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December 1998


Nadji Tehrani The Vast Array Of Services And Technologies For The Call Center Make Your Purchasing Decision More Complex Than Ever Before

BY NADJI TEHRANI


Since 1982, when this publication (formerly known as Telemarketing magazine) laid the foundation for what is now the multibillion-dollar call center industry, you have trusted our judgment and the credibility of our unbiased, noncommercial editorial. Indeed, in the '80s, Alex Fraser, marketing manager of Hewlett-Packard, referred to our publication as, "The only credible source of information on the industry." I am happy to report that I was talking to Alex Fraser during the first week of November 1998, and he reaffirmed our leadership position by proclaiming, "C@LL CENTER Solutions™ is still the only credible source of information on the call center industry."

While we are delighted by the respect we have earned in the marketplace, we do not take our leadership position in the call center industry lightly. We exercise the utmost integrity in the quality of our editorial, which, over the years, has earned the respect of our readers around the globe by offering them sound purchasing advice and practical solutions to their call center problems and needs.

This year has been no exception, although this year we have worked even harder to bring you the advice of Technology Marketing Corporation's respected editors of its publications, C@LL CENTER Solutions™, CTI and INTERNET TELEPHONY magazines, and TMCnet™ online magazine, as well as the engineers of TMC™ Labs, all of whom we consider to be the most genuinely qualified experts in the industry.

In this editorial, which represents the views of acknowledged industry leaders, you will find guidelines for selecting products and services. As you know, given the myriad products and services available, it is no easy task to select what you need for your call center. In the following pages:

  • We address such issues as using technology to increase customer retention and what is now known as customer management, how to reduce costs, and how to buy technologies that pay for themselves in a relatively short time while significantly improving the bottom line;
  • We provide you with ideas that should help you do more with less through sensible automation and application of CTI and Internet telephony in your call center, not to mention, how to benefit from and incorporate e-commerce into your call center;
  • We try to guide you to avoid pitfalls and stop wasting money by buying irrelevant, unnecessary and/or incompatible technologies;
  • We try to help you avoid customer dissatisfaction and customer loss;
  • We try to guide you to that all-important outsourcing option and how to make proper selection of your marketing partner; and
  • We also offer our opinions regarding proper convergence of CTI, Internet telephony and traditional call center technologies.

In all cases, please make an informed decision with an eye toward the future. Please note that in the growing interaction between customers and companies using Web-enabled technologies to conduct e-commerce, call centers will be playing a pivotal role in this area. You need to prepare your call center accordingly by selecting the right outsourcing partner as well as technology partners to guide you in these most difficult times in shopping for the right products and services.

Our Purchasing Guidelines:
Start Out Simply
The majority (up to 70 percent) of costs for call centers is for personnel, so any technology you can implement that automates routine tasks and saves time for your agents, even though it may seem to have a large upfront cost, will pay for itself in the long run by freeing up your agents to concentrate on providing the best possible service they can. As we all know, providing superior service leads to happier customers and better customer retention.

A basic technology for handling inbound calls is the automatic call distributor (ACD). ACDs queue inbound calls and provide even distribution to available agents, thus improving service levels. During busy periods, ACDs can play recorded messages for delayed callers and automatically overflow calls to a secondary group if they are delayed too long. ACDs can also provide skills-based routing, which allows you to rate your agents' various knowledge skills and route a call to the agent who is best-equipped to handle a particular call.

One of the obvious examples of automating the outbound side of your call center includes putting in place predictive dialing technology, which not only eliminates the time lost manually dialing numbers, but also recognizes fax numbers, answering machines and no answers, and only routes "live" calls to the agent, thus increasing the contact per hour rates.

Another mainstream technology is workforce management software, which allows for more efficient scheduling of agents, which leads to less idle time by the agents. Inevitably there will be call troughs, so look for blended inbound/outbound systems that allow outbound agents, without logging out of the outbound system and logging into the inbound system, to take themselves out of outbound calling queues to handle an influx of more pressing inbound calls or, conversely, allow inbound agents to make outbound calls during lulls on inbound calls.

Another simple way to increase productivity and decrease costs is to invest in ergonomic products. Although you may balk initially at buying, for example, a more expensive, ergonomically designed chair, keep in mind that it will increase productivity through reducing fatigue, and also help to prevent costly repetitive stress injuries that cost you money not only in lost workdays by agents but also in worker's compensation fees when the agents are seeing doctors about that pain in their backs. And keep in mind that something as simple as a headset not only frees up an agent's hands for keyboarding, it also helps to reduce neck injuries.

