CMC Focus On... Call Centres - Part 2

Technology Heavy

There are a lot of negative images of call centres. Are they dark satanic mills? Are they vast rooms full of Matrix-style pods with call agents wired up to the system or warehouses full of human battery-hens?

It's a huge mistake to assume that a contact centre is just a glorified PBX or massive switchboard. In reality, it houses a multitude of specialised applications such as workforce management, quality monitoring and predictive dialling, tightly integrated with the telephony system.

Call centres are hot beds of technology investment. According to a survey conducted by FrontRange Solutions at this year's Call Centre Expo, 96% of respondents expect to invest the same, or more, on communications (e.g. IP telephony, website, call centre or converged technology) in the coming year.

That's a good healthy number and one that will bring a warm glow to the hearts and wallets of vendors. But unfortunately how that money is being spent is not necessarily the most effective way for long term business gain. Of those surveyed, 25% want cost reduction, 18% best practice process improvement and 14% reduced complexity (e.g. by reducing the number of suppliers) from their communications solution.

"It is disappointing to note that an overwhelming 81% fail to seize the opportunity converged technologies offer to prioritise and give their best customers – however defined - the best service and so improve the chances of keeping them," says Alastair Trower, product marketing manager, EMEA, FrontRange Solutions.

So what are they spending on? For 25% of respondents, automated call distribution (ACD) is the most important requirement for their call centre, closely followed by voice self-service (23%), converged applications (22%) and interactive voice recognition(IVR)/skills-based routing (15%). VoIP is firmly in most companies planning. Of those surveyed, 81% have either already implemented, or plan to implement an IP telephony solution over the next 12 months, compared to 67% last year.

So which technologies are the most appropriate?

White Paper

VoIP

From a customer service standpoint, VoIP reduces cost and enables greater leveraging of self-service applications. On an IP infrastructure, Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) systems no longer require telephony cards as both voice and data travel through one converged network which substantially reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) for call centres.

But the reason for investing in this technology is not necessarily as well thought out as it might be. "In many cases, an IP-based telephony implementation on its own will be little more than 'new for old' replacement of outdated technology," Trower believes. "Essentially designed to keep the business going, any cost improvements – however valuable - are exclusively internal. For those end-users who also anticipate external customer-facing gains to accrue to the broader business therefore, VoIP will continue to fall short of expectations."

IP-based call centre systems have been widely available since the late 1990s. Slow progress of IP has been blamed on problems such as poor voice quality, an inability to scale up beyond more than 100 agent positions as well as limited routing and queuing features. But IP can now almost match reliability levels of traditional telephony and there are good enterprise examples of the technology in practice.

But in reality the penetration of VoIP in the UK call centre community is low. A mere 8% of all contact centres in the UK have deployed a pure IP solution, while only a further 27 per cent have deployed a hybrid IP/TDM solution, according to analyst firm ContactBabel.

In the FrontRange study, when asked which benefits were of greatest value to them as individual managers in implementing a VoIP solution, responses focused on internal issues such as reduced call costs (45%), call centre churn (20%) and reduced admin costs (12%). This is a problem as the advantages of IP contact centres aren’t always tangible in costs terms – and in fact most centres will have to invest in upgraded network infrastructures before they can begin.

To date, IP phone handsets are much more expensive than ordinary ones, but although vendors counter this argument with the claim that the reduced cost of needing only one Ethernet port per desk, which can be shared by phone and PC. There are also savings at the centre because, once a VoIP call has been set up, it no longer needs the central gateway, whereas a circuit-switched call continues to occupy a switchboard line.

But IP does of course makes a lot of sense when it comes to setting up and operating virtual call centres, such as those combining offshore and local operations, multiple dispersed UK contact centres and home workers into a single larger one, and for greenfield sites where companies can design their data network from scratch to handle multimedia traffic.

There are other advantages. Traditional call centre technologies are proprietary, meaning any change or upgrades comes at a relatively high cost, but in comparison changes and innovation in an IP telephony environment are less expensive and require less upheaval.

But on the whole, IP contact centre functionality is being deployed off the back of general telephony projects as an add-on to IP PBX installations. As non-verbal contact becomes more prevalent – currently less than 10% according to ContactBabel - IP contact centre functionality can handle any type of contact and route it to an agent irrespective of which channel it arrives on.

