WEB-ENABLED CALL CENTRES: Harnessing the Potential

The
Internet is changing the way companies do business both in a
business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C)
capacity. It provides a new, flexible, and effective channel for
marketing, sales, service and distribution functions. The Web
also gives rise to a number of powerful customer contact
opportunities and is, by its nature, interactive. For these and
other reasons, many companies are looking to combine the
Internet and the call centre into a rich–and potentially
lucrative–new means of interacting with customers.

Integrating the call
centre with the Web gives rise to exciting new possibilities for
customer interaction, including e-mail and online chats. Other
possibilities include collaborative browsing, where the Internet
browsers of both the agent and the customer become linked and
can be controlled by either party, and voice over IP, in which
voices are transmitted over a data network

While the convergence of
call centre and Internet technologies offers tremendous
benefits, it also presents several challenges. Software
technologies for Web-enabling call centres are becoming readily
available; however, call centre managers and agents may not
initially be able to effectively harness the new functionality
afforded by the Internet. In addition, customers may be
reluctant to try Web interaction, especially if they have had
difficulty using the Web in the past. Several key technologies
and techniques, including queue management and work blending,
reinforced by the collection of real-time statistics and
business intelligence, can pave the way toward faster technology
adoption and accelerate an organization’s efforts to
successfully leverage both call centre and Internet
technologies.

The
Web-enabled Call Centre

Call centres have been gradually evolving over the past few
years from the simplest switch-only solutions to those
incorporating detailed computer-telephony functionality.

According to Datamonitor,
a market research and consulting firm based in New York and
London, "For companies wishing to combine the customer
focus of a call centre with the business potential of the Web, a
Web integrated call centre or multi-media contact centre is the
next logical step of development." In the US, Datamonitor
predicts that penetration of Web-enabling technologies will be
10 percent by the end of 1999, rising to 32 percent in 2002.Today’s implementations
of Web-integrated call centres might have the call centre
handling all customer contacts using the same queuing and
routing system. In other words, e-mails are handled and
distributed to agents in the same way as voice calls.
Web-integrated call centres are also likely to include a Web
call me facility that allows customers to contact an agent
within the company directly. However, this approach may not
scale or consider the unique requirements of each media type. A
modern, more scalable approach should consider technology that
coordinates various media systems — where e-mails or other
contacts are handled and distributed to agents in a similar
manner as voice calls.

Key Business
Drivers

Whether a business Web-integrates its call centre, or call
centre-integrates its Web site, doing either affords numerous
benefits. A Web-enabled call centre allows a business to
differentiate itself from competitors by providing new and
useful services. In addition, efficiency improvements can help
boost company performance through reduced costs, or higher
revenues for equivalent expenditures. For example, transferring
expensive repetitive telephone-based operations to the Web site
can clearly reduce call centre operating costs. Using a new
distribution or service channel can provide new marketing
opportunities, and capture new market sectors that the company
has previously been unable to service or supply. The combination
of Internet and telephone technologies can also provide around
the clock customer sales and service which improves customer
loyalty and satisfaction, leading to an increase in repeat
business and customer retention, directly influencing revenues.

Call-centre-enabling the
Web site also offers significant benefits. According to
Datamonitor, "Many e-commerce functions report that around
70 percent of customers who enter a site and fill an electronic
shopping basket abandon the contact before any transaction has
taken place for one reason or another." Adding Web call me
and other human interaction can help close these sales. Agents
will be able to reassure customers about security issues, and
perform cross- and up-selling, thereby improving the
revenue-generating function. Capturing some of these deflected
customers will greatly improve online revenues and help improve
call centre efficiency.Hurdles to
Overcome

In spite of these benefits, according to the Datamonitor,
Web-enabled call centre penetration will only reach about 10
percent this year. One reason call centres have been slow to
integrate Web functionality is the significant time lag that can
occur between implementing the new technology and the ability of
call centre managers and agents to use the increased
functionality afforded by the Internet. For instance, agents who
may be highly adept at selling on the telephone may not be able
to rapidly and accurately type — a skill that is necessary for
sending e-mails and conducting on-line chats. It is imperative
to hire the right agents and train them appropriately to ensure
that whatever technology is chosen is exceedingly easy to use.

Another challenge is the
difficulty consumers have in using the Internet. For many
consumers, simply connecting to the Web presents a dizzying
array of challenges, including selecting an Internet service
provider, installing software and configuring technical
parameters. Moreover, unless a user has a separate Internet and
telephone connection, the technology cannot really be utilized
because the user cannot be online and talk at the same time,
unless they are using Voice over Internet (VoIP) technology,
which currently requires well-engineered endpoints to provide
adequate functionality. Then, once they are on the Internet,
many consumers find online shopping confusing. Unreliable
connections and browser software crashes may further frustrate
customers. Being able to successfully rescue agitated online
shoppers will be key to retaining customers.

