[October
7, 1999]
Next-Generation Call
Centers
Advances in communications have irreversibly changed the face of commerce during the
past few years. The Internet has brought the nearly instantaneous availability of mass
amounts of data to the masses, and the masses want to do business. Consumers suddenly have
more choices for contacting a business. Open, standards-based technologies have led to the
convergence of voice and data. The focal point of that convergence is in the call center
-- data are given inspiration, explanation and clarification, through the voice of a call
center agent. E-commerce and the next-generation call center are here.
The next-generation call center recognizes the growing demand for interactive,
Web-based customer contact. The movement away from closed, proprietary call center systems
has allowed the integration of Web technologies with business applications, PBX platforms
and Centrex systems, and standards-based databases. The next-generation call center
provides corporations with the ability to lower customer contact costs and maximize agent
effectiveness in providing better customer service. Next-generation call centers can help
to better manage customer expectations, turning call center agents into brand-centric
ambassadors, moving the call center from the heart of your business to the heart of your
brand. The next-generation call center is vital for providing customer relationship
management (CRM).
Following are some attributes, benefits and issues about next-generation call centers
you should consider when looking to upgrade your call center to a next-generation call
center. It should:
- Have the ability to support customers on their turf by effectively managing multiple
customer access channels including the telephone, Web self-service, e-mail, chat and IVR,
and in the process, help build effective electronic customer relationships through the
integration of these channels.
- Establish consistent quality of service guidelines across all media and provide
real-time, detailed management reporting to improve productivity and monitor service
levels.
- Employ open systems that support standards such as TCP/IP, and have the ability to scale
upward to accommodate new applications such as voice over IP and voice recognition.
- Be able to handle application sharing through which customers can be guided online,
through Web pages.
- Be sure traditional ACDs will be complemented by intelligent VoIP, e-mail, fax, chat,
and call-me-back request routers for more efficient skills-based routing and call routing
based on detailed customer data.
- Use a single system to monitor customer calls, e-mail, text chat and queue times and
enable agents to respond based on service level agreements and business rules.
- Use the latest technologies in agent scheduling and load-balancing to reduce wait times
and keep the flow going.
- Employ interactive voice response (IVR) to route calls to the best agent for the call or
allow the customers to get the information for themselves without the need for agent
intervention.
- Ensure e-mail requests will be answered immediately. Today, e-mail is often given last
priority, with much of it not even answered.
- Understand that global call centers can quickly route multinational calls or requests to
the correct agent, allowing them to speak the same language as the customer.
- Have all their systems integrated with their back-end databases for real-time
information storage and retrieval.
- Employ expert data mining to help customers quickly find relevant information regarding
their requests.
- Use immediate customer profiling (using demographics information gathered from multiple
sources such as telephone, Web and fax) to provide effective cross-selling and upselling.
- Be sure systems are tightly integrated with warehousing, shipping, accounting, etc., to
provide customers with the latest details on their orders.
- Make a choice between training agents for specific media (e-mail agents, phone agents)
or for multimedia (one agent handles e-mail, phone, etc.).
- Revamp knowledge bases and implement customer self-service solutions online BEFORE
deploying online contact solutions such as Web call through.
- Make use of voice over IP, both inbound (customer using Web call through to contact the
company) and outbound (call centers cutting costs to use Internet telephony for outbound
campaigns).
- Provide agent training and support: Assessing the impact of the technology on staff.
- Be VPN (Virtual Private Network) capable, allowing agents to support customers from
anywhere in the world.
- Increasingly become distributed, and make greater use of remote agents (home-based, for
example) to decrease infrastructure costs and improve agent retention.
- Exploit the benefits of CRM to raise customer service, raise revenues and lower costs.
For further amplification and clarification, following are links to selected articles
that have appeared in [email protected] CENTER Solutions™ over the past year that discuss various
aspects of next-generation call centers.
- Managing Multimedia Interactions Demands Attention To
Routing
BY MARK SAUL, ACUITY CORPORATION
Campaign-Based Teleservices: Picking Up Where Agent-Centric Predictive Dialing
Leaves Off
BY ALLEN TAIBL, TELEDIRECT INTERNATIONAL
http://www.tmcnet.com/articles/ccsmag/0299/0299acu.htm
- Listen Up! Eight Criteria For Selecting A Speech
Recognition Vendor For Your Call Center
BY LAUREN RICHMAN, SPEECHWORKS
Speech Technologies: Choosing The Right Architecture For Call Center Apps
BY GENE EAGLE, DIALOGIC CORPORATION
http://www.tmcnet.com/articles/ccsmag/0599/0599speech.htm
- Integrating And Selecting Outbound Call Center
Technologies
BY ERIK HAAGENSEN, POINT INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND MITCH PIERCE, LOGICA
An IP Call Center? Not So Fast! Riding The IP Wave Without Wiping Out
BY BRUCE TSUJI, MITEL CORPORATION
http://www.tmcnet.com/articles/ccsmag/0999/0999point.htm
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