Enabling more efficient and regulatory compliant outbound contact
By Frederic Dickey
Like all companies dealing with an unpredictable economy, companies operating call centers are constantly challenged to do more with less—to reduce costs while still maintaining superior and consistent customer service. Thankfully, new technology developments can now help them address those challenges, while also enabling a workforce that is more efficient, more fulfilled and less likely to churn.
More efficient and capable call center technology solutions allow call center operators to interact with customers in a broad number of ways, all from a single point—whether they reached you by phone, e-mail, fax or SMS. This increases the satisfaction of customers, obviously, but it also boosts the fulfillment of call center agents. Rather than performing one role or specialized functions, they become agents in a multichannel operation and see more variety in types of work. Their satisfaction reduces churn and costs associated with it.
The multichannel challenge
The challenge is training call center agents to be proficient in multimodal communications with customers. They must be able not only to field inbound customer calls (and complaints) but also communicate via outbound calling, short messaging, e-mail and instant messaging—however the customer prefers to contact or be contacted.
A call center based on a voice over IP (VoIP) platform removes reliance on proprietary hardware and facilitates the integration of all those modes of communication, including the integration with business processes such as CRM systems. With VoIP, managing this influx of e-mails, calls and messages becomes easier for IT managers to integrate and manage because all modes of communications work on the same IT infrastructure—standard servers running on standard operating systems.
Part of implementing a multichannel call center is to leverage outbound or proactive communications strategies to reach out to customers. Outbound operations tend to be negatively associated with collections or telemarketing campaigns. They can also serve in multiple other scenarios such as notifications or customer service.
The technology behind the curtain
Introducing automated outbound calling in a VoIP-based call center requires the implementation of call progress analysis (CPA), a sophisticated set of algorithms that help provide context in identifying and classifying outbound calls. Call progress analysis automatically decides where calls get directed—whether it’s back to a human agent, to an automated message or back in the queue for later. As call centers migrate to VoIP and IT-friendly communication platforms, it is important to select CPA technology that fits this scheme as well. This is an important point because all legacy CPA technologies require the use of proprietary hardware.
As you introduce outbound technologies in your call center, you also need to be aware of regulations attached to it. Transfer rules, such as connecting a live agent within two seconds, are important to meet these regulations. VoIP call center technologies really help here. This is because transferring calls in VoIP happen very fast because of underlying protocols in use. On these protocols, the ubiquitous Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) enables very fast call transfers in VoIP networks, in turn helping call center operations by meeting regulations and also reducing the risk of losing the customer at the other end of the line.
The introduction of VoIP in multichannel call centers means more creative and proactive ways of communicating with customers, most notably the introduction of automated outbound contact. Call progress analysis is an “under the hood” technology that’s taken for granted, but critically important for a multichannel call center to have in place.
Call center operators require a technology provider that understands the importance of technologies like call progress analysis that can make automated outbound dialing more accurate, faster, in line with regulatory requirements and an important function of a multichannel call center. The overall result is higher return on investment, better efficiency, a broader customer view and more sense of accomplishment among call center employees.
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Frederic Dickey is director of marketing and product management at Sangoma Technologies (www.sangoma.com).