Patricia Czech examines how contact centers can respond to fluctuating traffic across multiple communication channels — and do so without compromising consistency of care and agent performance levels.
In a contact center, which usually refers to a Web-enabled call center, communication occurs through a variety of media. Customers can “call” via telephone, Web chat, or e-mail; and the center must be equipped to process, respond to, and record all of these contacts.
Although many call centers create a separate group to handle their Internet-based communications, the most effective centers integrate their Internet-based services into their existing call center processes. You can apply current computer telephony integration, customer relationship management, and enterprise interaction management solutions to a multimedia environment so that each customer receives the same quality of care, regardless of media.
Performance levels also affect the quality of care across agent groups. In a non-integrated environment, with the contact channel and inbound and outbound groups managed separately, agents often sit idle while they wait for the next customer contact. The center could staff at lower levels, but this would compromise service during high-volume periods. What’s more, one contact channel might overwhelm its group of agents, while another group of agents with a different contact channel sits idle. An effective solution is “blending” inbound activity with outbound activity. So rather than sitting idle when there are no calls in the queue, an agent can be working on a customer e-mail or an outbound contact.
MEDIA INTEGRATION
The migration from a traditional telephone-based call center to an Internet-enabled contact center has spawned a “new media” group — exclusively supporting Internet-based communications — within some contact centers. The result is a “dual organization” approach, in which the call center handles telephone traffic while the new media group handles Internet traffic. The dual approach makes it more difficult to maintain a single contact history for a customer and, as a result, more difficult to ensure that you’re serving them properly. A number of service-savvy companies have rejected this dual organization approach and are building Internet capabilities into their existing call center.
An integrated contact center requires a “universal queue,” a waiting line for all customer contacts, regardless of media. By centralizing all types of customer interactions, you can use the same software to analyze, route, and record contacts. Providing the same (or similar) processing logic allows you to offer a consistent level of service.
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE BLENDED CONTACT CENTER
The Internet provides a great forum for proactive customer service and cross selling. For example, if an important customer has submitted an improperly completed form several times, you can send a notification to a representative. This would give the contact center the opportunity to contact the customer proactively while they’re still on the Web site.
Although this might sound intrusive, there are a number of ways to ask the customer if they’d like to interact with a live agent before actually contacting them. This is usually called “permission marketing.” Opportunities to cross sell work in a similar way. If a customer has exhibited a certain behavior on the Internet site (i.e. remaining on a particular page for a long period of time or looking at a series of related pages), you can send a notification to a representative or an intelligent software program. This would give the call center a capability equivalent to walking up to a customer and asking, “can I help you?” or “if you’re interested in windsurfing equipment, you might want to see our sale on wet suits.”
To a large extent, the care a customer receives depends on the contact center’s agents. However, media integration and call blending build an infrastructure that encourages agents to perform effectively. Powerful and flexible routing strategies, centralized customer contact histories, blended inbound and outbound agent groups: These tools create an efficient and active contact center, allowing agents to respond to customers’ needs more effectively while making a consistent impression across all media.