Predictions For 2002 Special Feature

E-Service Rising: The Future Of The Call Center

By Greg Gianforte

The same is true of the Internet. Having an attractive, informative Web site once gave innovative companies a leg up in the emerging online marketplace. Now that around 60 percent of the U.S. population uses the Internet at home and/or at work, having an effective Web presence has become de rigueur. People simply expect any company they deal with to be available to them with a click of the mouse, 24 hours a day. Just as important, they expect that they will be able to find the information they need on that Web site.

Increased Internet use, combined with rising expectations on the part of customers about the content that companies will have on their Web sites, leads us to the first fundamental truth about the future of the call center:

Electronic customer contacts (both Web and e-mail) will rapidly surpass telephone contacts for most companies.

This truth has tremendous implications for call center managers and operators. The information on company Web sites can no longer be viewed as merely ancillary or complementary to the traditional call center. Nor can e-mail any longer be viewed as a secondary channel for customer communications. On the contrary, the Web and e-mail will become the main media for getting quality replies to customers in a timely manner.

Companies that want to keep their customers happy therefore need to develop effective strategies for ensuring that their Web sites fulfill this critical role, and that they can respond to customer e-mails with speed and precision.

It turns out that both of these objectives are quite achievable, although they require fresh thinking about how customer inquiries are responded to and managed, as well as some new e-service technologies. A recent study of 200 firms in 22 different industries by the independent researchers at Doculabs found that organizations implementing these new e-service technologies were able to answer 86 percent of customers' questions online without requiring escalation to human support operators. Considering that delivering those answers via the Web cost the companies just pennies per inquiry -- versus the several dollars of cost associated with every call center session -- the ability to service customers via the Web is clearly a big win for companies that deploy e-service technologies.

Some of the technologies that enable this type of successful e-service include:

• Automated knowledgebase generation that produces useful Web self-service content with minimal effort, so that content maintenance doesn't turn into a labor-intensive operation.
• Automated, intelligent content structuring that makes it easy for site visitors to quickly zero in on the specific material they're looking for.
• Integrated metrics that allow customer service organizations to track the effectiveness of Web content, so they can quickly make any necessary adjustments in their e-service system.
• The use of specialized tools where appropriate, such as store locators that direct customers to local retailers based on ZIP codes.

These are the new technologies that customer service organizations will require to cope with the rising volume of online customer service queries. Customer service managers who ignore these new e-service technologies clearly do so at their own peril.

While Internet-based interaction grows, another truth will also have a tremendous impact on the future of call center operations:

Call centers will be asked to handle a greater volume of customer interactions without being given substantially increased resources.

This is no tremendous revelation to call center managers operating in today's challenging economy. While call volumes rise due to a growing historical base of customers, call centers are not seeing proportional increases in staffing -- and in many cases are even being forced to reduce operator headcount.

There are a variety of ways to increase call center productivity: improved call management, providing CSRs with better desktop applications, and learning how to better motivate call center personnel are just a few examples.

However, it also turns out that e-service technologies can also be extremely useful in helping to increase call center productivity. First, by absorbing the large percentage of routine service calls that center on a relatively small number of common knowledge items, e-service can relieve CSRs of a very high volume of tedious, repetitive calls. Call center managers will therefore want to develop strategies to begin encouraging customers to check the Web first when they have a question. Some companies are even finding that the savings resulting from online customer service are substantial enough to warrant offering customers special promotional incentives for using the Web, rather than the call center.

Second, many call center managers are finding that their online e-service knowledgebases are actually quite useful for supporting their call center operations -- often accelerating the "time to competency" of new call center hires by a substantial amount. In other words, by placing the e-service knowledgebase that customers use at the disposal of rookie CSRs, they can be empowered to answer questions with the speed and accuracy of a more experienced operator.

These two critical trends -- the growth of online customer interaction and the increasing performance pressures on conventional call centers -- will have a radical impact on customer service operations and the technologies they employ. That's why it's so important that call center managers stay ahead of the curve and begin evaluating strategies and solutions today. Managers who begin brainstorming, consulting with their peers, and researching next-generation solutions will be better able to respond to the needs of both their customers and their companies. Those who don't will be unable to respond to the changing dynamics and economics of customer service.

In an economic climate where customer satisfaction and retention are critical, it's not a good idea to wait until the competition cracks the code for super-efficient customer service. After all, who would have wanted to be the last bank in town to offer their customers ATMs? Unfortunately, companies with weak e-service strategies will find themselves in that very situation.

Greg Gianforte is CEO and founder of RightNow Technologies, an e-service solutions provider. RightNow's eService suite includes Web-based self-service, e-mail response management, live chat and collaboration, and service analytics.