IBM's New Platform RAMP Combines Customer Insight with Business Processes

IBM announced the company’s new service, the “Real-Time Analytics Matching Platform” or “RAMP,” which leverages advanced analytics to match a caller with the optimal customer service representative in real-time.

In addition, the company partnered with Assurant Solutions, a part of Assurant, Inc. and a specialty insurance provider, in order to reinvent call center experience by using analytics. With the help of RAMP, Assurant Solutions call centers were able to - increase customer retention, increase sales yields and decrease agent attrition.

The majority of contact centers use a skills-based system when routing customer calls and it only takes into consideration the agent's product focus and availability. Leveraging applied analytics and patented call routing processes, RAMP combines individual customer’s data with each contact center agent's specific skills, expertise and past performance - to optimize the routing of calls.

In other words, RAMP focuses on previously unexplored caller and customer service representative (CSR) attributes to increase operational efficiency and revenue, thereby reducing attrition.

According to a press release, consultants of IBM (News - Alert) Global Business Services designed an 'analytics-based decision engine' that utilizes the combination of customer insight, agent profiles and real-time analytics. This facilitates individual-level decision making and assignment of calls that are not available in most contact centers applications.

Available through IBM Global Business Services' Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO) service line, the RAMP platform not only powers on call routing techniques but also utilizes IBM's deep expertise in analytics and customer insight technologies, said officials with IBM in a press release.

Joining a growing portfolio of BAO assets focused on helping clients make better decisions, the RAMP system offers for flexible configuration options and is optimized to run on IBM Software and Hardware platforms.

According to IBM, the RAMP system activates the moment a customer contacts the call center. The platform uses data generated from previous call center interactions within seconds to identify acceptable wait times for individual customers. The platform then analyses agent performance and qualifications to decide which agent would serve that customer best.

By using prediction algorithms, the platform can also determine when the optimal agent will become available. This is also determined based on the length of the current call and historical call handle times. IBM’s analytics-based decision engine assigns the caller to the optimal agent and routes the call in real-time to that agent. The engine is able to track each call assignment and makes necessary adjustments if an agent's call ends before or after its predicted time.

According to the release, Assurant is deploying RAMP on an IBM POWER6-based system utilizing IBM DB2 and IBM WebSphere software technology - to manage their information.

'Assurant Solutions has been using an analytics-based routing approach to increase call center profitability and enhance the customer experience in its call centers for more than seven years, increasing retention revenue by 37 percent and sales revenue by 29 percent within the first year of implementation,' said Mike Politz, vice president at Assurant Solutions.  'This collaboration with IBM has taken this application to the next level with RAMP and proven that the power of combining customer insight with business processes can lead to smarter decisions and improved performance.'

Apart from Insurance sector, IBM is also making RAMP available for other customer contact-centric industries, such as financial services, telecommunications and cable television.