Technical Specialists: Developers, architects, and DevOps engineers responsible for the design, implementation, and maintenance of the Amazon Connect environment. They ensure that the technical foundation is robust, scalable, and aligned with best practices.
- Change Management and Training Leads: Change management professionals who create and implement strategies to drive user adoption, address resistance, and enhance organizational capabilities. They also oversee training programs to upskill the contact center team.
- Continuous Improvement and Analytics Experts: Data analysts and process improvement specialists who consistently monitor performance, identify optimization opportunities, and execute data-driven enhancements to the contact center.
Conclusion
Organizations can adopt this holistic, standardized methodology to efficiently set up their Amazon Connect-powered contact center, following repeatable steps and creating reusable assets. This framework effectively addresses the challenges of discovery, design, development, and organizational change, allowing organizations to swiftly establish a customized, efficient contact center solution that fulfills their specific needs.
Streamline your contact center with Amazon Connect. Discover how our comprehensive framework can guide you through critical development stages, empowering your business to deliver outstanding customer experiences. Transforming your contact center is a decision many companies thoroughly research to determine the best platform. Amazon provides a wealth of contact center resources, customer stories, and AWS Professionals for your assistance. Furthermore, understanding the implications of changes in employment law, such as the Supreme Court’s ruling on transgender care, is essential for navigating this transition. For more insights on communication, consider reviewing common email mistakes that can impact your outreach.