The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

"Basically the skill could be very different for answering in a written way than answering over the phone, so it is better to have dedicated group for each. The best option is multimedia queue with a good tuning of preferences, skill and priority."

"The limits of the e-mail application, as example, can be a challenge. Usually the users tend to compare the e-mail client from a contact center solution with normal e-mail clients as in Outlook. This is a big problem because they see Outlook as more easy to use and friendlier than an e-mail client"

"It's high on costs, and cannot be shared - also not effectively used across processes"

"There can be many challenges in a multi-channel center: Scheduling, different skill sets requirements, writing vs. verbal skills, etc"

"Finding a system that would apply the same skill based routing as our voice calls can be a challenge, and also being able to measure and monitor the interaction levels."

"There can be many, and most can be covered by: People Issues, Planning (from Layout to strategy), and Processes - including Technology used to deliver the process."

"Identifying who will respond to each contact other than phone. ACD works to distribute those contacts equitably."

"The operational challenges we assist clients with are primarily focused at the integration of front end customer interaction channels with the numerous backoffice operations. Our challenge is to allow the customer to manage their business with all of the backoffice systems via any front end access."

"Challenges in this area include Technology, reporting systems and methods, response capacity, and the costs."

"The operational challenges are related to the proper training of the operators and also the technological implementation."

"We overcame our challenge in becoming multi-channeled by establishing collaboration between back and front office operations. We can report and monitor activities on each channel, so we will give better service to our customers."

"The proper distribution of workloads to meet proper service levels"

"The challenge is linking disparate corporate systems around the country so everything is unified."

"Challenges include: Technology, Training, Culture, Environment, People Selection, Cost and Restructure"

"The clients themselves can be a challenge, along with agents and cost"

"The logistics and time taken to monitor all potential areas of incoming calls is complicated. Whilst checking and logging voicemails or emails for example, staff are pulled away from the incoming calls."

"Change management at the customer level along with management of the SLTs,"

"Integrating all the channels seamlessly and simplifying steps for staff. If we have all of these channels then it just makes the agent work harder, and sometimes not smarter. They have to do more which lends to more things falling through the cracks."

"A uniformed customer experience. The information being solicited from customers needs to be consistent in order for: 1) Requests to be routed correctly regardless of contact channel 2) A pleasant, non-confusing customer experience, i.e. the customer always knows what to expect regardless of contact channel."

"Workforce management can be challenging, because you have to ensure resources are available to answer different channel types."

"Making sure that all channels are compatible with each other, and in the long run it has to be cheaper"

"Alignment of the technology - Insuring existing systems support or don't conflict. And process changes/development to ensure seamless execution"

"Talent structure – Agents now have to be multidimensional. We cannot have one agent a specialist for inbound only. The agents need to delve into different technologies and immediately respond irrespective of the medium."

"The need for a new and updated ACD to integrate these streams and assign communications to the next available agent."

"Training, utilization efficiency, and scheduling can all pose unique challenges."

"Technology costs, legacy systems and Budget"

"It was shockingly easy to setup. No significant challenges were met."

From an operational aspect the challenges we face as an organization are the following:

1. Measuring end to end customer and client satisfaction across all channels. We find that measuring CSAT by voice and email is relatively straight forward but when it comes to other media supported in our centre such as fax, webmail and SMS this is where we find it most challenging.
2. Measuring FCR across all channels is also quite a challenge for our business. In measuring FCR we have a policy of using two measurements usually by evaluating a contact between our Advisor and customer and also by measuring the Voice of the Customer. This is a difficult metric to accurately measure across SMS, fax, Voicemail etc.
3. Measuring service level and response times for all contact types
4. Monitoring all contact types to ensure quality and consistency

Organizational Challenges are as follows:

1. Technology implementation/integration issues
2. Securing budget for multichannel needs

"Managing workflow and prioritization of work."

"It was challenging to combine them all to one support tool"

"We have had to re-look at how to manage the alternate forms of contact so as to ensure that the traditional inbound calls were not negatively impacted by higher unanswered rates. Part of the solution was to establish an outbound call centre, which required us to re-look at our Call Centre infrastructure"

"Data Capture - Tracking off-phone agent productivity and utilization"

"We needed to find a CRM that we could port all of our data sources to and track tickets unilaterally instead of manually - collecting call results and entering them into our legacy CRM. We also needed IP phones and Asterisk server to tie in Agents available via SIP , Skype connectors, and traditional TDM Voice and Voicemail."

"Variable knowledge among users and the lack of time to learn"

Infrastructure - whatever channel you use, the important factor is to build a better and error free platform.

Intensive testing is required before installation to avoid any disaster that in turn brings customer service level down. With the pace and competitive environment, it is necessary to improve the infrastructure and evolve to perform better.

Secondly, training to use the platform is another biggest challenge, mass training will help the work force understand the core usage and benefits of the platform, but for better customer service and ROI, it requires a deeper understanding of the platform that is used by the workforce. Usually the learning takes a while (steep learning curve Vs Experience curve). As the competition is high and customer expectations are going up, it is important that specialized training needs to be provided to the workforce, the three phase approach. 1. Mass training, 2. Specialized training in smaller batches 3. Identify under performers and training them in batches.

"Technology and system development - Integrating call centre technology with our operational systems."

"Agent training - ensuring all agents are capable of handling the different media at the same time."

"Optimizing the organization (structure) of the call center and training of the agents"