Twain's famous response to his premature obituary is an appropriate starting point to discuss the notion that the call centre is dead. His humorous response can equally be applied to recent suggestions that the call centre's time has also passed.
Leading companies have in fact experienced great success by more effectively managing their relationships with customers and implementing formal customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, and it is the call centre that has emerged as a vital element of theses solutions.
By successfully implementing CRM solutions, companies like Gateway 2000 have gained a substantial share of the PC market. They have done this by customising the PC's they build according to each customer's demands, a process that would otherwise have been impossible.
Building Loyal Customers
The success of CRM in these companies is due, in part, to their skilful use of the call centre – or more appropriately the customer contact centre. The customer contact centre is an effective channel of communication between customer and company. The customer contact centre is therefore the face of CRM.
The customer contact centre is somewhat different to the traditional call centre we are familiar with. One difference is that the customer contact system handles customer email and web interactions as well as telephone communication. Amazon.com, for example, maintains both email and telephone contact with is customers, although eBay an on-line auctioneer, handles more than 60,000 customer emails per week through its customer contact system and almost no telephone contact. The point here is that in an effective CRM solution, the customer contact system must be able to manage communication with a customer through a variety of media.
Listen and Speak
A second requirement for a successful customer contact solution is the ability to effectively integrate inbound and outbound communications. Unlike two separate call centres – one inbound and one outbound – that are isolated from each other, an effective customer contact system must be able to manage both outbound and inbound communication in an integrated fashion. As in any productive communication with the customer, the system must be able to both listen and speak.
Continental Airlines, for example, is currently implementing a customer contact system for its OnePass frequent flyer programme. This system allows the airline not only to quickly handle incoming request from its members about their accounts and flight information, but is also allows the company to proactively contact members to inform them of schedule changes or additions to the airline's routes that may be of interest. This integrated customer contact system, handling both inbound and outbound communications, eliminates the problem of two separate facilities, neither of which would know what the other was doing. By using such a system, Continental Airlines is able to maximise both the value of each customer contract and the productivity of their agents.
Connected
A third requirement for an effective customer contact centre is that it is closely integrated into the overall CRM solution. As the primary point of communication between the customer and the company, the customer contact system must effectively capture all relevant information received and report it to the CRM system. For example, managers need to know which products are selling quickly – and to which customers – and which products are being passed over and why. They need to ascertain which campaigns are confusing or alienating to customers and which elicit positive responses (which products are generating the most after-sales calls, and why).
The customer contact system must also be effective at receiving and using the information derived for a comprehensive CRM solution. Outbound campaign agent scripts, for example, must incorporate the latest data from the CRM so agents can effectively deliver the right information to the customer. The customer contact centre "face" must be connected to the CRM system "brain".
Keys to Success
The message here is that the call centre is far from dead. It has instead evolved into a customer contact centre. This new customer contact system must provide certain key elements in order to be successful:
Published: Thursday, July 10, 2008
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