Traditional fears about VoIP have begun to disperse. As more people have started to implement IP-based voice systems they have discovered that the voice quality is not as big an issue for end users if for no other reason than that people have become tolerant of poor voice quality in business when using mobile phones.

The reliability of voice quality has also improved as more companies have built IP networks that support Quality of Service (QoS). QoS based networks allow business data and real time critical voice IP packets to co-exist on the same network, but ensure high priority voice packets get to their destination first - so there are no glitches in audio quality.

So the future’s bright? Spending on maintaining and upgrading legacy equipment will still be huge but the investment is swinging in favour of IP technology, according to research firm Datamonitor which predicts that by 2008, half of all telephony platform-spending in call centres will be for IP.

We'll call you back

Call back technology makes sense. Given that being kept on hold is consistently the biggest complaint from callers, an automated call back system gives customers the option of hanging up and being contacted later in the day – in theory.

Call centre queues are getting longer, according to research from callback technology firm Netcall. An analysis of a sample of over 2 million queued calls across seven industry sectors in the first six months of 2006 found that on average, callers at busy periods had to wait just over 12 minutes to speak to a customer service representative, with average waiting time rising from 11 minutes in January to over 15 minutes at busy periods in June.

The average queue time was longest in the Government, health and retail sectors, with queue times of over 30 minutes at busy periods. Utilities kept customers waiting for 20 minutes, while the financial services industry performed slightly better at 19 minutes. Customers calling phone and internet providers or travel and leisure companies at busy periods had to wait for between six and nine minutes.

Richard Farrell, Technical Principal at Netcall said: “The call centre industry faces an almost impossible challenge. Their biggest problem is that they cannot always predict when busy periods will occur. As a result queues can build up when there are more calls than available agents to answer them. It really is as simple as that.

"Given that the average Briton currently spends many hours waiting on-hold every year, it is not surprising that traditional queue handling – whether music or messaging, is becoming increasingly unpopular. When you take into consideration that one bad customer service experience is often all it takes for a caller to switch suppliers, reducing call waiting times should be regarded as critical for organisations."

With a callback systems, callers are played in-queue messaging that gives them the option of a call back within a specific timeframe by pressing a digit on their keypad. Customers who choose not to take the option remain in the queue, but those who choose the option have their call routed to the call back platform where they are prompted to leave their name via a voice recording and the number for the call back using their keypad.

The caller then drops out of the call while the call back system queues back to the automatic call distributor (ACD) skill set. It uses a separate queue to avoid the in-queue messaging and to allow call backs to be counted separately by the management information system. The call is then presented to the agent as a normal inbound call with an announcement of the caller’s name.

From a customer point of view, what it means is that callers can keep their place in the queue without having to wait on the phone. For call centre managers, it helps level out peaks in calls during the day, provide a better quality of service for customers and use agents’ time more effectively. Call back technology helps even out the volume of calls enabling agents to maintain a steady flow, ironing out peaks and troughs in call levels to a manageable rate.

Resarch by the Future Foundation commissioned by Netcall found that 97% of contact centre customers wanted to see more contact centres should offer call back technology. By taking control of incoming calls and communicating with customers better, it provides customers with a sense of empowerment. Clearly then call back can create a better customer experience, consequently creating a more positive brand for the company and to reduced churn and increased repeat business.

But there are some trick and techniques to bear in mind. You need to work out in advance what the parameters are for the call back system to kick in. It can be triggered based on the average wait time, the number of people in the queue, the current service level, or the current abandon rate.

Make sure the customer is aware – and convinced – that you will be calling back within a set period. If the call back application is configured to hold the caller's place in the queue, the message should advise that they will receive a call back when their call reaches the front of the queue with an expectation of when that will happen. If the call back application is configured to call back at a later time in the day, the message should give the timeframe they should expect a call back within 20 minutes or whatever time period is appropriate.

Being vocal

IVR is often the first interaction between a customer and an organisation when calling in to a call centre and as you only get one chance to make a first impression it can strongly influence the caller’s perception of a company. You also only get one chance to make a bad impression so it you get your IVR wrong it will immediately turn off the customer and make it more likely that they will have a hostile predisposition when they finally get to talk to a human being.

Think about what your IVR is supposed to do – from both sides of the fence. From a caller’s perspective, it needs to help them get to where they want to go quickly and efficiently. From an agent’s point of view, it should be removing some of the more tedious and repetitive aspects of their work. Is your IVR mostly there to filter calls to the right agents? Is it there to take the burden off staff during peak times?

IVR systems can help create 'natural' interactions with the customer and can provide a tool for effective self-service, but they must be created to appeal to your customers. There are some basic things to consider: personal greetings, making standard information easily available and enable accessibility and freedom of choice throughout the navigation.

From an operational perspective, IVR streamlines call centre operations by automating routine transactions, providing answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) and intelligently routing calls. The ROI is significant. The cost of employing live agents to answer routine requests can be measured on pounds; the incremental cost of handling calls with a VoiceXML telephony portal can be measured in pennies.

Datamonitor expects that, across Europe and North America, the market for proprietary IVR systems will decrease by some 35% by 2009. Voice XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) provides a link between voice applications and underlying legacy technologies such as telephony hardware and speech technologies. Crucially it also enables the development of custom applications that can be integrated into existing platforms such as back end ERP or CRM systems. To achieve a fully comprehensive self-service solution, you will need to integrate with data silos and other applications.

Call centre technology in action

Abbey

One of the pioneers of VoIP in the UK has been Abbey, the nation’s sixth largest bank, which is well advanced on a project to implement VoIP across 800 of its UK branches.

Abbey had historically funded its voice operations at the local level, with data and IP handled at the corporate level. This meant regional managers invested and financed their branches' voice operations. Typically, they would use different suppliers for voice minutes, hardware and maintenance contracts. Also, individual branches tended to use different vendors.

In February, 2003, the decision was made to sign a €125 million contract with BT Group to install and manage a company-wide VoIP solution. In the two years since the initial test, all five of Abbey’s call centres and most of its 800 branches have incrementally come on line with BTs VoIP solution.

BT was asked to roll out converged connectivity across Abbey's network of 746 branches around the UK. All company voice traffic will be carried over the IP/VPN network. Using BT Transform and BT IP Clear as the network's backbone, BT created a flexible foundation and added Multi Media VoIP supplied in partnership with Cisco Systems.

"Nobody had ever pulled off a programme on this scale in such a short time frame. We were a bank in a hurry and BT responded to that. We knew they could rise to the occasion," explains Bill Gibbons, Abbey's former director of technology services and support.

nPower

Energy provider Npower has installed a callback system to help deal with call queues for its Team Valley contact centre. The system, which was supplied by Netcall, has also helped npower develop a capacity signaling application allowing it to be used by other call centres across its virtual private network.

npower operates a multi-site contact centre at four locations in the North East to serve a customer base of around six million residential gas and electricity customers.

Since the system was introduced, abandoned calls have fallen and customer satisfaction with the centre has risen to 93 per cent. The system has also helped it manage the customer’s experience during a difficult period when a new billing system led to higher call volumes.

QueueBuster offers callers the option to request an automated call back as soon as a Customer Service Representative becomes available, thus avoiding the need to wait in queue themselves. The call-back is normally delivered within an hour of the customer’s initial call.

"During busy 15 minute intervals QueueBuster can handle 5 -10 per cent of our call volume, with around 11,000 customers requesting a call back over a typical week," said npower’s Head of Customer Management, Ray McGloin. "By minimising the time spent waiting on hold, we have avoided any negative impact on the experience of those customers choosing to take advantage of the service."

Useful Links

Customer Contact Association – www.cca.org.uk
The CCA is the professional body for the call and contact centre industry. An independent organisation with over 600 public and private sector members, it promotes best practice and professional development through a wide range of benefits and services.

Call Centres Management Association – www.ccma.org.uk
CCMA is the professional association for call centre managers and supervisors. Although based in the UK there are member throughout Europe and in the Middle East. Its mission is to promote the profession of call centre management and contribute to the continuous professional development of call centre managers and supervisors.

ECCCO – European Confederation of Contact Centre Associations – www.eccco.org
ECCCO - the European Confederation of Contact Centre Organisations - was formed in 2002 and represents contact centre organisations in countries across Europe. The purpose of ECCCO is to encourage and assist in the development of European National Contact Centre Associations, by bringing together all the European National Associations / Organisations, fostering free and frank information exchange on issues relating to call centre services, and using their combined voice to influence.

Further reading