From today's vantage point, it's hard to believe
that only a decade ago, surfing the Internet was a
hobby reserved for university researchers and
technology wizards. Only five percent of homes in the
United States had personal computers. Paying a bill or
requesting a service was handled via old-fashioned
postal mail or the telephone. Time marches on, and one can't help feeling a bit
overwhelmed. A Forrester Research study has found that
today, only 10 years later, a full 60 percent of
American homes own or have regular access to a
personal computer. Additionally, researchers now
believe that by the end of this year, a full 50
percent of the U.S. population will be online, using
e-mail as a primary communications resource -- generating more than 500 million messages a day. In
the U.S. alone, over 50 million e-mails will be
product-inquiry or customer-service-based.
The Internet is increasingly becoming the
mainstream medium for selling and purchasing goods and
services, for providing technical help and for caring
for customers.
FIXED-LINE LIMITATIONS
For decades, customer service over the telephone
centered on answering customer complaints regarding
quality of service, the performance of a product or
the monthly bill. Customer service agents were, for
the most part, busy with complaint resolution.
As our homes, offices, schools and retail
operations have embraced increasingly sophisticated
technology to improve everything from learning to
productivity and the bottom line, customer care has
changed and continues to evolve. Now, customer care is
no longer merely the answering of complaints from a
customer who is unhappy; it is also about answering
questions from a customer who is uncertain how to
navigate through a software package or program a
device such as a DVD player or a mobile phone.
Answering some of these questions may require the
assistance of a diagram on a Web page that is "pushed"
to the consumer by a customer service representative,
the download of a user's manual or a recorded explanation delivered
via streaming video. The traditional phone set alone has become a limiting
device for customer care agents and the customer.
The Internet has become the medium that has taken
customer care to the next level, where voice, video
and data can be combined to improve communication,
understanding and customer satisfaction. As
increasingly high-tech and sophisticated Web-based
tools such as streaming video conferencing and virtual
agents become available, the Internet will continue to
evolve as the customer service solution of choice.
Additionally, as a bonus for service providers,
customer care over the Internet is helping control the
costs associated with providing customer care in a new
age of competition, mounting customer inquiries,
increased consumer expectations and dwindling customer
patience.
NEW METHODS
Since the 1990s, techno-wizards have been working
hard to turn Internet technology into one solid,
simple global communications system. While there
remain some issues regarding quality of service, these
limitations are disappearing.
To take increased advantage of Web-based customer
service, companies are looking at their contact center
operations and determining how to transition to an
IP-enabled contact center.
An IP contact center essentially routes voice
communications internally in the same fashion as
current data communications -- everything is
converted to IP data packets and transmitted over the
same type of network that a personal computer uses.
The traditional analog phone is no longer necessary,
and is replaced by either an IP phone or a multimedia
PC.
An IP contact center uses voice-over
Internet-protocol (VoIP), which links direct phone
call capability to business Web sites. Essentially,
VoIP is the same as making a phone call over the
Internet while browsing a business' Web site, a
method that has led to the ultra-high service level
concept of collaborative browsing with skilled
customer care agents. Additionally, live text chat
with agents has become a method of choice for
personal, Web-based customer service.
The continued evolution of the Internet-enabled
contact center will bring greater customer care
variety, including:
- Improved self-service. The
customer will be better equipped to find his or
her own answers -- search engines, natural
language processing and virtual representatives
will better help customers help themselves.
- Deferred service. The customer
places a question and waits for information to be
delivered at a later time -- e-mail, queued Web
response, scheduled callback, Web seminars or chat
sessions.
- Assisted service. Live, real-time interaction with
an agent, including live text chat, voice-over Web
applications, collaborative browsing and streaming
video conferencing.
SHOULD YOU GO IT ALONE?
The idea of investing in and operating contact centers
in the future -- especially those that are IP-enabled --
may seem overwhelming to you, particularly in
light of some of the complex and expensive
technologies emerging. Ultimately, the decision to go
it alone with an in-house operation or to partner with
an outsourced support operation will be based on how
comfortable you are with the price of the technology,
salaries of the service representatives and the office
space to house your center. In addition, you must
consider the time and expense to manage what is
becoming a highly mobile workforce in a relatively
tight labor market.
In today's dynamic and expensive Web-powered
marketplace, outsourcing is becoming an increasingly
attractive option for customer care, particularly
among the more high-tech methods of customer
communications. The technology is constantly changing
and the demand for superior customer service is
becoming increasingly important, particularly during
today's flattening economy.
By outsourcing, a company can concentrate its
knowledge capital on growth strategies, pricing,
product development and delivery issues.
Many service providers today are realizing that
resources devoted to internal support of processes
like customer service are expensive and difficult to
execute well in a tight labor market with high
turnover. Outsourcers are experienced and effective at
managing highly mobile and often very remote human
resources. Some
companies have successfully turned to locations such
as India and the Philippines for agent support.
India, for example, has an extremely well-educated and
technology-savvy workforce. Contact center workers
have been educated to speak unaccented English.
Because the cost of living is far less than in North
America and most European countries, operating a
contact center there is beneficial for the provider,
who can enhance profitability, and the customer, who
receives quality service and a faster response time.
In the end, the local economy benefits from the
creation of additional jobs.
When deciding whether to outsource their contact
center functions, companies should consider several
issues:
- Teaming with a service provider can free up
resources. This allows the service provider to focus
on its core competencies and grow the business. After
all, without customers, there really isn't much need
for customer care.
- Economies of scale can lessen your risk exposure. As
internal call centers evolve to provide both inbound
and outbound services, staffing requirements will
fluctuate in new ways. Service providers looking to
meet these staffing challenges will find that
outsourcing the contact center functions -- and the
staffing fluctuations that go with them -- can save money and increase efficiency. Because of economies of
scale, the staff size of an outsourced contact center
can more easily ebb and flow with planned customer
service programs, eliminating the need for utility
managers themselves to be concerned with staffing
fluctuations.
- Customer care should be accountable. In exchange for
your business, an outsourcing company can provide you
with predictable costs and performance guarantees.
- Capital investments in technology can be lessened. A
partnership with an outsourcer gives access to
advanced technology without additional capital
expense.
WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN...
A recent study by IDC indicated that currently only 40
percent of U.S. and Canadian businesses with Web sites
conduct commerce activities on the Internet. While
that number is predicted to rise to 50 percent within
a year, there is still huge potential for Web-based
customer contact, particularly as other studies
indicate that it is the single most popular medium
among consumers. The same study predicts that while 50
percent of the populations of the U.S. and Canada will
carry wireless devices by 2003, less than 10 percent
of Web sites have any special accommodations for
wireless users. It's obvious that despite the
distance customer care has already traveled over the
Internet, the journey has still really only begun.
Randy Mysliviec is senior vice president of
marketing at Convergys
Corporation. Convergys is a provider of
outsourced, integrated, billing and customer care
services. Convergys contact centers handle more than 1
million customer interactions each day.
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