customer contact integration - bt.com

Customer Contact Integration

Integrating processes and systems to offer a complete customer experience

A Datamonitor white paper prepared for

Publication Date: December 2003

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ABOUT DATAMONITOR

Datamonitor plc is a premium business information company specializing in industry analysis.

We help our clients, 5000 of the world’s leading companies, to address complex strategic issues.

Through our proprietary databases and wealth of expertise, we provide clients with unbiased expert analysis and in-depth forecasts for six industry sectors: Automotive, Consumer Markets, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, Technology.

Datamonitor maintains its headquarters in London and has regional offices in New York, Frankfurt and Hong Kong.

Customer Contact Integration © Datamonitor (Published October 2003) This report is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

This paper will enable readers to:

1. Understand the variety of channels available to customers and organisations

There are a number of channels through which an organisation can interact with its customers, but not all of these will necessarily be relevant to every organisation. It is important for every business to select the right channels and to develop a relevant multi-channel strategy.

2. Understand the importance of channel integration

Too many companies provide a range of channels to their customers but don’t integrate them. This leads to customer service silos and confusion across the enterprise, which in turn leads to dissatisfied customers, spiralling costs and missed sales opportunities.

3. Expand your multi-channel strategy outside of the contact centre

The contact centre should be the first point of contact for your customers, but how can this be expanded to take in partners, home workers, the branch network and offshore locations? How do organisations integrate front and back office systems in order to deliver true end-to-end processes and achieve a full customer experience?

4. Develop a multi-channel strategy for your organisation

The white paper takes the reader step by step through the processes required for you to become a multi-channel organisation, from developing the strategy to implementing it. It also considers the effects on all the stakeholders in the organisation, from customers to employees and partners, as well as the effects on organisational culture and business processes.



A WORLD OF CONFUSION: HOW THINGS ARE TODAY

The multi-channel world

The number of contact channels available to customers has grown significantly over the last decade. Where previously a customer would pick up the telephone, send a letter or walk into a branch or shop, they can now also send an email, click on a Website, send an SMS, or communicate through their digital TV. With the usage of these ‘new channels’ expected to further increase over the next decade, many companies are facing a deluge of contacts that they cannot deal with effectively.

Table 1: Which channel to use? Channel Uses Pros Cons

Branch / shop Developing a high street presence

• Very interactive • Excellent for up- &

cross-sell

• Very expensive • Inconvenient –

rarely 24/7

Telephone

Inbound & outbound customer service and sales & marketing activities using agents or automation technology

• Ubiquitous • Cheaper than a

branch & still relatively personal

• Cross- & up-sell • Can cut costs

through self-service

• Agent interaction is expensive

• IVR self-service can be frustrating for customers

• Long hold times during peak hours

Post / fax Distributing product, direct marketing

• Ubiquitous • Effective channel for

product distribution

• Slow • Not interactive

Email Inbound & outbound customer service & marketing

• Cheap & effective outbound marketing

• Popular channel for certain groups

• Email penetration still not 100%

• Slow responses • Inbound expensive

Internet FAQs, order tracking, downloads, text chat, Web collaboration

• Personalisation, good for cross- & up-sell

• Cheap • 24/7 access

• Internet penetration still not 100%

• Rarely interactive • Assisted service is

often unreliable

Mobile WAP info, inbound & outbound messaging

• Mobiles and SMS very popular

• 24/7 access

• Slow uptake of WAP, 2.5G, 3G

• Intrusive Digital TV (iTV)

Service, transactions, messaging

• iTV is popular • Interactive

• Slow uptake of interactive features

Source: Datamonitor D A T A M O N I T O R



Large organisations must offer their customers multiple contact and self-service channels

As Table 1 illustrates, each customer contact channel has its pros and cons and different channels are suited to different types of companies, product lines, levels and types of contact, and types of customer. Large organisations need to provide multiple contact channels, but they also need to focus on providing the most appropriate channels for their products and their customer base. They also need to minimise costs, so the aim is to provide the highest possible level of service at the lowest possible cost. One of the most successful ways to achieve this is to offer customers effective self-service channels.

