Original Publication: Customer Management Insight - August 2008
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Whether you’re a full-blown technophile, or a casual user of the Internet, chances are your life has been affected significantly as a result of the Web 2.0 revolution. Perhaps you’re reading this article because you discovered it on your favorite blog, or you were referred to the link by a friend during an instant messaging (IM) session. Even traditional forms of communication, such as conferencing and telephony, have transitioned to the Internet platform. Internet protocol (IP) is allowing businesses to tap into the power of the Web to create corporate campaigns and programs, establish more flexible work environments and connect with customers in new ways.
When establishing new customer service strategies, global organizations need to take several things into consideration. As we continue to converge the business world with the Internet, there are growing opportunities on both the business side and the consumer side.
On the business side, IP is a driving force behind the “agent anywhere” approach to customer service. This saves companies the additional cost of leasing a larger facility and allows agents greater schedule flexibility and life/work balance. Additionally, companies have access to a previously untapped labor pool. They aren’t limited to hiring professionals in their specific geographic area, opening the door to a variety of expert resources across a particular region or country.
On the consumer side, the Internet is playing a critical role in how consumers conduct their research and make purchases, giving them even more information and purchasing power. Whether they’re buying a car, an article of clothing or a toy for their child, shoppers are tapping into the Web in a big way. They search for information on how brands and prices compare, the “must have” features versus the fully loaded versions and what others are saying/writing about the item, along with the best online source to make their purchases. Who’s to say that a competitor doesn’t offer more options at a lower cost?
Exploring the “Agent Anywhere” Model
There are thousands of virtual contact center agents in the United States, a movement that represents a growing global trend. IP serves as one of the greatest enablers of the virtual contact center model; it helps facilitate dynamic remote interactions by allowing access to a broad group of knowledge workers or experts who reside in different locations within an organization — often outside the contact center itself.
The Blended Workforce
With IP, the transition between a work-at-home agent and the customer is seamless to the outside world. It enables calls to be routed to agents working in their homes, to domain experts in departments across the organization, or to their counterparts working within a traditional contact center environment itself. Over the next several years, traditional TDM (time division multiplexing) equipment will have run its course, becoming outdated and obsolete — further fueling IP migration.
Also driving the success of the “agent anywhere” model is workforce optimization (WFO) — software that bundles quality monitoring and recording, workforce management, performance management, eLearning and analytics functionality together in concert as a solution. WFO is designed to help plan, forecast and schedule the entire staff, in both the physical and the virtual center, and measure and analyze their performance equally. By implementing performance management scorecards, managers can closely align the center with organizational goals, tracking center, team and individual sales, service and support. With this pulse on performance, and through the power of the Web, organizations also are able to remotely deploy eLearning tools, which can be as simple as a text-based lesson or as complex as video demonstrations, on-screen application/user recordings and high-end animation through high bandwidth connections.
There couldn’t be a better example of how a business can use eLearning software than in a home-based agent environment. Especially when browser-based, eLearning can be delivered and taken from any remote location as long as the Internet is accessible. By offering training through a browser, companies can avoid having to fly teams of trainers to different locations — a huge cost savings. Additionally, when a topic needs to be updated, the new updates are instantly available to the remote agents via the Web.
Lowering Costs
Additionally, the virtual contact center model continues to reduce costs and provide a solid alternative to offshoring — which can even be viewed as a competitive differentiator. This remote, agent-friendly model also gives way to building an employee base with access to a previously untapped workforce that may not have applied for contact center jobs before. Schedule flexibility fosters staff retention and helps reduce some of the operational costs associated with running an inhouse center. A recent study shows that home-based agents are 25 percent more productive than those that operate out of the physical center and, with no real estate costs to worry about, are on average $10.00 per hour less expensive to maintain. With the power of IP, companies can realize these competitive advantages across their call center and customer service operations.
Collaborating with the Customer in a Web 2.0 World
Another realization in the world of customer service and how it relates back to the Internet is that more and more businesses are realizing that they must transition traditional customer relations practices in accordance with today’s trends. They must engage their customers through multiple channels.
Gen-Next Customers
As the next generation — those being raised during the Web 2.0 era — become consumers, businesses must embrace the Web as a communications platform, or risk being left behind. This requires forward-thinking organizations to make an internal transition and revisit their processes, staff skill requirements and training.
Enterprises are discovering the value in hearing customer perspectives and are using the information extracted from the company’s contact center to improve service delivery, products and support. In part, customers are driving them to do so by posting messages about their poor service experiences to blogs, YouTube and other online resources that draw in millions of readers and viewers.
Service in the Now
Already there are many emergent practices that bode well for collaboration and communication on the Web. Some businesses are already moving in the right direction; for instance, they’re enabling their customers to contact an agent directly on a Web site by clicking the “talk to a live agent now” button, or to communicate with agents via email regarding product changes and order cancellations. As a result, the agent profile and role is also evolving. Agents must master Web-based communications tools, such as chat and email. They must apply customer service best practices and etiquette appropriate to the Web-based channel they are serving. And they must be able to multitask more and better than ever before.
A Brave New World
Open standards and IP telephony applications are enabling and promoting cross-channel service, an enterprisewide approach to quality and the customer experience, and a workforce that extends far beyond the four walls of today’s customer contact centers. Advanced Internet technologies and integration with organizational CRM systems are helping staff handle complex customer issues more quickly and effectively during interactions via the phone, email, chat and even video.
Today’s IP contact centers are facilitating a greater level of customer interaction analytics, allowing businesses to strategically mine recorded speech and data across multiple channels to gather actionable intelligence on customer wants and needs. Companies are doing more than solving individual customer queries; they are now able to use that information throughout the enterprise.
The power of IP and the Internet has introduced any number of new ways to do business, the benefits of which we are just beginning to realize.
