Technology endows services through call centers

Simply using a call center is no longer a differentiating factor. Instead, businesses are focusing their attention on the innovations and improvements in call center technologies. Technical advancements in call center technology have allowed the introduction of new telephony-based direct marketing techniques and methods. The advancements in CTI technology that have taken place during a short span of two to three years, open up most exciting and rewarding opportunities. With hands on experience in various spheres of marketing and sales, I witness a revolution in almost every sphere of sales and services or the sphere of direct customer contact. Sales promotion, advertising, public relations, customer care and strategic marketing, the convergence technology has finally come to turn a marketer's most passionate dreams into reality.

As call center managers develop their strategies for the year 2001, several principles should guide decision making and provide the foundation for planning and design work.

Principle 1

Give customers choice: Customers will expect to choose how they interact with you, and your service must be by their standards and by the media of their choice. Telephone service cannot be the only media for customer service. 

Principle 2

Provide access anytime anywhere: Access to the services will be 24x7, from where ever the customer chooses.

Principle 3

Enable customers to help themselves: Customers will have an access to information and can choose self-service or agent-assisted service. Many customers will prefer to find information or initiate transactions on their own.

Principle 4

Personalize every customer interaction: Every transaction should personalize the service so that each customer is treated like the only customer. This level of customization may be based on the type of customer, past transaction history, or other critical flags that may be set by the business.

Principle 5

Know your customers: Employees and systems will know the customer and build on that knowledge with every customer contact. 

Principle 6

Enable employees to deliver great service: Employees are the cornerstone to great service and must be enabled with the right tools, processes and information so that they are empowered to help the customer.

Principle 7

Demand to be the best and measure your performance toward this goal: The only standard is excellence, and the only way to achieve excellence is to measure your success with every transaction and over time.

Principle 8

Be Innovative: Let's look at some of the innovative new services that can be offered as a call center:

Homework Hotline

Parents can find out whether their children have been assigned homework by calling a computer telephony system. They enter a special identification code and listen to a recorded message telling them about the work assigned. Teachers can enter this information easily by calling the system and recording their comments for each class they teach. 

Truancy Reporting

Students who do not report to school have their names entered into a database along with the day and date of their absence. A computer telephony system uses the list to place telephone calls automatically to their parents. Parents who answer these calls are prompted to enter a special code. They hear a recording, informing them of their child's absence. If the parent authorized the absence, they can so indicate by entering a Touch-Tone digit. If not, the absence is noted in the student's record. 

Patient Information

Hospitals can use an automated attendant and messaging system to free the switchboard for more important matters. Callers who need to reach patients or find out about their status call in and enter the patient's last name. The system transfers the call to the patient's room, if appropriate, or plays a recorded message about the patient's condition. Callers can also leave messages for the patient. In addition, the hospital provides recorded information about visiting hours. 

Elder Check

Computer telephony systems can be used to automatically call the elderly and homebound on a regular schedule. If the call is not answered a social worker or volunteer can be dispatched to check on the person.

Surprisingly, many call centers still struggle with the basics of providing acceptable telephone service and, in some cases, do not even do that well. The gap between world-class call centers and the average call centers is growing as the best improve faster and the average get bogged down in old processes that cannot be fixed with small incremental improvements.

Source: Manoj Hasija

Consulting Division, Sapphire Callnet