The most expensive part of any customer service request, whether it is taking a call in a call centre, replying to a customer email or serving someone in a branch, is the cost of the person providing the service. Datamonitor estimates, for example, that 60% of all call centre costs in the UK are labour costs. Allowing customers to serve themselves on the Web or over the phone using speech recognition or advanced IVR will generate efficiency savings, leading to a clear return on any technology investments. However, companies must understand the limits of self-service channels and must allow customers the opportunity to speak with a human being, as no self-service solution will ever answer every customer query.

The problem: non-integrated channels and customer service silos

Customer demands and competitive pressures have forced large organisations to take a multi-channel approach to customer service, and financial pressures are currently driving significant investment in self-service technologies. Despite this, poor customer service remains an issue across all industries and government bodies, and the main reason for this is lack of channel integration.

Too many organisations offer multiple contact channels to their customers but continue to operate these channels independently from each other, resulting in the creation of customer service silos. Most customers have had the experience of sending an email or a letter to an organisation and either not receiving a response or receiving an inappropriate or unhelpful response. The customer will then try a more direct method of contact, for example phoning a call centre or walking into a branch, only to find that the person dealing with their request has no knowledge of any previous interactions, and the customer ends up having to explain everything again from the beginning. This lack of communication is a result of poor channel integration.



However, taking an integrated approach to customer contact is about more than just integrating channels. Front office applications, whether they are being used by agents or by customers for self-service purposes, must be integrated with back office applications if they are to function effectively. In addition to customer databases, front office applications must also be integrated with supply chain and accounting applications, for example. If applications are integrated seamlessly, when a customer orders a CD on the Web or a citizen asks a call centre agent to send out a council tax assessment form, the customer facing application will set off a number of processes that will automatically deal with billing, payment, credit checking, fulfilment and any number of other processes that are required to complete a transaction.

The dangers of a non-integrated approach to customer service for an organisation are significant and are discussed in more detail below.

Lost revenues

Every interaction can contain the seeds of a sales opportunity, however small. Clearly, crudely pushing products every time a customer is on the phone is not the best way to exploit this opportunity, but unless information is shared between departments and across channels, many sales opportunities simply slip through the net.

Table 2: An example of non-integrated channels leading to a lost sale A customer has arranged a mortgage over the telephone with her bank manager, but has decided not to take the life insurance offered by the bank, as she believes shopping around will get her a better deal. After the mortgage has been arranged the customer logs into her current account with the same bank to check her balance. Since last speaking with the customer, the bank has reduced its life insurance rates to a level at which the customer would have signed up. However, the bank does not advertise this new life insurance on the customer’s personalized homepage and after she logs off from her current account page she surfs the Web and signs up for a less attractive policy with one of the bank’s competitors. Source: Datamonitor D A T A M O N I T O R

Organisational inefficiency

Not integrating channels means that data collected through one channel is not effectively shared throughout the organisation. This leads to increased costs resulting from the duplication of information and the time spent collecting that information. In addition, information collected through one channel may be in a different form to that



collected through another channel, which can lead to data quality issues and consequently poorly executed marketing campaigns.

Table 3: An example of non-integrated channels causing organizational inefficiency

A citizen requests a parking permit on the internet and he is sent a form to fill in. The form is returned and a permit is sent out, but it does not reach the citizen. Frustrated, he calls the council, but the agent does not have access to the information that was originally sent and has to take down all of the information again and create a new permit for the citizen. The phone call lasts 20 minutes, and costs the council £10. Source: Datamonitor D A T A M O N I T O R

Reduced customer satisfaction

The most significant long-term effect of not integrating channels is reduced customer satisfaction. Every time a customer receives a less than satisfactory service because information is not shared across channels, he or she becomes a less loyal customer. If the majority of a company’s business is transactional, dissatisfied customers will simply, and usually without the company’s knowledge, stop purchasing from the company. And they will probably encourage their friends, family and colleagues to do the same. As these customers were mostly anonymous in the first place, getting them back can be virtually impossible.

For companies that base their businesses upon customer relationships, poor customer service leads to an increase in customer churn and makes it impossible to improve those all important measures of cross- and up-sell rates and average revenue per user (ARPU). De-regulation and international competition mean that customers can now choose from a range of utilities providers, communications companies, banks, insurers, airlines and hotels – why would they choose a company that do not treat them properly? A recent Datamonitor survey1 into consumer attitudes across Europe found that 7% or respondents frequently switched suppliers after receiving poor customer service, and another 30% would seriously consider doing so.