When upgrading your call center systems, look to purchase technologies that will fit in with and improve your business processes, improve the public's perception of your company and will increase your company's bottom line. Also, we do not advocate totally eliminating the human touch. Your staff is your most valuable asset - use them intelligently and where they will make their greatest contribution: in informed, personal contact with your customers. Use technology to streamline your internal operations and give your staff the knowledge and tools they need to perform at their best, for there are times that the growing trend of self-service, no matter how well thought out, is no substitute for a reassuring voice that can turn a potential customer into an actual customer.

To keep your staff performing at their best, it cannot be overstated that there is no substitute for training. Use results from logging and monitoring reports to train your agents not only on what they are doing wrong but, more important, on what they are doing right. In this Buyer's Guide you can find numerous consultants and training products that can help you teach your agents how to properly handle calls and how to keep them motivated.

Streamline Your Internal Operations
By streamlining internal operations, we mean implement the same kind of automated processing to all transactions, regardless of how they are initiated, whether by phone, e-mail, fax, Web call through, whatever. (Indeed, many vendors are offering omnibus solutions that turn call centers into so-called contact centers.) Also, be aware of opportunities to build and exploit your databases.

The kind of technology you purchase should be driven by your business goals. This consideration should be foremost in your mind: the quality of service your company is able to provide to its customers will soon become a major competitive advantage (if it isn't already).

The automation of transactions alone, of whatever nature (sales/service/support), does not necessarily ensure that your internal operations will be "streamlined" or that you're delivering quality service to your customers. For example, you could have a great IVR front-end to your call center, but if the IVR menu is poorly designed, has dead ends or customers get stuck in loops and can't get the information they want, you've deployed a poor self-service solution that results in high customer dissatisfaction and probably increased 800-number traffic as customers call in to speak with live agents -- more costly in the long run for all concerned.

What will help streamline internal operations, as well as externally visible functions like sales/service/support, is the application of consistent business processes across all transactions and media types -- fax, phone, e-mail, Web callthrough, etc. You can even tailor your service delivery based on customer profile. For example, a bronze customer might be automatically routed to an IVR first and only to a live agent if he/she requests it, while a platinum customer's e-mail, for instance, might take priority in all queues and get a virtually instant response. And if your systems are sufficiently integrated, that platinum customer might receive an outbound phone call within minutes of having sent the e-mail because there's a fairly good chance that that customer is still near the phone.

With automated business processes, these kinds of decisions can be made instantly, without human involvement. Can you imagine how pleased that customer would be having received that kind of response! If you respond like that once, however, beware that you may be changing your customers' expectations, and in so doing, you'd better be committed to consistently delivering that kind of service.

The technologies you purchase and install now should solve immediate headaches, like that e-mail deluge you're trying to dig out from under. It should also provide for enough future flexibility so that a situation like I described above is the norm for your company, rather than the exception.

This kind of personalized service is driven, in large part, by the amount and quality of data your company possesses about its customers. Consider the proactive ways in which to use the data you have to improve your company's image and perhaps, as an added bonus, increase the amount of information you have about the preferences of individual customers. For example, outbound calls/e-mail to customers who have just made a purchase to ensure they're satisfied with the product and service received so far; or a call/e-mail to a customer who, according to data mining analysis, makes large purchases at given times of the year, perhaps associated with birthdays, anniversaries, etc., to offer a certain discount given their "gold status" - these types of efforts will help to distinguish your company from its competitors, increasing the chance that the customer you're targeting will stay loyal to your brand, which increases that customer's lifetime value to your organization.

You should also consider "unifying" your data - which actually means giving the various departments within your company access to a single database that contains all customer information possessed. Sales would love to know, prior to making a sales call, that customer A has had nothing but problems with your company and its products, while customer B is very satisfied. Product development would probably like to know what kinds of problems or questions customers are having, perhaps enabling them to incorporate sensible changes into future products. Marketing would like to know how a certain outbound campaign is performing, in real-time preferably, so that they can adapt the message to maximize positive results.

