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Expert forum
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We
hear a lot about converting contact
centers into profit centers. How are
companies doing this? |
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Contiuned focus on customer service efficiencies
| 1. |
Improving
agent productivity
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| a. |
Information
about customers and service interactions
is often fragmented across multiple
data sources in the enterprise.
We've seen enterprise contact
center agents get lost in a maze
of applications as they attempt
to find the right information
to serve customers.
Next-generation contact center
applications, such as those in
eGain's service suite, provide
integration at the user interface
level with other applications
including legacy systems, using
open standards and data adapters.
This empowers agents with single-window
access to all relevant applications
and related information, thereby
dramatically increasing agent
productivity and service quality.
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| b. |
Another
source of inefficiency is fulfilling
customer requests, whether it
is ordering checkbooks in the
retail banking industry or setting
up voice mail services on a subscriber's
cell phone. Service fulfillment
automation, the ability to model
fulfillment workflows and automate
associated tasks, can help speed
up the fulfillment process and
improve agent productivity of
frontline agents as well as others
in the organization that are involved
in the fulfillment process. Customers
of the eGain Service 6 suite have
already started exploiting this
capability to take contact center
productivity to the next level.
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| c. |
Inability
to resolve problems quickly and
efficiently, and service inconsistency
across interaction channels and
agents, lead to repeat calls,
cost-prohibitive escalations and
customer complaints. Arming agents
with centralized knowledge content—both
structured and unstructured—and
flexible access methods to this
content, such as FAQs, search
and knowledge-guided help, can
improve the effectiveness and
efficiencies of in-house as well
as outsourced agents, while driving
down service costs.
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| 2. |
Leveraging
self-service
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Exploiting
self-service is obviously key to reducing
the need for agent-assisted service.
However, companies need to ensure that
they provide the right kind of self-service
access to the right audience for the
right offerings and usage scenarios.
For instance, power users may prefer
search, while non-technical consumers
may prefer interacting with virtual
agents, since the latter approach provides
a human touch to knowledge-guided interactions.
Likewise, knowledge-guided self-service
may be more appropriate for resolving
complex problems and providing situational,
value-added advice, as opposed to search.
Finally, we are finding that providing
easy escalation to agent-assisted service
actually increases self-service adoption,
since end-customers see it as a safety
net and feel more comfortable with self-service.
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Maximizing the value
of service interactions
Our customers are finding
new ways to increase the value of service
interactions by employing one or more of the
following strategies:
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| 1. |
Situational up-sell
and cross-sell: Our knowledge solutions
are guiding customer service agents
to contextually up-sell, cross-sell
and perform other revenue-creating activities
as part of their service interactions.
For instance, some of our telecom customers
use the "contextual next best step"
proposed to agents by our reasoning
technologies to perform additional activities
with customers such as cross-selling,
contract renewals, and so on.
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| 2. |
By
diverting low-value interactions to
self-service, our customers are able
to focus their agents on high-value
interactions, and their most expensive
customer-facing employees on the most
strategic activities.
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| 3. |
Finally,
contact centers are funneling market
intelligence back to development organizations,
adding enterprise-wide value to R&D,
marketing and sales organizations. |
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Adopting a profit-centric
approach to contact center management
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| 1. |
Run the contact
center as a separate P&L business
unit, as opposed to a traditional cost
center that needs to exist as a necessary
"evil."
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| 2. |
Use
holistic metrics that are centered on
profits as opposed to traditional cost-centered
metrics. For instance, these contact
centers look at the overall profitability
of interactions with customers as opposed
to exclusively focusing on cost-centric
measures such as "handle times."
In the telecom sector example mentioned
earlier, where agents perform situational
next best activities, the handle time
for the calls may be high but such interactions
result in top-line revenue and profits
for the contact center and the company.
Among other metrics that are indirectly
related to profits and enterprise value
are service quality, consistency, contextual
revenue generation, and customer satisfaction.
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| 3. |
Provide
value-based service, i.e., treat different
customers differently, the highest-value
customers getting the best service.
Moving low-value customers to self-service
or losing them altogether is the first
step in a profitable customer management
strategy. |
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