1 Source: ‘CRM: A Customer Satisfaction survey’ (Datamonitor, 2002)



Inconsistent messages

Without integrating channels it is hard to give a consistent message to all customers and to present a clear brand message. If a company is giving a different message on the Web from the one in the branch or over the telephone, customers start to lose trust. And it is not just customer relationships that are damaged by providing an inconsistent message. Employees, business partners, citizens and investors all demand consistent messages if they are to fully support an organisation.

CHANNEL INTEGRATION AND THE MULTI-CHANNEL CONTACT CENTRE

Too many companies and government agencies provide multiple contact channels but have not integrated these channels effectively. How can an organisation solve this problem in order to increase revenues and become more efficient? The steps detailed below describe how an organisation can generate a significant return on investment (ROI) by investing in technology and organisational change that will enable it to streamline its business processes.

Contact integration, multi-channel contact centres and intelligent routing

The answer is to integrate channels, to use one unified customer database and to build a central knowledge base from which to serve customers. Creating a multimedia contact centre allows an organization to serve its customers more effectively and efficiently. In a multimedia contact centre, all types of contact (email, phone call, text chat, etc.) are placed in a single universal queue and are routed to the agent or self-service system using a single set of business rules. The criteria for the contact routing could include customer value (e.g. platinum card holder), agent skills (e.g. languages spoken or sales / service agent) and media type (e.g. phone call, Web chat).

Figure 1 is a conceptual diagram of the IT infrastructure of typical organisation. It illustrates where the most common IT applications sit within the organisation and how the various stakeholders (customers, employees, business partners, etc.) interact with these applications.



In the centre of the diagram sit the core applications that are used to run a business: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to manage the accounts and payroll, Supply Chain Management (SCM) to manage inventories and supplier relationships, CRM applications (sales, service and marketing automation) to manage relationships with customers, any vertical; specific applications (e.g. core banking or travel booking applications), and business intelligence and analytics to tie all these applications together and allow the organisation to analyse its effectiveness.

Figure 1: Conceptual diagram of an organisation’s ICT infrastructure

DemandSupply

Investors/media

Professionalservices

Government Partners

Communities

Distributors

Employees

Suppliers

Customers

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web email Voice Mobile


Integrationlayer

ERP

Verticalcore apps.

Supplychain mgt. Services

xRM

Marketing

Sales

Businessintelligence

DemandSupply

Investors/media


Government Partners

Communities

Distributors

Employees

Suppliers

Customers

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web email Voice MobileWeb email Voice Mobile


ERP

Verticalcore apps.


Marketing

Sales


Communicationschannels

DemandSupply

Investors/media


Government Partners

Communities

Distributors

Employees

Suppliers

Customers

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web

email

Voice

Mobile



Integrationlayer

ERP

Verticalcore apps.


xRM

Marketing

Sales


DemandSupply

Investors/media


Government Partners

Communities

Distributors

Employees

Suppliers

Customers

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web

email

Voice

Mobile

Web

email

Voice

Mobile



ERP

Verticalcore apps.


Marketing

Sales


Communicationschannels


The problem that all organisations face is that stakeholders, both within and outside the organisation, must have access to these applications and the data contained in them. Although customers and citizens are the primary focus of this white paper, it should be remembered that the number of stakeholders is in fact far greater, from employees, suppliers and partners to the media, investors and other government agencies.

These stakeholders can access the applications through a number of channels, albeit with varying levels access – the CEO will have very different levels of access than a call centre agent or citizen, for example. In order to avoid the pitfalls described in the previous section, an organisation must aim to integrate the different communication



channels through a unified contact centre infrastructure. While it is unlikely that any large organisations would build one contact centre to deal with every single type of interaction, existing call centres can certainly be expanded to deal with other channels or stakeholders. Once contact centre infrastructure has been expanded and the channels integrated, it is then possible for an organisation to begin routing contact more intelligently and to fully benefit from a more integrated customer contact environment.

In order to intelligently route contacts, a contact centre must integrate the universal queue with the customer database using computer telephony integration (CTI). A CTI application links data to a telephone call so that it can be identified and then routed to the most appropriate location. A common use for CTI applications is a screen pop, where customer data is ‘popped’ on to an agent’s screen, allowing him or her to serve a customer immediately without having to go through the customer’s details in order to access account information.