Getting the
Web Site Right

While consumers are largely on their own when it comes to
getting onto the Internet in the first place, businesses can
help them once they are there. Good web site design can go a
long way toward ensuring an enjoyable and smooth online shopping
experience. Some consumers remain wary of transmitting
confidential information such as credit card numbers over the
Internet. Businesses can help by clearly indicating the level of
security available on their web sites. Web call me buttons, easy
to launch Web collaboration windows, and telephone numbers that
consumers can dial for human interaction should be in plain
view, on critical pages or at critical times during the online
experience. To further minimize consumer frustration, the web
site should be robust and stable enough to accommodate a large
number of simultaneous customer interactions.

Good web site design can
also help agents to more easily handle Web-based customer
interactions. It is important to ensure that Web-based forms are
easy to find and that the web site is easily navigated. When
customers indicate that they are having trouble with a specific
section of the Web site, agents should be able to quickly
discern where the customer is having difficulty.The Power of
Business Intelligence

Within the call centre, there are several ways to maximize the
potential of Internet technology and to reduce the latency
period between software technology availability and the
propensity to learn and use the software by call centre agents
and managers. Agents must first be armed with sufficient
business intelligence. They must be aware of every customer
interaction (any contact between a single customer and a human
or automated agent within the enterprise) that has taken place
across all interaction channels. Without this knowledge, an
agent may not be aware that a customer is already agitated from
having an unsuccessful online shopping experience. The agent who
knows if the customer is ready to buy or highly frustrated is
the agent who will be successful in selling products, or
improving customer loyalty by resolving an issue. Further,
business intelligence should utilize key indicators for managers
to measure performance against specific business targets. When a
central repository is used across CRM applications, it
becomes easier to correlate operational performance in the call
centre with business results.

Integration Is
the Key

Technologies focusing on universal work queues and sophisticated
work blending applications are being introduced that will
readily adopt new media types via a standard media ‘access’
interface. The interface will simplify and abstract media access
for agent applications to enable inbound/outbound telephony,
email, and Web interactions. This will enable applications to
operate with less concern about the details of a given medium
and allow software providers to focus on improving business
applications functionality that support customer interactions.
The media access interface will manage each media system for the
agent application, whether it is an inbound or outbound
telephony system, an email interaction system, or a Web
collaboration system. The architecture will also support
flexibility in incorporating new media as they become available,
and include the ability to normalize the delivery of media
across various routing and queuing models.

The multi-media call
centre tracks customer interactions across all the media types
to create customer history and valuable business intelligence
from well conceived and integrated customer interaction data,
thereby providing robust business and operational transaction
data. This powerful capability is exemplified by this simple
statement: the more you know about how and why a customer
touched you, the more you know how to best service them and to
sell to them.

Ensuring that the web site
is fully integrated with the company’s call centre is as
important as integrating to a company’s other business systems
(for example, IVR, self service applications, back office
systems for shipping information or contract data). Without full
integration, invaluable customer information could be lost or
not fully leveraged. But with CRM applications linked to
repositories of business intelligence, not only can customer
information be used to its fullest, but also call centre
managers can better analyze and understand trends in customer
interactions. This will enable companies to understand what
types of skill-sets agents will need today, and in the future.Managing
Multiple Work Activities

The addition of new media types into the call centre typically
calls for additional support staff. In order to provide customer
service cost-effectively, businesses must manage agent work
assignments across multiple media. Work blending technology,
which dynamically adjusts an agent’s work assignments across
the various media to insure that business rules such as those
for levels of service are met, is a valuable capability for the
multi-media call centre. Call centres that allow agents to
dynamically "blend" work across inbound and outbound
telephony, email, and the Web can optimize staffing while
improving customer contacts across new and varied media.

Rapid Adoption

The benefits of Web-enabled call centres are clear. They are
poised to dramatically change the experience of interacting with
companies for both customers and agents. Because the Web lets
customers serve themselves for simple activities such as
requests for information, agents will have to handle fewer
repetitive, routine tasks. This alone could help to reduce
turnover among agents. By taking advantage of self-help systems,
companies will also be able to reduce costs and improve sales.

As the call centre moves
from traditional telephony applications to Web-enabled,
multimedia applications, it should effectively address the
unique technology requirements of each new customer channel
while maintaining a common model for customer interactions.

Through a combination of
available and emerging technologies and techniques such as
universal work queues and work blending, companies can reduce
the time it takes to train agents and introduce new channels of
customer interaction seamlessly into the workflow. By taking
advantage of these new technologies, businesses can more quickly
and effectively harness the full power of the convergence of
call centre and Internet technologies.