Maximizing Customer Communication – Call Centers

According to a study carried out by the Aberdeen Group, 83 percent of executives polled believe that their call center is either a critical or important component of their business. A 2002 study done by Purdue University validates the appropriateness of this belief. According to that study 92% of consumers acknowledge that they form an opinion of a company based on experiences when using their call center.

So why do companies have a call center? If companies don’t have a call center, should they be considering one? If companies do have a call center are they getting full value for their investment? What are some options to enhance the performance of a call center?

Migrating to a Call Center

A call center is traditionally characterized by a company’s ability to queue calls and having all calls terminating at the same group of people. Some call centers may be set up to offer self-help through a decision tree within the auto attendant and some will have automated skill-based routing capability.

For companies that do not have a call center, if they are experiencing the following situations, a call center should be considered to improve customer service and overall business results.

1. Customers have multiple contact points within the company and are required to make the decision of who to call depending on the issue (e.g. Sales, helpdesk, billing, etc).
2. Reception is answering customer questions over the phone while keeping walk-in customers and/or prospects waiting at the front desk.
3. Customers are leaving messages inside company employee’s voice mail boxes.
4. Statistics are desired to determine how effectively customers are being treated and how the business process should be re-aligned to provide improved customer service.

In summary, whenever a customer is forced to jump through hoops to get serviced or a potential customer is not addressed as soon as possible in an appropriate manner there is a risk of losing business or losing an opportunity for new business. Having a call center can reduce that risk significantly

A call center can help companies to:

• Organize and centralize communication with a customer or prospective customer
• Ensure that all calls are answered in a timely manner, are routed to personnel with the appropriate skill set to address the call and more importantly, are routed to personnel with those skills that are available (may be across multiple locations)
• Use statistics for the purpose of managing personnel resources and as a quality assurance tool. Statistics like peak call volume, number of unanswered calls, abandoned calls, or hold times allow companies to do more accurate forecasting and respond quickly to changing customer service needs.

Migrating From a Traditional Call Center to Multi-media Contact Center

Call center communication typically consists of inbound and/or outbound calls. Multi-media contact center communication includes call center options plus fax, email, live web chat and web collaboration.

Companies should investigate upgrading from a traditional call center to a contact center if their:

1. current inbound call hold times are increasing
2. existing market strategy is to send customers to their website for information and online services
3. customers are demanding non-voice (email, web chat or fax) communication to be given the same importance as voice
4. skilled employees are spread across multiple locations
5. customer calls are similar in nature

The benefits of a contact center include:

1. Moving non-time sensitive communication to Email/Fax can lower hold times for other calls.

2. Improved management of calls on hold.

3. Written communication is more concise. It can save agent time identifying the exact problem and communicating instructions through text.

4. Non-voice communications have a better audit trail.

5. Internet channels are cheaper than traditional long distance.

6. Customers are demanding options beyond voice communication.

Customer communication is a critical component of any business. Whether your current customer communication is done without a call center environment, through a traditional call center or is an enhanced customer touch using a contact center, the process of your customer communication needs to be continually assessed for performance improvement purposes.

The Abilita Enterprise Technology Solutions Group (ETS Group) assists financial services clients across North America in planning for, procuring and implementing call center solutions. To contact the ETS Group please contact Henry Otten at 1.866.657.2848 or hotten@abilita.com.

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