Telephone calls and other media cannot be intelligently routed to the agent if they cannot be identified and categorised first. On the most basic level, this could be identifying the customer’s telephone number or email address and routing the contact based on their location. More sophisticated routing takes place when the contact is identified and then cross-referenced with the customer database. Once the customer has been identified, the call can be routed using a number of criteria, for example based on the customer’s profitability, or more simply an agent with whom the customer has spoken before.

Integrating channels and investing in multimedia routing capabilities allows companies to achieve a number of goals:

• Increased customer satisfaction - contacts are routed to the most appropriate place and can be answered more effectively. This could mean routing a call from a French customer to a French-speaking agent, or it could mean routing a call to an agent that the customer has spoken too before. During peak hours it could mean routing a call to an IVR rather than making a customer wait in a queue for 15 minutes. The more effectively and quickly the customer’s request is answered, the more satisfied the customer will be. And happy customers spend more money;



• Business efficiency - Routing contacts to the most appropriate agent or self-service system means that customers are more likely have their questions answered the first time, which reduces both the average length of calls and call back rates. Customers can also be routed to the most appropriate channel for their level of profitability. A low-value customer could be routed to an IVR (average interaction cost: 73p), while a high value customer will have his or her call answered immediately by an agent (average interaction cost: £6.33 – over 8 times the cost of IVR) so as to keep him or her as happy as possible2;

• Increased revenues - Intelligent routing increases customer satisfaction, which itself leads to increased revenues, and routing contacts based on customer value ensures that the best customers receive the most appropriate level of service. Routing contacts based on the customer’s likelihood to purchase additional products or services also leads to increased cross- and up-sell activity, vital in industries that are focusing on increasing average revenue per user (ARPU). Datamonitor estimates that in 2001, 8.1% of online transactions were abandoned as a direct result of poor customer service (e.g. the customer could not find the information they required on the Web site so abandoned the transaction), costing businesses $14bn that could have been saved through providing better customer service3;

• Enabling employees and maximising investments – One of the problems with the silo approach to running a multi-channel business is that customer sales and service employees, the public face of an organisation, find it hard to do their job. Without access to consistent customer and product information, customer-facing employees cannot provide the levels of service expected of them. Channel integration allows organisations to get the most out of both their employees and their technology investments by aligning the two. In a customer-facing environment such as a contact centre, agent salaries and benefits account for 60% of all costs, so allowing the agents to work more efficiently and implementing integrated end-to-end processes will generate significant savings.

Customer Contact Integration © Datamonitor (Published October 2003)

2 Source: ’20:20 CRM’ (Contact Babel / Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, 2002)

3 Source: ‘Online for the Holidays’ (Datamonitor, 2002)

This report is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied


• Flexibility – an integrated approach to customer contact allows organisations to add and remove contact channels more easily, and to deploy resources more effectively. This makes it easier to deal with peaks and troughs in contact levels, for example due to seasonal changes or responses to successful advertising and marketing campaigns.

The importance of data integration

In order to effectively serve its customers, a company must analyse customer and product data. The quality and accuracy of this data is therefore of paramount importance, and companies must address data quality issues before they can reap the benefits of channel integration. Basing a channel integration strategy on poor quality data would, in fact, cause more harm than good.

More specifically, poor quality can lead to the following negative results:

• Ineffective marketing campaigns – targeting the wrong customers in the wrong way not only wastes money but can also destroy customer relationships and may be illegal. For example, sending an unsolicited email (‘spam’) to a customer that asked you not do to this on the telephone the day before. The amount of junk mail that customers have to sort through every day is huge (for example, it is currently estimated that spam accounts for 41% of the emails sent everyday), so any outbound communication has to stand out form the crowd;

• Poor quality personalisation – there is little point in investing technology that generates personalized marketing materials, Web sites or can route contacts based on customer value and preferences if the data being used to make the personalisation or routing decisions is incorrect;



• Security issues – mismanaging secure customer data or mixing up data that is used for security purposes (e.g. passwords) can lead to very unhappy customers, expensive compensation and potential legal action. IT security is a real threat for British business – recent survey by the Department of Trade and Industry and PriceWaterhouseCoopers4 found that 44% of British business experienced a malicious security breach in the last year;

• Unhappy customers and employees – customers that are identified incorrectly, for example having their name spelt wrong on a bill or being targeted with inappropriate contacts, become frustrated and usually complain. Dealing with these contacts incurs additional costs and also leads to unhappy and frustrated customer facing staff. Staff retention is a serious issue in many customer-facing environments – attrition rates in British call centre currently run at 48% - so anything that improves employee satisfaction and reduces attrition will save an organisation money.

