TELECOM AND OMNI-CHANNEL

Due to new technology, Internet 2.0, and the economy's improvement, more customers are using e-commerce. This fuels contact center growth, as we see more millennials and fewer baby boomers.

Call centers have evolved into “contact” centers since agents now use email, text, chat, and voice to communicate with customers. The term “call” center is no longer used, as customers today take an “omni-channel” approach, utilizing multiple channels to communicate with a company to express needs, compliments or complaints. Contact centers must adapt to this holistic experience by deploying software that can quickly escalate conversations from chat to voice or web to voice. Customers want to quickly and easily transition from a mobile app, text, and/or email to voice assistance.

Customers prefer to help themselves by visiting a company website to resolve an issue. Websites are often old, outdated, not working, or just not set up for self-service, and customers are forced to make a call. Gartner predicts that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships with a company without any human interaction.

The more communication channels you have, the greater your customer satisfaction. This is because not all generations prefer the same communication type. Customer satisfaction also depends on the level and depth of the conversation.

First, they must log in to the contact center platform and always know their status. Old systems have agents’ login to a 3rd party application that connects them to a desk phone, which can leave them guessing “Am I logged in?” Look for SaaS based contact center platforms that do not utilize softphones, but WebRTC. Headsets plug into the PC, and the agent logs into the contact center platform through the web browser. The agent can easily see the status: Logged in, logged out, lunch, training – no more AUX codes. Make it easy for agents to use. Supervisors can also see the status of agents, no matter where they reside in the world.

Second, agents want to see their metrics – live in a dashboard. How many calls did they take today? What are their talk times? Agents want to see all the metrics they are being evaluated on right at their desk, in real time. Tomorrow’s whiteboard report is too late. If you want agents to improve, give them immediate feedback. Giving them an effective tool lets them see how they are doing in real time. Reporting today’s results tomorrow is just so last year! 

First, consumers want a simple IVR. Customers who have tried to use self-service but still need assistance know that the next step is the dreaded phone call. Customers want to talk with someone immediately when they make the call. Consumers do not want to spend the next 15 minutes tangled up in an interactive voice response system (IVR). Many companies misapply the use of an IVR. If it is intended for self-service, make that clear. If designed to direct calls to agents, make the IVR simple with a short menu. This will eliminate consumers' frustration with poorly designed IVRs and drive up customer satisfaction immensely when done right. Leave self-service for websites or specific 800 numbers intended for self-service.

Second, consumers want to complete account authentication once. If you ask for the account number via the IVR, don’t ask again when the agent connects. If the agent needs to transfer the call, don’t make the customer start all over. Some of this duplication is due to processes, some due to technology, some because of policy, but this small thing makes callers crazy. Companies look stupid to customers because agents keep asking the same questions and the caller’s request remains unresolved. Ask once and address requests quickly. 

Industry Content Supporter:
Kevin Bryan
VP Sales and Marketing
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankevin 

IVR and/or AI voices are some of the most critical aspects of the telephony industry. The first thing a caller hears is that voice; no one wants to start the experience with a sinister voice. Clients sometimes ask for a professional voice-over for a project. Sometimes, the TTS solution is okay, but the client wants another more personable option. Or maybe they are considering using an internal voice, which is never a great option.

So what is the difference between an AI voice or the human voice? In the last three years, AI voice overs have taken great strides in allowing customers the flexibility to update important information and go live quickly.

The initial AI setup is expansive and cost-prohibitive to some. With the human voice, at times, it costs about the same as AI and is not as fast as typing it out and using the AI voice, but it seems sooner. However, if you can type it, the human talent can voice it. As innovation keeps evolving and companies keep up with the cutting edge of technology, lots will continue to change. Still, ultimately, it will come down to having the proper voice and giving the customer experience people look for and technology strives for.

Simple, quick questions and issues can be resolved in a Chat box. Online Chat is a powerful tool for customers who don’t want to talk or wait on the phone in a queue. Customers should be able to bring up a company’s website from any desktop or smart device, such as a laptop, smartphone, or tablet, and see the chat box pop up, asking how they can be helped.

Customers don’t like the chat feature when the agent disappears from the chat for a long time. You and I know they are handling other chat conversations or even taking phone calls, but it can seem like they’ve been abandoned to the chat customer. If Chat is integrated into the automatic call distributor(ACD), those online conversations are handled like calls; placed in a queue and routed to an agent. Chats can be routed to an all chat team or a blended team. When your call reports are run, you can see how many chats each agent has handled and the chat talk times. No different than voice. Customers are then being taken care of in the order received, one at a time, resolving their request quickly.

Text messages work well for appointment and delivery confirmations. Amazon, FedEx, and UPS all use them to track delivery status. You can also track a package around the world using text messages. This is “one-way” or “push” communication.

Today, people are busy and don’t want to stop to make small talk. Texting is perfect for confirming doctor or salon appointments. Press “C” or reply with “ok” to confirm, and you'll be there. SMS from the contact center is just as simple. It is primarily one-way from the company and has limited capability for simple replies.

Most consumers today no longer have a fax machine and rely on scanning documents and mailing them as PDF attachments.

Many contact centers are unable to handle emails to or from customers. When a document is faxed, it goes to a company server and is uploaded to the customer’s account. When it goes to an email address, the agent is now responsible for uploading the attachments. The attachment is at risk of never getting uploaded to the account. The agent quits, and the email account is closed. The customer calls in, frustrated that their documents weren’t received.

The next issue with email is that it never goes away. There is a traceable email string. The agent attaches the string to the account and the customer saves it for the next time they have an issue. It never terminates like a phone call, an SMS or a chat box. The risk is more significant for that email to rise again, especially if you have a disgruntled customer. It can be emailed to others within and outside the company – losing control of it. You can’t control what agents write, how they write it, when, and to whom. Yes, there is a corporate email policy, but agents always go rogue and do their own thing. How do you manage this? Email is tricky. Think through the uses for email before opening all your agents to this method of communication with your customers.