One of the most promising technologies yet for the call center is integration with the
Web. According to Bob Weinberger, vice president of marketing at WebLine Communications Corp., "Buyers and sellers
of all product types are increasingly using the Web to engage in real-time commerce. The
companies that will thrive will be the ones that use the Net to extend personal contacts
with their customers. As this trend continues, the challenge many businesses face is
determining optimal strategies for integrating the Web with traditional sales, service and
support operations. The bottom line is that companies are experiencing significant results
today by integrating the personal value of human interaction in their call centers with
the information value of the Web. There is no magic formula that dictates which method of
communication is the right one. The fact is, businesses need to be prepared to interact
with their customers in the manner that best suits each customer - whether it be via
telephone calls, e-mail, voice over IP calls, interactive Web sessions, network faxes,
etc. And to do so in an environment that delivers a unified channel to customers for all
their sales, service and support needs. Companies that recognize this imperative are
winning in the online world."
There are myriad ways of connecting users to your "contact center" besides
using the telephone. I'll list them in order of increasing importance (at least in my
opinion). Web chat is a technology that is currently the lowest common denominator-
whether or not you have a second line or a telephone, you can always chat live with an
agent if the Web site you're surfing supports it. I, for one, think chat is a great medium
for communicating with my friends and relatives and I use AOL Instant Messenger for this
purpose at times. Chat's inability to transfer the emotions of speech (even with
emoticons) is the biggest downside of this technology as a viable solution for long-term
Web and contact center integration.
The next way of integrating a Web surfer and your contact center is with a Web callback
button. This makes sense when a customer surfing your site doesn't have a multimedia
computer and can?t use Internet telephony to communicate with your agents. Or, perhaps,
the Web surfer has a multimedia computer, but he or she is using it in an office setting,
and doesn't want the agent's voice broadcast through the speakers. Finally, many firewalls
don't allow H.323 (the latest Internet telephony standard) calls to penetrate the
corporate firewall and thus, Internet telephony is not an option. By the way, if you are
looking for a firewall that is H.323 friendly, I understand Check Point FireWall-1 v4.0 does allow H.323 calls to
get through their firewall with minimal difficulty.
Finally, a Web surfer can click on an Internet call button that allows the surfer to
connect to a live agent using Internet telephony. This, of course, is the best way for Web
surfers to connect to your call center for a variety of reasons, among them the facts that
neither party has to pay for the call and it eliminates the chance for a callback by the
contact center to result in a busy signal, no answer or who knows what other type of
problem. In addition, the Web surfer may not have a free line to make/receive calls. At
some point, we all need to become comfortable hanging telephones off our computers. Either
manufacturers will bundle phones with computers (hopefully video cameras, too) or we will
have to buy USB phones of our own when the price points become reasonable.
The adoption of all of the above technologies has been a bit slow to date, which is too
bad because the more difficult we make it for our customers to do business with us on the
Web, the more business our customers will do elsewhere. Of course, amidst Y2K upgrades,
Windows 2000 upgrades and a million other issues to deal with we sometimes take for
granted that a contact center that is not broken doesn't need fixing. The problem is that
we are talking about Internet time here. In other words, what we would think should take
five years to happen takes place while we are away on a two-week vacation! Am I
exaggerating to make a point? Yes! But not by much. Look at the call center market's
evolution. Contact centers, e-commerce, IP telephony, e-mail, multimedia, video call
centers - where did all of this new stuff come from? Two years ago we barely thought about
these issues in the call center. The Internet continues to dazzle us with its unlimited
potential to bring us new business, as well as its potential to drown us in a never-ending
sea of acronyms and technologies. Rest assured though, there is no escaping the new
technology that is being unleashed on our contact centers. Our customers are getting
younger and they are all Internet savvy. Do you have kids? Are they more comfortable with
the Web than you are? Do you realize that generation Xers are a huge demographic group
you'd better target quickly? We all need to stay current and implement the latest
technologies into our contact centers before our competitors do.
Barnes & Noble used to be the first name that we all thought of when someone said
bookstore. Christies was the name that used to come to mind first when someone said
auction. Merrill Lynch used to be the name that came to mind first when you said stock
market. In the last two years, Amazon.com, eBay, and E*TRADE have come out of nowhere and
become category leaders in terms of mindshare. Sure, the former brick and
mortar counterparts may all be longstanding and profitable businesses, but we know
in marketing, mindshare is everything. Who would have thought the former
household-name companies would have to play catch-up on a new electronic
playing field?
Every day, I meet more people that have stopped doing business with companies that
dont return e-mail promptly. Speaking of which, kudos go to Hertz Corporation. I
left a car-charging adapter for my cell phone in a rental car on my last trip to Miami.
Somehow I remembered that the Web address for this location was [email protected] (it was posted on a wall as I
waited for the shuttle bus). Within eight hours of sending an e-mail about my lost phone
cord, it was on its way to me. That is what I call awesome customer service! Does your
contact center provide this level of service?
As youre exploring various ways of integrating the Web and your contact center,
dont forget that in the July
1999 issue of this publication, we ran a roundup of over 70 companies providing such
products. Please visit "Humanize Your Web Site"
to see this list.
