Technology can be a major competitive differentiator and increasingly companies are looking to implement voice over IP (VoIP) systems at their contact centres – both in the UK and abroad, to enable cheaper and more flexible and efficient customer contact management. Customer experience is gaining increasing importance in the success of a contact centre, with greater emphasis on service value to the customer, as lower-end functions are automated or offshored. Technologies are continuously improving and providing contact centre agents with enhanced capabilities, which in turn improve the customer experience. | |
Unified communications and presence are technologies that now play a big role in enabling agents to immediately see which ‘subject matter experts’ are available to communicate with in the back office. These technologies benefit the contact centre environment by offering the agent who initially takes the call the ability to view who is available through an instant messaging (IM) application or interface. This allows the agent to immediately see who is best placed to assist in answering the customer query. Through this interface the agent is also able to either conference in a colleague to the call or get a response via IM without handing over the call. This scenario has a number of benefits, it improves the chances of resolving the interaction at the ‘first point of contact’ as the agent always remains in control of the interaction, the relationship management and audit trail is updated – resulting in less frustration and a more seamless customer experience. Growth In The UK The 2006 UK Contact Centre Operational Review (CCOR) survey found that the UK call centre industry is struggling to cope with high staff churn rates, which increased by 23 per cent in 2005. Almost half of contact centres in the UK now have problems with staff retention – the biggest issue of which is the restriction it places on ambitions of growth. The recent trend for outsourcing is also something that has affected the industry, in both public perception and staff attrition. However, the CCOR also indicates that call centre agent numbers are rising at four to five per cent a year, so offshoring is not having a major impact on the UK call centre industry as a whole. Developments in contact centre technology means what we think of as the ‘traditional’ call centre is constantly evolving, bringing with it benefits to both callers and potential and existing employees. Remote Working The ‘virtual’ contact centre is today playing a key role in enticing and retaining employees. This enables employees to work from a convenient location to them, offering greater flexibility and subsequently higher levels of productivity and job satisfaction. It can create a better work-life balance for employees, which in turn may lead to a reduction in staff-churn rates for UK contact centres. Desk space is becoming a premium across the business world, and as a result more and more companies are looking to offer remote working to their staff. Contact centre staff are being sent away from the office, not only as a cost saving tactic but also because of proven productivity gains and to offer a more flexible way of working to their employees. Agent Benefits With increasing numbers of contact centre agents, it is important to ensure they are protected from abusive callers, both on site and remotely. Subsequently speech analytics are being used to better record and monitor calls for these purposes. The technology goes beyond word spotting, the ability to analyse stress levels enables agents experiencing difficulty to have calls automatically flagged to supervisors if necessary. With this technology in place, it enables employees to work in the comfort of their own homes, but still be secure. Another tool being implemented by contact centres is web-based skills management and assessment to improve agents’ contact handling performance. Employers can ensure their agents have a minimum level of skill and knowledge, identify the skills gap and implement the appropriate training as required. In this way, skills management can be integrated automatically into the skills matrix of the contact centre to provide more effective routing, empowering agents to monitor their own progress as well as improving motivation. In 2004, e-skills UK, the Sector Skills Council for Contact Centres, unveiled the Contact Centre passport. This has enabled users to assess their skills and abilities against the industry standard laid out in the Contact Centre Career and Skills Framework. It offers the agent a clear picture of the career progression and training opportunities within their organisation as well as offering a clear roadmap to nationally recognised qualifications. Call Waiting? Or Call Efficiency? Management of call centres involves balancing the requirements of cost effectiveness and service. Callers do not wish to wait in exorbitantly long queues until they can be helped and so management must provide sufficient staff and inbound capacity to ensure that the quality of service is maintained. To perform this balancing act, workforce management is a tool that helps call centre managers to see what resource they need and enables them to forecast and schedule agents accordingly, ensuring the contact centre is not understaffed during busy hours. Forecasting results are vital in making management decisions in call centres and the methods must rely on data acquired from various sources including historical data, trend data and so on. Forecast methods should predict the traffic intensity within the call centre in quarter-hour blocks and convert the results to staffing schedules. Over the years, contact centres have battled against a barrage of negative perceptions, including poor service and long waiting times. In order to improve services while making cost savings, some companies have resorted to outsourcing, however in balance of this, the UK market has not been greatly affected. With the introduction of new technologies, the increasing number of applications available, offer added value to the organisation. These benefits in turn are extended to both customers and employees, providing a more streamlined experience and improved career prospects through training, respectively. |
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