Knowledge bases and consistent customer service

Once a customer request has been directed to an agent or a self-service system, that agent or system must have access to information that is needed to answer and serve the customer, otherwise the money that has been invested in getting the contact to the agent has been wasted.

Excellence in customer service can only be achieved if agent and self-service applications have access to a suitable knowledge base. A knowledge base is a centralised store of customer support information that can be accessed by people or applications providing customer service, from call centre agents to email management applications. The knowledge base both stores its own information and extracts information from other systems, such as the customer database or product databases and catalogues. Organisations must ensure that all customer service channels have access to the knowledge base, and that it is kept up to date.

Customer Contact Integration © Datamonitor (Published October 2003)

4 Source: ‘Information Security Breaches Survey 2002’ (PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the DTI, 2002)

This report is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied


Figure 2: Using a knowledge base to power customer service

Phone Email Textchat Web Speech

recognition IVR Automatedemail Mobile

Knowledge base

Customer data

Agent assisted service Self service

Product data

Phone Email Textchat Web Speech

recognition IVR Automatedemail Mobile

Knowledge base

Customer data

Agent assisted service Self service

Product data


Figure 2 illustrates how a knowledge base works in a customer service environment. The contact will be routed either to an agent (via the telephone, email or a text chat session) or a self-service system such as an IVR or Web-based solution. If an agent is dealing with the enquiry, he or she will have access to the knowledge base on his or her desktop and will use it to answer customer queries (e.g. is the car the customer requires available in metallic paint at no extra cost?). In a self-service environment, the self-service application will use some form of natural language recognition to isolate the key words and search the knowledge base, returning the most likely answers to the customer. Of course, in a self-service environment there will be times when the system does not return the correct answer to the customer, and if this is the case the customer must be allowed to escalate the request to an agent.



Building a knowledge base allows an organisation to achieve the following:

• Increase business efficiency and improve end-to-end business processes – a significant proportion of agent time is spent finding answers to customers’ questions. Providing the agents with access to an effective knowledge base will allow them to serve customers more efficiently and effectively, thereby reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction;

• Build an effective self-service channel – Self-service channels can be very good at automating simple tasks (‘What is my account balance?’, ‘Where is my order?’), but more complicated questions are escalated to the contact centre. Powering self-service channels with a knowledge base will allow you to support more complex requests.

BECOMING AN INTEGRATED, MULTI-CHANNEL ORGANISATION

The problem is a proliferation of channels that are not integrated effectively, which results in lost revenues, unhappy customers and increasing costs. The solution is to integrate these channels and to become a true multi-channel organisation. This chapter describes the steps needed to become an integrated, multi-channel organization.

Develop a multi-channel strategy

Simply deciding to become a multi-channel organisation does not amount to having a multi-channel strategy. Considering an organisation’s customer base and its portfolio of products and services, it must determine which are the right channels to invest in. It is important to realise that while different products may require different approaches, an enterprise-wide strategy is vital. Otherwise companies lose economies of scale and cross- and up-sell opportunities, especially across product lines.



Issues to consider when developing a multi-channel strategy include:

• Be sure to exploit existing investments in technology and people. Every organisation has invested significantly in existing technology and in training people to use that technology. Any sensible multi-channel strategy should aim not to rip out existing technology and business processes, but to integrate them so that they work more effectively together;

• Consider the effects of any changes on wider business processes and the people that carry out these processes. For example, changing the online ordering system may affect the back office supply chain systems or on the way an organisation’s partners distribute its products. Therefore, these process may also need to be changed, and the people who carry out these processes re-trained or re-tasked;

• Organisations must develop channel strategies that both deliver benefits internally (to the organisation) and externally (to its customers). The aim is to provide the highest level of customer service, but at the same time to maximise efficiency – there is no value in having a delighted customer that spends £10 per year if it costs £100 to serve them. Developing a self-service strategy is vital, and customer segmentation can be valuable for companies looking to build longer-term customer relationships;