Since this roundup, VocalTec contacted me and
informed me they have just completed a major installation of their Surf&Call Center in
the commercial premier of Deutsche Telekoms
freecall Online, what they believe to be the most extensive Web-to-call center service in
the world.
Deutsche Telekom sells this service to companies that would prefer not to deal
themselves with the hardware issues inherent in such a Web/call center solution. This
extends Deutsche Telekoms existing line of toll-free 800 services, enabling
companies to receive 800 calls originating from both traditional telephones and the Web.
Two businesses also announced that freecall Onlines service is integrated into their
e-commerce Web sites.
Of course, as you would imagine, the main customers for this service are in Germany and
I dont speak German. In fact, I have enough trouble just understanding all the new
telecom acronyms at industry trade shows! But for what its worth, this is one of the
sites implementing Deutsche Telekoms new service, www.ProSieben-Club.de. Imagine learning about the
latest call center technology and getting a taste of Europe at the same time. Indeed
e-commerce knows no geographic bounds!
Whatever your specific needs (service or hardware) and regardless of where your call
centers are located (U.S. or internationally), there is really no reason to not be
seriously shopping for the next generation of contact-center-enabling technologies such as
chat, Web callback and Web call buttons using Internet telephony. Your contact center
cant afford to be caught napping in an age of Internet time and global e-commerce,
or, like Rip van Winkle, youll be rubbing your eyes in amazement at all the changes.
Sincerely,
Rich Tehrani
Group Publisher
rtehrani@tmcnet.com
|
Live Office
Of The Future And Enterprise CRM Debut At CTI EXPO Last month I
wrote about how The Live, Multimedia Blended Call Center was such a huge hit at the last
CTI EXPO in Washington D.C.: it attracted more than 1,000 attendees in just two
days. This live demonstration was so successful that we werent sure we could top it
at CTI EXPO Fall 1999 in Las Vegas, December 7-9. It was readily apparent that
attendees at CTI EXPO were ecstatic to see products in action on the show floor.
This was not the typical trade show demo with smoke and mirrors CellIT and their
many partners demonstrated a working call center that made and received thousands of calls
in a two-day period over ATM and IP-based packet networks.
We knew we had to bring the Live, Multimedia Blended Call Center back to our next
CTI EXPO in Las Vegas we had so many requests and the Live Call Center drew
so much attention at our last show that wed be crazy not to repeat it. Besides, by
now, you know we at TMCare never satisfied and we always promise to provide
you with the best trade shows anywhere. I myself have been purchasing products for years
as a MIS director, and believe me, I know how difficult it is to select products that meet
your needs for both today and tomorrow. You can only learn so much by researching
on the Web and contacting one company at a time amongst the myriad interruptions in a
typical office setting. You can never adequately compare products unless you see them
together under one roof within a window of a few days. That is why tradeshows like
CTI EXPO are experiencing exponential growth. So we have been racking our brains for
over two months, trying to come up with essential attractions that will top CTI EXPO
in D.C. and make it easy for you to select products and technologies that will ensure the
future success of your enterprise. CellIT and the engineers of TMCLabs (the people
who bring you the objective and in-depth reviews found in all TMC publications)
helped me come up with the following irresistible attractions that will help anyone
concerned with the future success of their organization.
CTI EXPO, December 7-9 in Las Vegas, NV, will house more live
demos than Ive seen at any previous trade show, ever! We will showcase a Live Office
Of The Future, demonstrating the latest productivity enhancing products such as unified
messaging, fax servers, speech recognition, PC-PBXs, SOHO tools, Web and call center
integration products and more. The engineers of TMC Labs are diligently assembling
participants for this one-of-a-kind demo as you read this sidebar. This demonstration will
provide you an in-depth look at the latest productivity boosting technology for the rest
of us the typical office worker.
But this wasnt enough for us. We love demonstrating how powerful todays
technology is in real-world settings as this is the only way to really learn how the next
generation of products will actually work for you. Productivity is skyrocketing in America
and is driving our economy ever forward. CTI technology turbo charges productivity and we
cant wait to demonstrate the latest products to you live, right on the trade show
floor.
Besides the Live Office Of The Future and the Live, Multimedia Blended Call Center, we
decided another demo was needed to tie these two disparate areas of the show floor
together. Every company exists to serve its customers and, therefore, nothing is more
important than providing unmatched customer relationship management or CRM. To that end,
we will also showcase a Live Enterprise CRM Demonstration at CTIEXPO. Another first,
the goal of this demonstration is to show how customers in any organization should be
handled by a companys CRM software. We will integrate all facets of CRM, such as
field sales, customer support, e-business, marketing, front office, field service and
more! CTI EXPO will provide the most complete working demonstration you can ever see
under one roof and it will be extremely objective and educational it has to be. The
Live Office Of The Future and the Live CRM Demonstra-tion will be orchestrated by the
TMC Labs engineers, the people who objectively test the products you read about
every month in all TMC publications: C@LL Center
Solutions, CTI and INTERNET TELEPHONY. As always, you can get more
information at our newly designed Web site (www.ctiexpo.com)
and by registering today on the Web, you will save $25 off the cost of exhibit hall
admission. I hope to see you there. |