Today’s consumers are finding themselves on a “highway” of communications mediums in which they can ultimately choose the optimum, quickest method of interacting with a contact center. Whether these customers generate inquiries via phone, e-mail, fax, Web chat or SMS, contact centers are quickly realizing the need for their own “traffic cop” to control and efficiently manage every contact, and are doing so in the form of a multimedia contact center within their help desk.

A unified contact center is designed to give customer service agents the tools to optimize communications and control the delivery of every contact, regardless of media type. By creating this “multimedia highway,” every communications channel receives the same care and attention as a phone call, resulting in consistently high service levels for customers.

According to Zeacom, a contact center software and solutions company that offers advanced unified communications solutions to meet the business requirements of both large and small enterprises, the integration of a multimedia contact center into the typical agent help desk, like that of Zeacom’s (News - Alert), is guaranteed to help companies improve first call resolution, limit call abandonment rates, and boost customer satisfaction.  

Through multimedia queuing, agents treat all customers with the same levels of attention, regardless of how they contacted the business. On one screen, agents gain access to every type of contact, be it though fax, e-mail or Web chat, and higher-level agents can route contacts to back-up agents during overflows or to a preferred agent or the last agent they spoke with.

First call resolution may be important for customers who obviously don’t want to make repeat calls, but resolving that first call is most important for business – no one wants to waste time. Improving first call resolution can be achieved by enabling agents to view at a glance the availability of others so that they can properly distribute calls, and integrating incoming calls with the contact center’s CRM system. Having this relevant information on hand will enable the agent to greet the caller by name and redirect them to the appropriate “expert” if more dedicated attention is called for. Then, more basic inquiries, like paying a bill, can be navigated to a speech recognition system or IVR and later transferred to an agent, if need be.

On the other side of things, contact center management can only get better through superior insights. Through standard reports, agents can fine-tune processes and view where changes need to be made. As these necessary changes are performed, absenteeism and staff attrition will simultaneously decrease. And, with smart functionality like inbound and outbound dialing, contact center activity levels will be optimized and result in a highly productive work environment and, most importantly, a return on investment.

Tammy Wolf is a TMCnet web editor. She covers a wide range of topics, including IP communications and information technology. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin