For years, businesses have been looking for new and better ways to communicate with customers, attract new customers and retain existing customers. Beyond brick and mortar, Websites abound, providing a plethora of information and choices. You can also now email some businesses and in some cases have a "Web chat" session with an agent. Toll-free numbers are still a primary form of direct communication with customers, often front-ended by self-service menus, which typically connect callers to a customer service representative. Unfortunately, that rep often doesn't know who you are or why you're calling, despite the fact that you just entered your account number, requested your account balance and indicated you had a question about your mortgage.
With so much information and so many communications options available to your customers, how can you differentiate your organization? How can you give your potential and existing customers the information they want, the way they want it, and when they want it? How can you create a better customer experience?
IP Communications is now a widely deployed technology that is being used to help enterprises create a common "look and feel" across all channels of communication and geographical boundaries, ultimately creating a better customer experience. Ocwen Financial Corporation is a great example of an organization that is using IP Communications in the contact center to create a better experience not only for their customers but also for other financial service organizations.
Ocwen's business situation was not unlike the challenges faced by many organizations today. They wanted to:
- Dramatically improve business processes affecting the servicing of non-performing and sub-performing loans;
- Reduce contact center costs through establishment of world-class, offshore facilities, while retaining or even improving voice communications quality; and
- Create a platform for a new, high-revenue business unit that provides market-differentiating technology and services solutions to other mortgage, banking and financial institutions.
The Solution
Ocwen deployed a Cisco end-to-end solution for all voice and data connectivity, including Cisco IP Telephony at new offshore sites in India and a phased migration from existing TDM PBX, IVR, predictive dialer, and automatic call distribution systems to a complete Cisco IP Communications solution in Ocwen's Florida and international locations. This robust, customer service-enhancing solution — Ocwen's Advanced Contact Center Enterprise Solution (ACCES) — includes Cisco CallManager, Cisco IP Phones, Cisco IP Contact Center (IPCC) Enterprise Edition, as well as third-party integration with Davox/Concerto dialers, Aspect eWorkforce Management, Verint IP call recording solutions, and Symon reader boards.
Ocwen's ACCES was so effective at improving call center quality at lower costs that they became an outsourcer for other companies interested in a hosted and managed contact center solution to significantly reduce operating costs and eliminate implementation risks, capital investment, and management problems.
The Business Value:
Through this deployment, Ocwen has been able to:
- Develop new business processes and a suite of technology-enabled services that have transformed the company, created a better overall customer experience and enhanced its competitive position.
- Respond rapidly to changing global market conditions and opportunities by extending the capabilities and locations of its contact centers. This enabled Ocwen to take full advantage of a highly skilled and talented agent pool — regardless of the agents' physical locations — while being able to accommodate customer inquiries on "their" time.
- Deliver a higher level of customer service through the integration of its tools and technologies. This enables agents to service customers efficiently and effectively — reducing frustration and enhancing the customers' overall experience.
- Offer enhanced services cost-effectively — cutting operating expenses by 54 percent since 2002.
"One of the big advantages that Voice over IP was going to give us was the ability to do very high value, highly intelligent integration with our application base," says Dale Pickford, Ocwen's Vice President of ACCES. "It would allow us to integrate voice and data as a single event through the desktop for our agents, improving our customer experience. Our agents would be better and more efficient."
Creating a better customer experience is truly the next battleground for businesses. Ocwen is just one of the many companies that have realized that IP Communications can dramatically transform their business to create a better customer experience, ultimately giving them a significant competitive advantage.