Software to Save the Contact Center, Part 1

So what steps can call center entities take to cope during an economic downturn? For answers, we turned to executives from prominent contact center solutions and service provider companies. Executives were asked, "What is the most important technology for the call center to invest in during slower economic growth times?" Without further ado, we present their sage advice.

Mark Lepko, President, Altitude Software North America

The economic slowdown represents an opportunity for contact centers looking for ways to differentiate while cutting costs. Today, there is a clear shift in contact center operations, with contact centers focusing on first-call resolution as a priority, aiming to reduce costs and maximize agent performance . The ROI arising from technology solutions that help achieve reduced numbers of second calls for the same inquiry is really quite significant. Studies indicate that, in some situations, 50 percent of calls could have been avoided if correctly handled on a first call.

Although the problem is identified, the solution is not easy to implement. It requires a combination of providing training/coaching to agents, defining the right processes and having the appropriate technology infrastructure in place. In this respect, a unified agent desktop solution is essential for contact centers aiming for more efficient and productive agents while improving success rates in helping customers with queries. Since agents have to simultaneously manage multiple interaction channels, use business applications and guide the conversation with the customer through a script, all relevant information must be a click away.

A unified agent desktop is a huge step toward getting the right answers within acceptable periods of time. The unified desktop not only saves time, but also optimizes agent performance in what amounts to a direct impact on the contact center bottom line.

Tom Chamberlain, Director of Business Process Marketing, Aspect Software

In a slowing economy, companies are clearly focused on increasing efficiency and maximizing resources in all operational areas. In the contact center, this means automating the right processes to enhance service levels, not hinder them; leveraging automation technology like predictive dialers and voice portals; taking advantage of other applications that can increase first-call resolution.

Voice portals and self-service solutions. Self-service tools, when implemented correctly, make the best use of agent resources by automating routine portions of an interaction, like providing account balances or confirming appointments, and seamlessly transferring the call to an agent for more complex portions. Automating routine transactions is critical to efficiently handling more calls. Additionally, voice self-service is a valuable solution for customers that call regarding sensitive, private issues that they would not want to share with an agent, such as high debt information, credit card numbers, repossession or foreclosure status. This technology is essential in a slow economy because it allows contact centers to do more with less. However, the key to the success of this technology is to ensure it is designed to give customers the information they need, not prevent them from talking to agents.

Predictive dialers. Advanced outbound dialer technology is another way for contact centers to improve efficiency, which is particularly important for sales and collections contact centers during a slowing economy. Solutions that offers campaign development tools, call table filters, predictive dialing, call blending, browser-based agent desktop, real-time statistics and historical and custom reporting can maximize the number of calls handled and ensure that agents reach customers at the right time to increase debt collection and to improve sales rates. This enables companies to increase revenue and reduce operating costs in the contact center.

Unified communications. More companies are seeing the value of a unified communications strategy that incorporates the contact center, and are realizing that UC offers a unique opportunity to help improve first-time call resolution and contact center efficiency. By interoperating contact center applications with UC technologies, contact center agents can shorten problem-resolution cycles, answer customer inquiries quickly and more effectively up-sell services and/or products to prospective customers because they're able to identify subject matter experts more quickly and easily. Leveraging standards-based and unified contact center solutions enables this easy interoperability with presence engines and other UC tools. This is another example of how contact centers can improve processes and efficiencies to save money and maximize agents' times and improve overall customer loyalty , which is extremely important during a slow economy.

Roger Woolley, Senior VP Marketing, Autonomy etalk

In a slowing economy, it is extremely critical for a company to be able to retain its existing customers. But in order to meet the needs and expectations of your customers, you must have a means of first understanding what those needs and expectations are. This is where speech analytics, and more specifically multichannel interaction analysis, can be of utmost benefit to the entire business, not just in the contact center. By automatically mining the conceptual and contextual meaning of recorded and in-progress customer interactions, the business can uncover customer insight to customer service via a variety of touch points - from sales and marketing to customer support and business operations. Only when this information is known can the business truly understand its customers and ensure they stay loyal.

Lou Ann Jones, Director, Customer Contact Solutions, Avaya

In addition to self-service, outbound proactive contact with automated agents maximizes agent productivity by screening out non-productive interactions, like answering machines, and in many cases does not require human intervention: for example, bill pay, appointment reminders, flight change information and fraud alerts. We know that "voice" is king - but automated transactions can be offered to give the customer the "choice" to do business they way they want to do business.

Getting and maintaining customers is a competitive necessity well executed technology like self-service and proactive outbound contact help keep the competitive edge while keeping an eye on the bottom line.

Software to Save the Contact Center, Part 2