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Building The Perfect Call Center (2256 bytes)
April 2000

 

Beyond Next Available Agent: Routing Possibilities

BY AUDIAN PAXSON, PICAZO COMMUNICATIONS, INC.

From time to time I'll find an old tech magazine or an analyst's report laying around and I'll sit down for a few minutes to take a look back into the future. Sometimes their prophesies are entertaining. They issue bold statements about estimated revenue in a particular category or market. They offer predictions on the technology required to "stay competitive" and the companies that are sure to fail if they don't embrace a particular trend.

I'm not ridiculing the fortunetellers -- their information is very helpful when making a selection from the enormous quantity of products and solutions available today. But when I read these predictions I try to remove myself from the business and look at the view from a customer's perspective. What works for me? With whom do I prefer to do business? What technology do I think is actually easy for me to understand and use as a customer? The last question is a difficult one for me to view as a customer since I'm in the business; but you get the point.

As a customer, I like it when I call my credit card company and they ask for my name, not my account number, mailing address, phone number, Social Security number, etc. I also really love the fact that I never have to tell them my name more than once, even if I get transferred. I love the fact that I can call my local pizza restaurant every Friday night and not get asked for my name, address and the directions to my house. I like those toll-free numbers that read the area code in my caller I.D. and offer me information regarding my home area only. I wish every company I called had a system that automatically knew where to route my call.

So, I am the type of customer who prefers calling the companies that have "embraced" the latest technologies and have implemented these technologies efficiently. One of the common denominators amongst these companies is that they usually aren't small -- in fact, they are often quite large or part of a large chain. They can afford the latest technologies that are required for their success, and that helps them continue to afford the next generation of technologies. But what about the 80 percent of businesses that don't have piles of cash available to buy the same technologies the other 20 percent can afford?

A few years ago, it wasn't logical for a small company to purchase the same call center solutions that a large company used. For example, a call center with 10 to 50 agents would not usually have the budget for the same PBX and ACD that a call center with 500 to 1,000 agents would require. Even if they did have the budget, doing so would make as much sense as buying an atomic bomb to kill an ant. The solution needed for 10 to 50 agents usually would not require 20 to 100 independent groups with complex, multisite, skills-based routing and distribution schemes. The smaller company might need only two to three groups with basic, single-site, skills-based routing.

Scaled-down solutions were available and affordable for smaller companies. However, traditionally they often lacked the depth of features and flexibility that were considered standard in larger solutions. Third-party solutions that offered more features were available, but integration was difficult and since they were "third-party," they did not perform as well as the single manufacturer's total solution.

Due to competition, advancement in technology and especially the influence of the PC, the small business no longer faces the same challenge today. Solutions with built-in voice mail, auto- attendant and ACD are common and priced competitively. With server-based solutions, adding ACD to a PBX can be as simple as a software license. When the small start-up company grows by 300 percent (not uncommon these days), solutions that offer scalability are a requirement, preventing the costly total replacement or fork-lift upgrade.

The use of CTI allows companies of all sizes to make a customer like me happy with automatic routing and account look-up based on caller identification. Server-based solutions providing CTI can add "personality" to a call by attaching the customer's name and account information as it is transferred from one agent to another. Integrated scripting can save on toll-free long-distance charges by dynamically adding a few seconds to the time required before answering incoming calls based on average wait time in the queue. Incoming calls can be redirected to a call center in an alternate location based on average wait time, agent log-on status and abandon rates.

Software-based solutions can busy out and log-on and log-off agents automatically based on activity, inactivity, performance statistics and incoming call volume. Supervisors won't have to constantly monitor an agent's log-on status -- now the phone system really works for the user, not the other way around.

No longer is there a barrier that prohibits small to medium-sized enterprises from competing on the same level as the larger enterprises. Available technology is no longer a separator -- the small, medium-sized and large companies will now have to compete head-to-head using their products, services and especially their customer service.

And Then There's The Internet
Companies using solutions that "human-enable" the Web will make significant improvements to Internet-based customer satisfaction ratings. Web site links that connect visitors to call centers will be vital to companies competing for customers. Providing this type of interface will enable companies to minimize the amount of visitors who "click out" to another site when they hit their first roadblock. Implemented correctly, it will also help earn repeat business.

The basic solutions will offer chat only, which is similar to instant messaging. Others will add the ability for an agent to "push" a Web page to a site visitor. The full-featured solutions will enable voice and video over IP in addition to chat. This is when the human element delivered through a Web page will really differentiate companies vying for the same customers.

Some of the latest Web-based solutions are now providing sharing and collaboration -- allowing agents to actively control visitors' computers (with permission) or the other way around. If my bank had this ability, it could prove to me in "real-time" that the transaction I am challenging is not a duplicate, by showing me what they are looking at.

E-commerce sites often have visitors who place items in a shopping cart only to "click out" and not complete the purchase by checking out. And you thought this only happened at the grocery store! Click-outs can be reduced by routing customers to call center agents via the Web page. In the near future, it won't be unheard of to have your Web site notify you when there's a VIP shopper filling his or her shopping cart again -- and that someone should go say hello and see if the shopper needs any assistance.

One of the original benefits of Web-enabling a business was to conduct more business while lowering your staffing requirements. A lot of companies thought they could run a business entirely off the Web with minimum personnel since the Web could do all of the selling, order processing and shipping. But because there are so many businesses on the Web, there might only be one chance to get and keep a customer. This is where human-enabling the Web will be a distinct advantage.

Up until the 1999 holiday season, the statistics tracked for online shopping were focused primarily on the percentage of shopping conducted on the Internet versus traditional brick-and-mortar retailers and established mail-order companies. Now, we are presented with even more detail about the Internet shopper -- repeat e-shoppers versus first-time e-shoppers are one of the primary categories. Internet-based customer satisfaction is a category that is closely examined, as well.

Companies that are fairing well on the Internet are doing so by offering customer service, both before, during and after the sale. Web site visitors will only endure a certain amount of FAQs and automated responses before they lose patience. Beyond that, real customer service is what people want, and e-mail communication isn't the answer. The answer requires a human ingredient.

Online revenue for retailers grew to an estimated $5 billion in 1999. Projections show that figure will grow to more than $70 billion by 2003. The integration of next generation-technology in the call center is going to be vital to the success of e-tailers in capturing a share of that revenue.

Call center managers of small, medium-sized and large enterprises must look beyond the next available agent, they must look ahead at next-generation technologies and how to integrate them with their current infrastructures. They must design the infrastructure of their business to provide efficient and personalized customer service regardless of the vehicle or media their customer uses to do business with them. And they have to make their systems "future ready."

I've covered a lot of topics: the technology divide between small and large companies due to availability and price barriers, the integrated and server-based solutions available today, the advantages of adding CTI to these solutions and the next customer entry point -- the Internet. So how do I tie this up neatly?

I guess I'll close with my own prediction of the future. Hopefully, I can provide entertainment for those of you who want to look back to the future a year or two from now. I wouldn't want to break with tradition.

I believe that the companies that incorporate solutions that are standards-based and scalable will be ideally positioned to incorporate the next technology required to stay competitive.

Pretty vague and ambiguous, huh? Well, like I said -- why break with tradition?

Audian Paxson is a systems engineer for Internet-based call center products at Picazo Communications, Inc. Picazo designs, develops and markets business communications solutions, including telephony application software and integrated server-based telephony systems, specializing in integrated standards-based solutions.







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