You'll notice that all of these scenarios focus on the call center - rather than a contact/access/interaction center, the call center has become a nerve center serving the entire company's needs with the relationships it develops and maintains with those customers with whom it interacts.

The World Is Your Marketplace:
New Challenges For The Call Center Manager

Indeed, call centers of today are drastically different from those of the past. Certainly technology has afforded the call center manager with an arsenal of products and services whereby he/she can cut costs and overhead while drastically enhancing the capabilities of the call center.

Here is a list of issues and opportunities that today's call center manager must deal with. This is by no means a complete list, but does represent a good portion of items to consider:

  • The call center manager must tightly align him/herself with the voice/datacomm manager in the company. This is perhaps the most important relationship that the call center manager can forge in the company as without effective communication systems, the call center is rendered vulnerable. The call center manager, together with the voice/datacomm manager, must devise a plan to connect the call center to the outside world while making sure there is sufficient capacity for growth and that all service plans are correctly addressed. The call center manager should be knowledgeable enough to handle outages and other problems, even in the absence of voice/datacomm staff.
  • The communications plan for the call center should be separate from those of the rest of the company. It is understood that call centers have different call requirements, volumes and patterns, and therefore the average office communication plan may not be applicable to the call center.
  • If possible, call centers should use the same provider for voice and data. This ensures a single point of contact for all problems, simplifies accounting, and will give the call center manager more leverage in price negotiations.
  • More and more call centers are going virtual. For example, many U.S.-based companies use Australian call centers to fulfill night calls. Also, many agents are telecommuters working from home. Orchestrating and managing such call centers is a monumental task, but many products in the market can assist the call center manager to effectively bring these disparate nodes under control. These products include: virtual skills-based routing, virtual ACDs with call blending, and virtual circuit and agent load balancing.
  • Logging and analyzing products for the call center can give the call center manager a whole new perspective on more effectively running the call center.
  • The Internet has become a ubiquitous tool the call center manager can utilize to achieve better customer service while reducing the load on the call center. Many call center products in the market today utilize the Internet to:
    1. Provide intelligent Web support to the customer using a sophisticated front-end with a comprehensive and data-rich knowledge base at the back-end.
    2. Auto-respond to customers' e-mail requests by intelligently deciphering the question and providing appropriate answers.
    3. Auto-route customers' e-mail requests to the correct agent for immediate service.
    4. Provide voice/video/chat capabilities for real-time interaction between customers and agents.
    5. Allow agents to take over customers' PCs and guide them through steps.
    6. Provide continuous feedback (through e-mail) until the customer's issue is resolved.
  • The latest explosive technology on the Internet horizon is none other than e-commerce. An e-commerce solution can provide a customer with a soup-to-nuts method of interacting with a company without even speaking to a single person. The realized income and savings from e-commerce can be immense, but customer backlash could be just as immense if the systems used are not designed properly. Here are some points about e-commerce to consider:
    1. Keep it simple. Realize that many potential customers are not tech savvy, so design with simplicity in mind.
    2. Provide accurate and descriptive feedback every step of the way. Don't assume your customers will read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) pages. Give them guidance on every page.
    3. Provide security. Most people prefer secure sites when paying online.
    4. Provide real-time credit card transactions. This way the customer can receive immediate feedback on whether or not his/her order was accepted. Accounting will also have less work to do verifying credit card numbers.
    5. Give customers an easy method to check their order's status online.
    6. Always give customers the option to call the company at any point before, after or during the transaction.
    7. Encourage Web and e-mail usage by promptly responding to customers' e-mail and other requests. Many companies have good phone support but lousy Web and e-mail support. Web and e-mail usage is a Pavlovian process for many people. The more they are rewarded by using it, the more they will use it. Let them down once and they may never use the site again.

The Final Ingredient: Telephony Systems
PC-based telephony systems, including PC-PBXs (communication servers), PC-ACDs and IP-PBXs are making waves in the call center industry. In particular, both PC-PBXs and PC-ACDs have had some success penetrating the call center market, which traditionally has used telephony systems from Lucent Technologies, Nortel, Rockwell or Aspect. One only need look at Rockwell's PC-ACD called Transcend, and Interactive Intelligence's EIC comm server to see that call centers are moving toward open telephony systems.

