TMCnews Featured Article

In today’s highly competitive business world the importance of delivering good customer service cannot be underestimated. To survive in this difficult economy, businesses must deliver fast, reliable and efficient service in order to retain existing customers as well as attract new ones.

 

But in this age of the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies, where consumers can get practically anything they want with just the click of a mouse, from an ever-widening array of sources, maintaining customer loyalty has become increasingly challenging. Just one bad customer experience and a company could easily lose a longtime customer to a competitor forever.

 

Not only that, word about that one bad experience can spread virally across the Web through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as through blogs, wikis, message boards and even YouTube (News - Alert), causing further (and sometimes permanent) damage to a company’s image and brand.

 

For this reason customer facing or “customer centric” businesses must put even greater focus on the quality of service delivered through their call centers. Traditionally this has meant providing good training to call center agents, so that they have the skills in place to deliver prompt and courteous service over the phone – but today, deploying the very latest call center technology has also become critically important, as it allows organizations to deliver faster, more effective customer service at a lower cost.

 

Not only must a company’s call center agents be well trained, in terms of basic “soft skills,” they also need access to the most advanced call center technology if they are to deliver kind of service today’s consumers demand. This includes the ability to quickly route customer calls to the most appropriate agent – as well as giving call center agents the ability to quickly access customer data, such past account activity and billing information. It also includes deployment of automated systems, such interactive voice response (IVR) systems, to give customers self-serve options – as well as providing alternate channels of contact, such email and Web chat, to give customers more options to communicate with the companies they do business with.

 

Indeed, the Internet has so radically altered the traditional call center paradigm that companies are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the resulting changes. For example, many companies are now establishing a presence on social networking sites such as Facebook (News - Alert) and Twitter, with direct links to their call centers, for the purpose of opening up new opportunities to do businesses with their customers. Exactly how this trend will impact the call center remains to be seen, but regardless, companies need to be prepared to roll with these changes if they are to remain competitive – let alone relevant – in the Web 2.0 age.

 

Keeping up with these technological innovations is not only challenging, it’s also expensive, especially if a business intends to keep its call center technology on premises. It used to be that a business could keep pace with these advancements through diligent planning and prudent technology investments – but today call center technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that an organization is greatly challenged to keep up through a 4-5 year “technology refresh” cycle.

 

For this reason, software-as-a-service or “cloud”-based call center solutions are gaining favor over traditional on-premises or “hardware based” systems. With today’s cloud-based call center solutions, organizations get immediate and automatic access to the latest and most advanced call center technologies without having to bear the expense, hassle and potential disruptions that come with on-site upgrades. Through the deployment of a cloud-based call center solution, an organization can upgrade its traditional call center to a full-featured, state-of-the-art multi-channel contact center in just a matter of days or weeks, as opposed to months, and at much lower up-front cost compared to purchasing or upgrading an on-premises system.

 

Today’s cloud-based call center solutions hold numerous advantages over on-premises systems. First and foremost, they are fast and simple to deploy – all that is needed are the computers and high speed Internet connection. Because the software is delivered via the Internet, or dedicated network, as a managed service, that means a company doesn’t have to make a huge up-front capital investment in new hardware, network architecture or software licenses – instead it can simply “lease” the call center software on a “pay-as-you-go” basis. What’s more, because the software is delivered as a managed service, that means the software vendor takes on responsibility for application performance, including the maintenance and troubleshooting of all related hardware and infrastructure, which in turn greatly reduces the strain on the company IT department.

 

In addition today’s Web-based call center solutions are more scalable than on-premises systems. Because the software is hosted in a data center, where there are ample server resources, a company can rapidly scale up its call center operations without having to invest in new hardware or architecture. This is particularly advantageous for companies that experience seasonal business cycles.

 

Contactual’s (News - Alert) Call Center Solution Features

 

Contactual’s OnDemand Contact Center is a cloud-based call center solution delivering advanced features and capabilities. Built on the company’s patent pending Advanced Virtual Tenant Architecture (AVTA), which ensures maximum reliability and 99.99+% uptime, the solution offers a full suite of core call center applications, including ACD, IVR, call monitoring, CTI (News - Alert) and out-of-the-box reporting.

 

The system’s automated call distributor (ACD) offers “universal queuing,” meaning it can route phone calls, emails, Web chats and text messages to the next available agent via a single queue. It also offers “skills-based routing,” meaning it can be programmed to route contacts to the most appropriate agent, based on channel type and the agent’s specific skill sets -- as well as “priority routing,” which is where calls and contacts from specific (e.g. “premium”) customers are prioritized over others, thus reducing hold times and speeding service. These intelligent routing capabilities are essential to delivering fast and efficient customer service.

 

The solution also offers a state-of-the-art IVR system facilitating convenient customer self-serve options as well as improved call steering. This speech-enabled system is capable of engaging in “natural dialogs” with customers, thus enabling them to carry out simple transactions, such as getting an account balance; checking on the shipping status of an order; renewing a service or even purchasing a product, etc., without having to speak with a live agent.

 

The IVR can be used to capture basic customer information, such as name, mailing address and phone number, as well as to identify existing customers and to “categorize” their problems for the purpose of speeding call routing and achieving first call resolution.

 

Thanks to advancements in speech recognition technology, today’s IVR systems are playing an increasingly important, and complementary role in the call center software ecosystem. For example, many organizations are now using the IVR for payment processing: After the customer is done speaking with an agent, they can then be transferred back into the IVR, which can handle the actual transaction securely, without the customer ever having to give their credit card number or other personal information to a live person. Once this sensitive customer information is captured by the IVR, it can then be stored in the customer’s “profile,” so that they don’t have to give out the same information every time they make contact. What’s more, sensitive customer information can be encrypted and stored in such a way that even company management doesn’t have access to it.

 

Also helping to improve the customer experience are OnDemand Contact Center’s CTI capabilities, which allow for tight integration with leading CRM systems, including Salesforce.com and NetSuite (News - Alert), as well as other databases. This allows existing customers to be automatically identified each time they make contact -- and also allows for pertinent customer information, including past purchases and other activity, to be “screen popped” onto agent desktops, thus enabling call center agents to serve customers more quickly and efficiently.

 

To learn more about Contactual’s call center solutions, click here.