login | register
Tue 02 of Dec, 2008 [12:00 UTC]

voip-info.org

History

CONTACT CENTER

Created by: SANDRY,Last modification on Wed 22 of Aug, 2007 [22:00 UTC] by pgaz

Page Contents



Contact Centers

According to Wikipedia, a contact center is a centralized office used for the purpose of sending & receiving large volumes of requests by telephone.

A contact center is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing, clientèle, and debt collection are also made. In addition to a call center, collective handling of letters, faxes, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact center.

A contact center is often operated through an extensive open workspace for call center agents, with work stations that include a computer for each agent, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centers, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the center are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration (CTI).

Most major businesses use call center to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centers. Examples of this include help desks and sales support. However, some companies employ staff to work in their call centers almost by "bulk", applicants requiring little or no educational qualifications or experience; an example is Lloyds TSB. In contrast, some firms demand lengthy customer service experience, various formal certificates and impose a complicated and staged recruitment interview procedure; an example of this is American Express.

Mathematics

A call center can be viewed, from an operational point of view, as a queuing network. The simplest call center, consisting of a single type of customers and statistically-identical servers, can be viewed as a single-queue. Queuing theory is a branch of mathematics in which models of such queuing systems have been developed. These models, in turn, are used to support work force planning and management, for example by helping answer the following common staffing-question: given a service-level, as determined by management, what is the least number of telephone agents that is required to achieve it. (Prevalent examples of service levels are: at least 80% of the callers are answered within 20 seconds; or, no more than 3% of the customers’ hang-up, due to their impatience, before being served.)

Queuing models also provide qualitative insight, for example identifying the circumstances under which economies of scale prevail, namely that a single large call centre is more effective at answering calls than several (distributed) smaller ones; or that cross-selling is beneficial; or that a call center should be quality-driven or efficiency-driven or, most likely, both Quality and Efficiency Driven (abbreviated to QED). Recently, queuing models have also been used for planning and operating skills-based-routing of calls within a call center, which entails the analysis of systems with multi-type customers and multi-skilled agents.

Contact Center operations have been supported by mathematical models beyond queuing, with operations research, which considers a wide range of optimization problems, being very relevant. For example, for forecasting of calls, for determining shift-structures, and even for analyzing customers' impatience while waiting to be served by an agent.

Contact Center Technology


Contact Center Criticisms

Common contact center criticisms

From Callers:
   * Operators working from a script.
   * Non-expert operators (call screening).
   * Incompetent or untrained operators incapable of processing customers' requests effectively.
   * Overseas location, with language and accent problems.
   * Automated queuing systems. This sometimes results in excessively long hold times
   * Complaints that departments of companies do not engage in communication with one another.

From Staff:
   * Close scrutiny by management (e.g. frequent random call monitoring).
   * Low compensation (pay and bonuses).
   * Restrictive working practices (some operators are required to follow a pre-written script).
   * High stress: a common problem associated with front-end jobs where employees deal directly with customers.
   * Repetitive job task.
   * Poor working conditions (e.g. poor facilities, poor maintenance and cleaning, cramped working conditions, management interference, lack of privacy and noisy).

Contact Centers & VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol has drastically altered the way contact centers work, particularly considering the influence VoIP had with the creation of Virtual Call Centers. A virtual call center is created by taking many small call centers (often at-home workers) from different locations and connecting them to one another. This is usually done through the use of VoIP, IVR, ACD, and CTI. The advantage of virtual call centers is that they improve service levels, provide emergency backup and enable extended operating hours over isolated call centers. There are two methods used to route traffic around call centers: pre-delivery and post-delivery. Pre-delivery involves using an external switch to route the calls to the appropriate centre and post-delivery enables call centers to route a call they've received to another call center.

See Also

Commercial Providers

UCN

A leader in the contact center provider industry is UCN. The company has set itself apart from traditional vendors by offering hosted services, meaning consumers can experience all the benefits of advanced contact centers, but since all services are hosted within UCN, there are no heavy start-up costs. All UCN services revolve around their inContact product, which has consistently won awards year after for innovation to the call center technology and customer management fields.

Noteworthy UCN Products
  • Call Center Surveys by Echo -Groundbreaking product giving businesses real time access into their customers thought process
  • Virtual Call Center -Award winning InContact product to give contact centers a competitive edge.
  • Hosted ACD Software -Automatic Call Distribution software to connect callers to agents automatically.
  • Computer Telephony Integration -Computer Telephony Integration Software to integrate caller information with agents, regardless of location.
  • IVR Systems -Interactive Voice Response Systems to manage call flow and determine the correct agent for each callers problem.
  • Workforce Management Software Comprehensive Workforce Management Software to manage your contact center agents.
  • Hosted Call Center solutions -Comprehensive solutions for all aspects of Call Centers across the United States.
  • Customer Service Surveys -Real-time customer service surveys, delivered immediately following agent to customer contact. Allows businesses to learn what their clients really think about their products and services.

Database Systems Corp.

Database Systems Corp. has been a leading provider of call center technology since 1978. DSC provides both contact center phone systems and software as well as outsourcing phone services. DSC voice broadcasting and IVR systems are award winning computer telephony solutions. The following are some of these contact center solutions and services:


Comments