Why the recent rush to PC-based telephony systems? Three words: openness, flexibility and manageability. PC-based telephony systems are more open, flexible and easier to manage than their traditional "big iron" counterparts. Also, PC-based telephony systems are based on a user-friendly operating system to which users are well accustomed, such as Windows NT. Traditional telephony systems on the other hand are proprietary in nature and often have complicated user interfaces.

Since these PC-based telephony systems are open in nature, they can add additional functionality via a software upgrade. Traditionally, if you wanted to add IVR, fax-on-demand, ACD, predictive dialing or other telephony functionality, you had to buy a server adjunct and integrate it with your switch. With PC-based telephony systems, you can get all of this functionality in one box. The advantages are a single integrated platform, centralized administration, more meaningful and powerful reporting, as well as obvious cost advantages.

Also, since these PC-based telephony systems are "PCs," they can be added to a LAN, WAN or the Internet very easily just by installing a network card. Once on the network, these PC-based telephony systems can easily perform Web-based callbacks, take Internet telephony calls from customers, as well as perform load-balancing, intelligent call-routing and crossover to a backup system in the event of a failure. All of these functions are very important to the call center industry.

One final point that should be made is that these PC-based telephony systems allow you to design your telephony systems (PBX, IVR, ACD, etc.) around your call center's business rules and not the other way around, which is the way it has traditionally been done. Thus, a call center no longer needs to change the way it works in order to utilize the limited functionality of a closed/proprietary telephony system. Instead, using these customizable, open PC-based telephony systems call centers can build significantly more complex business rules that can be integrated much more easily, thus facilitating better customer service, better agent productivity and lower operating costs.

We do not recommend buying technology for technology's sake. Don't buy a product simply because it is the latest "cool" thing to come on the market. Look closely at what features and benefits it offers your company.

Look To The Outsourcing Option
If, after reading this advice, you feel so overwhelmed you don't know where to start, or you have a short time line to carry out a major marketing program, or you feel the best option for your company is to concentrate on its core competencies and to leave all or part of the call center operations to the experts, look to the outsourcing option.

Teleservices agencies can provide you with instant access to years of teleservices experience. Among the many benefits of outsourcing are: the facilities teleservices agencies have in place that allow you to reduce or eliminate the expense (both in time and monetarily) of recruiting, training and maintaining call center staff (who are often difficult to hire and have a propensity to be short-term employees); the elimination of the need to establish or expand your physical site; the ability to eliminate or reduce expenditures for technologies that are changing and advancing at breathtaking speed; the expansion of your business hours through a teleservices agency's 24x7 operating schedule; and the time to increase your productivity by concentrating on your core competency.

We have provided you with many tools (Teleservices Outsourcing Directories that were supplements to our July 1998, November 1997 and June 1997 issues; a booklet, Telemarketing Service Agencies - Everything You Always Needed To Know; the annual rankings of the "Top 50 Teleservices Agencies"; the annual "Rising Stars: The Fastest Growing Teleservices Agencies"; the annual "MVP Quality Awards"; numerous "Publisher's Outlook" columns on the subject, e.g., the October 1998 column, "A New Business Model For In-House And Outsourced Teleservices"; as well as a monthly feature in C@LL CENTER Solutions™ on teleservices outsourcing) to guide you in your selection of an outsourcing partner. (To purchase copies of any of the above products, call 800-243-6002 or see www.tmcnet.com.)

The First And Last Step: Stay Informed
Finally, we must list the following provisos as a caveat emptor: thoroughly investigate the company you are looking to purchase from; be wary of what a salesman may promise as he may be pushing features that don't exist just to make a sale; don't take demos at face value - ask if any companies are actually using the product and request references; and always be vigilant and stay informed about all the vendors before making a purchase.

At TMC™ we take pride in providing you with the best tools - C@LL CENTER Solutions™, CTI, INTERNET TELEPHONY, CTI™ EXPO and TMCnet.com - to stay informed on the latest technologies and strategies to keep your business profitable. Remember: the purchase decisions you make today will determine your company's profitability well into the future.

Good luck shopping and best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 1999. See you at CTI™ EXPO Spring 1999 in Washington, D.C., May 24-26.

Sincerely,

Nadji Tehrani
Executive Group Publisher
Editor-in-Chief
ntehrani@tmcnet.com







Technology Marketing Corporation

2 Trap Falls Road Suite 106, Shelton, CT 06484 USA
Ph: +1-203-852-6800, 800-243-6002

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