• Consider relationships with distribution partners. It is important not to cannibalise revenue streams or harm important relationships, particularly when moving to more direct distribution models;

• Consider access issues. Companies with a largely transactional business model and those with obligations to certain sectors of the population should invest primarily in mass-market channels. For example, a company that is selling software on the Web should focus on the Web and Email channels for customer support, but a company selling holidays to pensioners should understand that many of its potential customers will not have access to the Internet and therefore it must invest in telephone and branch support. In the public sector, access must be available to all, so organizations should invest primarily in mass-market channels but also consider the needs of particular citizens, such as the very old, non-English speakers and those with disabilities.



Build a customer service and product knowledge base

Allowing customers to contact organisations through multiple channels is just the beginning. Once they have got in touch, they will expect their questions to be answered! Building an enterprise-wide knowledge base will allows an organisation to improve the performance of all its customer-facing employees and roll out effective self-service channels. As a result, it will be able to generate efficiencies and increase customer satisfaction, and therefore increase long-term profitability.

Issues to consider when building a customer service knowledge base include:

• Organisations must draw expertise and information from multiple sources. Seeking external advice, speaking to customers, employees and partners and ensuring that the knowledge base integrates with the other systems is important. In many cases, the data must be provided in real time, especially customer and transaction data;

• Maintain and update the knowledge base. An organisation is not static and neither are its customers - its knowledge base shouldn’t be either. It is also important to consider data security and legal compliance, such as with the Data Protection Act;

• An enterprise should give anyone or any system that has regular contact with its customers access to the knowledge base, including agents, the branch, field employees, partners and self-service systems.

Focus on data integration and quality

If an organization is going to base its customer service strategy on data - customer, product or otherwise - it had better be good data. Basing a business strategy upon poor customer and product data can do more harm that good.

Issues to consider when focusing on data integration and quality include:

• Draw data from multiple sources, including CRM, SCM, ERP and other applications, but always focus on data quality. Although customer can sometimes seem unwilling to supply organizations with personal data, rewarding them with special offers and competitions can be an effective ways of gathering new customer and data on existing customers;



• Consider the implications of the Data Protection Act and other privacy legislation, as well as legislation from the EU and other countries you may be trading in. Always seek robust specialist advice.

Build a multi-channel contact centre with a universal queue

Once the foundations are in place it is time to integrate channels and build a universal queue in the contact centre. The most effective way to deliver a multi-channel strategy is through a multimedia contact centre. And the only way to reap the real benefits of multi channel strategy – increased revenues, organisational efficiency and improved customer satisfaction – is by implementing a universal queue.

Issues to consider when building a multi-channel contact centre and universal queue include:

• A multi-channel organisation has to integrate the front and back office as well as across channels. Customer facing staff and self-service systems must have access to billing applications, order tracking systems and warehouse inventory if they are to serve the customer effectively. For many organisations, opening up access to systems that were once the preserve of specialist staff can seem a frightening prospect, but if security and access issues are considered properly than the benefits far outweigh and potential risks or changes of process that may be required.

• Consider investing in or migrating to IP telephony as a way to effectively integrate channels and reduce the cost of multimedia contact centre. More information on the benefits of IP telephony can be found in another white paper produced by Datamonitor entitled Customer Contact Effectiveness;

• Invest in self-service channels, but provide alternatives for contacts that require more interaction and customers that are unhappy communicating with machines;



• Consider moving towards a blended environment, across different media channels (e.g. an agent may deal with email and telephone calls), product lines (i.e. an agent could deal with enquiries concerning both gas and electricity accounts) and working environments (e.g. home, office). Flexible working and blending increases the variety of employees’ work and therefore improves satisfaction and retention rates. It also leads to improved cross- and up-sell rates, but must be backed up with adequate training and an incentive structure;

• Invest in the people that will be staffing the multimedia contact centre. The skill sets required from agents will be greater, but the investment will be recouped through increased efficiency and increased revenues.

Virtualise and extend the contact centre

Once the multimedia contact centre is in place and working effectively, it is possible to begin to blur the boundaries between it and the rest of the organisation. The contact centre is the perfect first point of contact, but no matter how well trained the agents and how good the knowledge base, it is inevitable that sometimes the right person to deal with the query will sit elsewhere in the organisation. In addition, companies with multiple contact centres, including ones in offshore locations (e.g. India) can link these together.

