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
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 (VoIP), 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. Though software
technologies for Web-enabled call centres are becoming readily
available, 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.Â
The Evolution
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 multimedia 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.Â
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
round-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 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 ISP, 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 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.Â
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.
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, e-mail, 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 e-mail 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 multimedia 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 will know how to best service him.Â
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.
Multiple Work Activities
Some key questions call centre managers should consider: |
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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
multimedia call centre. Call centres that allow agents to
dynamically "blend" work across inbound and outbound
telephony, e-mail, and the Web can optimize staffing while
improving customer contacts across new and varied media.
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.