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In so doing he had changed the economies of food retailing.No longer was the number of concurrent
customers limited by the number of serving staff.Business was built to leverage volumes, improve buying power and
provide a lower cost, convenient shopping experience in which the customers
themselves did some of the work that historically would have been done by the
staff.
Barclays Bank introduced its first Automated Teller Machine
(ATM) in 1967.Today, the Association
for Payment Clearing Services estimates that there are 23,200 ATM's in Britain
and over 104.4M cards which have a withdrawal facility.
Today, 60% of adults are regular users of ATM's and this
proportion is increasing.In the space
of one generation, we have transformed our banking behaviours and benefit from
the additional service and convenience of obtaining cash from a machine instead
of a cashier.
Call Centre -
Today's Trading Post
Drawing similarities with the call centre does not require a
huge leap of faith.Today's customer
contacts are largely handled by people.
Perhaps not quite a corner shop, but a business model which has at its
roots an assumption that number of contacts is a function of the number of
agents available.
Yet the Henley Centre's landmark study "Teleculture Futures"
found that 60% of people involved in a trial of interactive voice response
(IVR) financial applications considered that this type of automation improved
service.Add to this the meteoric
adoption of web-based hosting of information and there is mounting evidence
that the consumer has never been more ready for DIY customer service as now.
Two technologies have a particular contribution to make in
automating tasks within the call centre:
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
This receives the phone call and will present spoken prompts
to the caller and respond to digits dialled on the telephone keypad or words
spoken by the caller.In addition to
basic menu functionality many IVR solutions can be integrated with customer
databases to enable the reading of information to the caller or the
presentation of options tailored to the caller.A familiar example of this is telephone banking.
Browser Based Tools
These enable the 'caller' to directly access information
which may be stored as fixed web pages or created transiently from data held in
databases.In short the person using
the browser can interact with your information systems as if they were using a
desktop on your premises - if you allow them, of course.
Some
Benefits:
Well, I guess cost has to feature somewhere in the
equation.Research in the US published
in the UK by the DTI's Future Unit suggests that typical costs for processing a
banking transaction are:
Automation can also reduce
error rates by reducing the number of intermediaries between the customer and
information systems.A Manufacturing
Assembly Pilot (MAP) of an extranet system which simplified supply chains
reducing error rates by 72%.
Flexibility of interaction
can be developed into automated systems.
For us hunters, automated systems allow us to rush directly in to a
particular function that we use.This
is achieved through bookmarks within web environments, or key-ahead in IVR
systems.One colleague of mine stores
all of the key-strokes required access his bill-payments menu within telephone
banking in a memory key on his phone.
Such directness would be not just rude, but impossible with human
interaction.
For those of us that are
gatherers, automated systems allow us to browse and explore in a way which would
cause most of us embarrassment if dealing with a live agent.The joys of indecision and prevarication can
be developed to high art in a browser environment if required.
Some
Opportunities
The basic changes in
economic models which arise from automation can open new opportunities.Perhaps making markets reachable which
otherwise would be prohibitive.
In the US, Wal-Mart, the
highly successful retail chain has used the internet to break the constraints
of conventional floorspace.Its
internet site lists ten times the number of lines stocked at its largest
physical store.
In the UK, Argos, the
catalogue retailer has implemented an IVR system to support its
Ring-and-Reserve service to enable customers to check stock availability and to
then reserve items for later collection at their local outlet.
In Denmark, tax returns are
processed using IVR.The taxpayer is
issued with a pre-completed tax return with the government's estimate of
values.A call to the IVR to either approves
the return as stands or to enters new information… "place 1400 in box 12".
In the UK, Railtrack has for
several years provided timetable information via the Internet allowing the user
to specify start and finish stations and preferred travel times and is
presented with a selection of trains, changes etc. required for their trip.
In all these cases, not only
does the consumer benefit from being able to do something previously
impossible, but often the host organisation benefits from improved foresight of
information which could do anything from improving stock control to estimating
the number of carriages required on a train.
