Hosted call centre technology provider 1Stream has today released a white paper highlighting three tools that they believe will be crucial for next-generation contact centres.
“Call centres aren’t just there to field as many calls as possible every day, they are actually valuable strategic business units that can steer the direction of the company and improve business processes,” says Jed Hewson, director of 1Stream.
The white paper, co-authored by Hewson and 1Stream director Bruce von Maltitz, argues that every call centre should investigate the following tools:
Customer experience management tools
“Research has shown that “totally satisfied” customers contribute 17 times as much revenue to a company as a somewhat dissatisfied customer, and a totally dissatisfied customer decreases revenue at a rate equal to 18 times what a totally satisfied customer contributes to a company.
“It is therefore imperative that every single customer touch point remains committed to keeping customers happy – and for most companies, the call centre is the primary touch point,” says Hewson. “Simple IVR surveys at the end of a call, rating the experience the customer has had with an agent is no longer enough. We need sophisticated, automated tools that will answer the question: what do our customers really think about us?”
The smart outbound dialler
“Cell phones have made it much harder for call centres to pin down customers – which can be detrimental if debts have to be collected,” says Hewson. “The Smart Dialler is the most essential tool any call centre with a debt collection component should have – particularly when it comes to maximising payments.
“Most debt collectors will tell you that the longer a debt has been outstanding, and the more uncommunicative a debtor is, the less likely your chances of receiving payment are. Unlike a basic dialler, a smart dialler keeps track of what numbers to dial (e.g. home numbers before 8am and after 5pm, work numbers after 8 and before 5pm and mobile numbers at other times) and make sure that once you have connected to a client you do not then call the other numbers on this record.
“The dialler will also know how many times a number has been called and stop calling if it clearly doesn’t connect after a given number of attempts, reducing the time wasted on futile attempts.”
Multimedia integration
“Social media is a must-have for any call centre – customers demand it and want to be communicated using their preferred channel. The problem is that many of these channels become siloed in an organisation. Agents have to log into different systems to answer email, voice, or social media queries,” Hewson explains.
“By using a single agent desktop interface for managing and reporting all customer interactions, call centres will not only reduce call volume and improve efficiency, but also consistently deliver a unified and highly personalised customer experience. Any social media post, for example, is automatically delivered to the contact centre and agents receive all notifications directly, whilst this compliant with set call centre criteria (such as distribution rules).
“Customers are happy and agents are more efficient.”
