Busier lifestyles combined with an increase in Internet usage has meant that customers are no longer happy with only being given the option of calling a company between 8am and 6pm. Customers want the ability to contact businesses at a time of their choosing and using their preferred method of communication. 

In order to meet this demand and remain competitive companies are having to add new contact touch points of e-mail, chat and web call-back to their legacy voice infrastructure. But with such a bewildering choice of different solutions on the market, all of which claim to offer the desired results, how can business managers responsible for a company's contact strategy know what is the right solution for them? 

Andy Seath, General Manager Contact Solutions, at specialist distributor Dacon, outlines what companies need to consider when transforming a pure voice centre into the more complex operation known as a contact centre.

Andy Seath
General Manager
Contact Solutions
Dacon

Identifying the Business Drivers and 'Must Have' Functionality
Before even considering the various solutions on the market it is essential that companies identify the drivers for change and highlight those criteria which they know will be an essential part of decision making process. Are they looking to increase revenues, decrease costs, improve customer service, enhance their productivity or leverage an existing technology investment? Is it imperative that the solution integrates with all the existing systems and applications? What about compatibility with legacy infrastructure, or is the business starting from new?" And what about the future, are they looking for a solution which is scaleable to meet demands at a later date?

The other factor which must be examined at the outset is functionality. Since the main objective for most contact centres is to provide superior customer service, resulting in quick problem resolution, fast sales and customer retention, it is essential that all forms of communication can be managed and monitored in an effective way.

Currently most centres have call management systems in place to deal with voice calls, routing enquiries based on agent availability, skill set and workload. If businesses are to be equally efficient in the multi-channel environment they need to be able to apply this functionality across all forms of media. In addition, some companies may also want to be able to prioritise enquiries based on in-house business rules i.e. premium customers over standard customers, and/or based on media type i.e. the wait time for a web chat request v the queue holding time of inbound voice traffic. Another possible consideration is the need to integrate email and web chat into the centres 'call waiting' statistics, which are often shared with agents via wallboard displays and/or PCs in order to keep agents informed about the number of calls waiting. Emails and web chat must be included within these statistics if they are to provide a real overview of the centre. Call recording, voice messaging and auto attendant may also be pre-requisites.

Finding the Right Approach
Having identified the business drivers for change, considered any additional factors and decided on the required functionality, companies must then select an approach which is suitable for them. Various techniques can be used to implement a contact centre, each of which has its own set of pros and cons which companies need to understand.

Those choosing a (Private Branch Exchange) PBX-based solution will have to be mindful of the fact that additional products will be needed to provide true multi-media contact centre functionality. In order to achieve a complete solution, they must augment the PBX with adjunct devices such as Internet servers, Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) and agent desktop applications. This approach will provide the company with considerable challenges in terms of integrating these various solutions. The professional service and integration resources needed to unify these disparate products and technologies can prove cost prohibitive, especially in the SME market sector.

Another approach is to use CTI middleware products to tie contact applications to contact centre devices. Using this rather complex approach is costly and time consuming to implement; it can often take as long as six months before the first agent is ready to log on. Plus, in order to effectively implement these applications companies must invest heavily in IT professionals and services and, clearly, this is not a viable strategy for most organisations.

An alternative to attempting to integrate the different technologies and products is to opt for an all-in-one product offering. Historically all-in-one products, whilst providing simple packaged solutions, have lacked the depth of features and functionality needed to provide a truly world-class solution. However, recent developments have seen major advances in this area, with a number of solutions now available which provide feature-rich enhanced and scaleable functionality.

Effective Customer Management
Once a customer has made contact with a company, whether by phone, email, or web chat, and it is goes through to the agent, the issue then becomes one of how the enquiry can be managed in order for it to be maximised. This is where CRM comes into play. It is CRM that enables contact threading – the process whereby companies have a 360º view of the customer. It gives them the knowledge of whether the caller has contacted them before and, if so, what they previously called about. This information enables the agent to provide a faster, more personalised and accurate service, all the elements which give the customer a good experience and ensure they are likely to return. It is therefore essential that companies looking to find the complete contact centre solution factor in a CRM product.

In Summary
There is no one definitive solution for establishing a successful multi-channel contact centre as each company has its own set of objectives, legacy infrastructure, functionality requirements and preferred method of approach. But as long as companies consider all these factors before looking for a solution they will end up with a contact centre which can effectively and efficiently manage multiple media, ensuring customer satisfaction.

About Andy Seath
Within his role as General Manager for Contact Solutions, Andy is responsible for identifying and integrating the most appropriate contact centre solutions into Dacon's product portfolio. Using his knowledge of the marketplace and understanding of the business drivers for change, Andy has helped Dacon develop a product portfolio. Andy has worked at Dacon for four years and prior to this held a sales position at Crane. Before this Andy was National Sales Manager for Shipton Communications, now DeTeWe.

About Dacon
Dacon is a distributor of contact centre and CRM solutions by supplying products, through resellers, to businesses throughout the UK and the rest of Europe. Dacon works with vendors in order to offer the complete contact centre solution, including: in-bound multi-media call routing, queuing and reporting, CTI and blended outbound call campaigns, agent scripting and customer interaction management software, information display and messaging systems, workforce management solutions, advanced CRM, remote working and IP solutions.