Some
Risks: Poorly Designed Interfaces
Seen any good TV lately?
Perhaps - but chances are that most of it has been mediocre.One truism of most creative endeavour
(books, films, songs or software) is that most of it is pretty average
really.Exactly the same applies to
design of user interfaces.A few people
are really good at it.Most
aren't.Nothing is more likely to upset
your customer than you making life hard for them at your convenience.The Henley Centre found that 86% of people
would prefer not to do business again with a company that handled their call
badly.
Fortunately, there are organisations who help spread best
practice.An example is the Dialogues 2000 club based out of
Edinburgh University which acts as a research forum for voice prompts.
Poor Integration
Once you start collecting information through automated
systems, people expect you to remember it.
Islands of information which are tolerated amongst people are a source
of irritation when adopted by machines.
A major credit card issuer insists I type in my card number when I ring
their customer service line.The system
then makes me wait while they find an agent for me.My expectation is now towering - "they've probably found my
customer record, they're looking for an agent who speaks with my regional
accent, they'll probably have one or two seductive little offers to share with
me…."An agent answers… "Card Number
Please".The sense of disappointment is
rather like peeling a banana and finding it empty.
Lack Of Sensitivity
A call centre agent can sense what you don't mind being
asked and what you do - how?They spend
all day finding out.So if their
telemarketing script demands to know your partner's waist measurement and the
system will not let them go on to the next screen without it, guess what they
do?They invent one for you.A trite example perhaps, but in most cases
agents will find a way of moulding their task to make it as palatable for you,
and hence easy for them.Automated
systems are not so good at recovering from your clumsiness.Thus highlighting the need to use an
experienced supplier and a safe test environment. Often a little effort spent
monitoring interactions between caller and system smoothes out the smallest of
abrasions before they start to burn.
Binary Thinking
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a
nail.Now that automation technologies
are available, it can be tempting to assume that unless you can automate the
entire contact, then there is no point in automating at all.This is missing the point.A caller may go through a variety of phases,
perhaps a search or enquiry, a need for in depth advice, then a conclusion for
example.Automation may play a
different role, or no role at all in these different phases.The best approach is to balance the use of
automation based on the expectations of the caller and the experience you want
them to have.
Design Principles -
Getting The Balance Right
When working with a client to implement a call centre, we
use design principles based on learning from our sister company in the USA,
tempered for the UK environment.We
start by advising to automate what you can and add value.Automation saves you time and money, and
assists those callers that want to serve themselves.The sort of customer who will want to get to know you by browsing
recorded information, your web site, will order brochure copies or your price
list in their own time.
Where the nature of the call is complex, or requires
emotional support, or where the customer may be adverse to technology, we
suggest the use of agents who can cement relationships, look out for
opportunitiesor create a highly personalised
experience.These agents are skilled in
dealing with people and must do more than just read, speak and type.
In the middle of the spectrum, there are opportunities to
augment automated self-service with help from a live agent when the caller is
not perhaps finding what they need or are looking for advice.
All of these design decisions are made with much more
confidence when you have a crisp understanding of why your customers do
business with you instead of anyone else, and what style of contact best underpins
your differentiation in their minds.
This often requires research which can provide some revelations itself.
These approaches can also dramatically improve agent morale
and motivation, since a proportion of the mundane calls are now soaked up by the
technology, leaving the agents handling a richer mix of calls which actually
require their talents as a person, not as a data entry clerk.
Man And Machine
In Harmony?
As the richness of your customer profile information
increases, it is now possible to customise the interaction style on a
customer-by-customer basis.Those that
wish to self-serve enter your call centre to automated options; those that want
personal service are greeted on entry by a real person.
The result is a virtual space that has room for both the
black belt shopper and the seven year old with Chopper.
About
Siemens:
Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc. (ICN) is a provider of
integrated voice and data networks and solutions for enterprises, carriers and
service providers.
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