As sales and service environments become extended, barriers diminish. With access to the right systems, many more employees can participate in the sales and customer service process, bringing out expertise that was once hidden to the customer. While this is a big step for many organizations and employees, with the right management and training in place, the benefits are significant. The customer benefits from increased access to the organization, and the organization benefits from improved customer focus.

Issues to consider when virtualising and extending the contact centre include:

• Linking branch networks into the contact centre infrastructure allows organisations to deal with high contact volumes more effectively, while making use of branch employees during their quiet times. In addition, allowing customers to speak with their local branch allows for the provision of a more personalised service;



• In industries where agent retention is an issue, allowing agents to work at home helps reduce turnover. However, management can be an issue and organisations must ensure that quality levels are maintained;

• Contact centre consolidation can generate significant benefits and can be achieved by virtualising call centres rather than through physical consolidation. Again, effective management is vital for ensuring quality of service;

• Access to knowledge bases and customer data can be extended to key partners, such as suppliers, resellers and other government agencies;

• Organizations looking to increase service levels and / or reduce costs should consider outsourcing. The outsourcing market is extremely competitive and providers are flexible with regard to what to outsource and how to pay for it;

• Mobile employees, including field sales and service employees, professional services employees, and executives and managers that spend a lot of their time travelling, often need access to the organisation’s systems while out of the office. Organisations should look to offer these employees remote and mobile access whenever it is cost effective;

• IP technology allows companies to be much more flexible and can act as an enabler for all of the processes described above. More information on the benefits of IP can be found in another white paper produced by Datamonitor entitled Customer Contact Effectiveness.



DATAMONITOR CONCLUSIONS

Too many organisations offer poor customer service as a result of not integrating channels

Offering multiple channels is all very well, but too many organisations create customer service silos. Once an organisation has selected and implemented the right customer contact channels, it is time to integrate them. If this goal is not achieved, it will face spiralling costs, unhappy customers and missed sales opportunities.

A customer and product knowledge base will maximse investmenta in multi-channel contact

Ensuring that customers can reach an organisation whenever they want and then routing them to the right place is only the beginning. The customer still needs to be served, and using a knowledge base to power self-service applications and assist employees is the best way to ensure customer satisfaction.

The walls of the contact centre are falling down

The contact centre is the best place to initially field customer service enquiries, but too many companies fail to exploit resources that lie elsewhere within the organisation. Companies should look at extending their contact centre to include branch networks, back-office workers, home workers, partners, outsourcers and offshore locations. IP technology can act as an enabler for companies wishing to achieve this.

Any new multi-channel investment should look to exploit existing investments

Every large organization has already invested millions of pounds in its existing customer contact infrastructure, from basic PBX’s to the most advanced Web-based applications. Integrating legacy applications is always expensive, and in an ideal world all of the old technology could be ripped out and replaced with the latest pre-integrated technology. However, in the real world this is not possible, so organisations need to find ways exploit and upgrade existing investments. The most



effective way to achieve this is extend existing applications to deal with the demands of the multi-channel world, for example by turning traditional call centres into multimedia contact centres and providing field employees with remote and mobile access to key applications.

The distinction between sales and service is disappearing

One of the key drivers to investing contact channel integration technology is to improve sales performance, particularly through increased cross- and up-sell activities. Intelligent routing puts customer services representative in the perfect position to help companies in the telecoms, financial services and utilities markets improve customer retention and average revenues per user (ARPU).

Integrating channels is about more than just technology

The ultimate aim of any channel integration strategy is to improve end-to-end business processes, and technology is a key enable to achieving this. Organisations must consider the business processes that they wish to improve and then select the most appropriate technology to achieve this. Once the technology has been installed, it important is to adapt business processes to align with any changes to organisation, employees and technology.

This is often means significant changes to organisational structures and the roles of different parts of the organisation, and it is important that these are implemented in the right way in order to avoid widespread employee dissatisfaction. Any changes must be backed up appropriate training and changes to remuneration structures that encourage employees to adapt to new business models and reward those that contribute to improvements in business performance.


customer contact integration - bt.com

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