CONTACT CENTER CORNER: Doing More With Less: Just Add Software

Doug Mohney — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:17:05 -0400

Doing More with Less: Just Add Software

With budgets tightening and customer expectations rising, the push from on high is for the best bang for the buck out of the call center, says Customer Inter@ction Solutions. Executives selling solutions in the contact center space believe technology investments in call centers can provide greater productivity and more revenue in tighter times.

Unified communications gets a big push, including a unified agent solution to optimize agent performance. A more efficient call solution means happier customers and more calls processed, with improving first-time call resolution and by shortening problem-resolution cycles. UC also can provide the opportunity to more effectively up-sell services and products to prospective customers because "hot button" topics have been more easily identified and handed off to appropriate subject matter experts.

Other solutions include correctly implemented self-service tools to automate routine tasks while transferring more complex transactions to an agent and predictive dialers. Voice self-service can also aid in sensitive areas where callers may not want to talk to an agent, such as difficulty with financial issues. Advanced outbound dialer technology can maximize the number of calls handled and ensure agencies reach customers at the right time to improve sales rates and increase debt collection.

Speech analytics also gets high marks for providing data to understand both conceptual and contextual information from recorded and in-progress customer interactions. Data mined from these interactions can provide insight to sales, marketing, customer support, and business operations.

For more:
- CRM Buyer's Software to Save the Contact Center, Part 1 piece

Agent Performance

CONTACT CENTER CORNER: Doing More With Less: Just Add Software