Migrating a Call Center to Integrated Contact Center
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As service and support is making the transistion from call center to contact center,
the Internet is becoming an ideal medium for measuring and improving relationships.
The contact center of the new economy, enables service and support representatives to
handle a complete set of service, support and sales interactions across a broad
range of communications channels. This range of channels may include phone, email, asynchronous and synchronous
(real time) chat, fax, interactive voice response (IVR), electonic data transfer, etc.
To date, call centers have been reactive. The focus of this interaction
was cost reduction. Complete the request as quickly as possible and move on to
the next one in the queue. The new economy contact center must take a new approach.
While implementing an online service and support strategy, it is important to keep in mind
the needs of your customers / members, the future of technology and the global climate.
Organizations must recognize the importance of service and support that anticipates and solves
issues before they occur. They must also keep in mind that the Internet's 24x7 access
enables clients / members / prospects (etc.) to make inquiries and requests
more often.
With an isolated silo approach, individuals entering services requests via the Web or email
often can not track the status of that request by phoning a service and support representative in a
traditional call center. An integrated solution is needed for consistent service and support across all
interaction channels.
Integrating your Internet/Web-based customer strategy into your call center can provide a
number of advantages, including:
The call center executive has several obstacles to overcome. Key questions must be
answered before launching a customer service site and before making large investments
in an Internet "solution" -- such as:
Even information-only Web sites and sites that provide an email address to respond
to questions require new levels of service and support. Your call center will be
expected to manage this increased demand while maintaining and improving these
levels.
Providing Web-based service and support means more than just adding an email link to
your Web site. Existing and potential customers / members (etc.) must be
introduced to a new "culture" or way of doing things.
By providing methods to find the information they are looking for through searchable
Web sites, FAQ's, etc., you are empowering them to make decision without calling
your call center. You are also impacting their behavior by encouraging them to
communicate through various communication channels.
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Encourage Web and email interaction rather than phone interaction |
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Incent and reward customers via the Web |
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Create a customer / member (etc.) culture on the Web |
If the front-line jobs are well designed and management is selective in hiring and generous
in training and remuneration, employees will be capable and loyal. Their lower turnover will
contribute to profitability (less resources devoted to hiring and training) and to customer
satisfaction because of their extended experience.
Houck & Associates offers the following services to assist your organization
in migrating its call center(s) to become an integrated contact center(s):
Work Process Analysis
Shifting Customers / Vendors / Members Cultures to Online Environment
Getting In-house buy-in
Focus Group, Survey, Interviewing Services
Feasibility Studies
Contact us now to find out how we can assist your organization.
Return to Online Customer Service main page
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Saturday, July 05, 2008
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