The technical challenges and business case for creating a virtual
call centre.
About 500,000 people work in UK call centres, according to TUC
figures, but for many people a call centre experience is not always
a happy one.
This boom has been driven primarily by the motive of cutting the
costs of sales and support, rather than improving service. Problems
include long delays within various levels of the telephone menu
system and having to repeat queries to successive agents, none of
whom seems to have access to the details previously conveyed.
IT has the potential to continue cutting costs, but perhaps more
importantly, to reverse the perception of poor customer service.
The drive is towards the complete contact centre, where customers
have access through a variety of channels, not just the telephone,
and receive a response within an acceptable and agreed timeframe.
The other significant buzzphrase is the virtual call centre, where
off-site homeworkers and staff cope with peaks in demand or handle
specific queries beyond the competence of the principle call centre
staff.
Technology issues
Three technologies, computer telephony integration (CTI), speech
recognition, and interactive web response (IWR), promise to
transform the current generation of call centres by converting them
into flexible and efficient contact centres that are loved rather
than loathed by those that use them.
Of the three, CTI has been around for the longest time but still
has some way to go to reach its full potential. In its first
incarnation, CTI was synonymous with "screen popping", that is
taking the calling line identifier (CLI), such as the phone number
of the caller, to retrieve information about them and their ongoing
query onto the screen of the call centre agent.
Many people now have three CLIs for their home phone, office phone
and mobile, so the call centre needs to have all three associated
with the customer's name in a database. A problem is that people
call from phone numbers other than those in the database, meaning
the customer is not always recognised. In fact, when calls are made
from an internal PBX, it is usually possible only to identify the
organisation rather than the individual caller.
Other means of identification may be used, such as a code entered
on a touch-tone phone. Once the caller has been identified, all
relevant information about an ongoing query is held together and
can be forwarded as a single entity from agent to agent within the
call centre.
The second core technology starting to be seriously deployed by
call centres is speech recognition. It will not be possible in the
foreseeable future for a customer to be completely understood by
speech recognition software, but a handful of keywords such as
"accounts payable" or "technical support" can be identified. The
call can then be directed to the group of agents best able to deal
with the call, helping the centre provide a more fine-grained,
accurate routing of incoming calls than is possible with
interactive voice response (IVR) using touch-tone phones.
The third technology, IWR, is only at a trial phase for many call
centres, but potential benefits have already been identified. The
call centre can be connected to a website and offer alternative
means of communication that may be preferable for the caller and,
at the same time, is more cost-effective for the call centre. The
principle options are e-mail, text chat and help buttons on
websites.
Other important technologies, such as queue management and load
balancing, can route calls to overflow centres or part-time
home-based agents during peak times. An important technical issue
is to ensure that such agents have adequate IT facilities, such as
communications bandwidth, ideally equivalent to those available in
a dedicated call centre.
The role of two longer established call centre technologies,
automatic call distribution and IVR, should not be neglected.
Together, and increasingly in combination with speech recognition,
these ensure that calls are routed to the right agent on the basis
of skills or availability.
Business issues
Until now, the business case for call centres has largely rested on
reducing the cost of selling, marketing, providing information or
customer support. In turn this can increase competitiveness and
gain customers by undercutting the competition.
In the case of banking, First Direct led the field in providing a
"no frills" telephone-based banking service with none of the usual
charges. The move to internet call centres can yield further
savings by reducing the number of agents needed to support
customers or users.
It is also worth pointing out that call centres are not confined to
consumer operations, but can also serve internal staff in helpdesk
or support capacities. The same principles and costs for a
customer-based call centre still apply. The more help and
information that can be given via a website or e-mail, the lower
the cost of support.
If a call centre is a direct replacement for a service involving
direct human contact, it can only be justified if the same level of
customer service is maintained. A business proposition should
include realistic proposals, including estimates of staffing
levels, to ensure this. In many cases it should be possible to
improve it.
In some cases, as originally with First Direct, a call centre
provides a radically new service, which is not necessarily better
or worse than before, just different. Some people will prefer it,
others will not. The ideal contact centre will comprise
communications options to suit all tastes. An important part of any
proposition is to ensure that the different channels are properly
supported. In too many cases queries are not dealt with promptly
and are sometimes ignored completely.
Management issues
The choice and implementation of the technology needs to be
carefully matched to particular applications and to the
distribution of the call load.
Capacity planning is important to ensure that peaks can be handled
without over-resourcing, which means having part-time agents on
standby, such as homeworkers with call centre experience. The
system will have to be set up in their homes and two voice circuits
will typically be needed: one to receive routed incoming calls and
the other to make outgoing calls to seek advice while a customer
remains on the line. A data circuit to access relevant information
about a customer or an ongoing problem log will also be needed.
Homeworkers are often given standard two-channel ISDN lines, where
one channel is used for incoming routed calls and the other for
data access. The agent will also have a standard dial-up PSTN line
which could be a domestic line but will act as an additional line
for any outgoing calls.
The biggest management issues are recruitment, training and
building a suitable environment. BT discovered the consequence of
ignoring this when it was forced to pay £90,000 to an agent who
worked in one of the oldest call centre applications, directory
enquiries. The agent had suffered ear damage from loud, random
bursts of noise through a headset, a problem to which some headsets
seem susceptible.
Such cases, along with an increasing awareness of the huge
disparity in call centre working conditions, with the worst rightly
being dubbed the "new sweatshops", is focusing minds on the working
environment issue.
Main suppliers
The choice of supplier is complex, with players coming from several
different directions. Carriers such as BT and Cable & Wireless
have the advantage in being able to provide services closely tied
to the public network. This enables the calls to be automatically
routed upon a criteria specified by the customer, such as time of
day or season.
Other suppliers have roots in the management and distribution of
calls within private enterprise voice networks, such as Aspect.
Such companies often have strong support for multiple channels,
including web, fax, e-mail, Wap and SMS, in addition to the phone.
One weakness, however, could be the lack of support for the various
levels of integration needed for some of the CTI functions. Such
weaknesses are usually addressed through partner-ships with a
supplier with the necessary integration skills.
Other suppliers are the traditional switch or system providers such
as Nortel. They are well placed to handle the routing and
communication issues needed for supporting homeworkers.
There are also suppliers who deal with CTI software for integrating
voice switches with computer applications for CTI functions. IBM
with its Callpath suite is one of the major players at the top end
of this market, but packages based on Microsoft's telephony
services in Windows NT and Windows 2000 have made great inroads.
For general articles and informationwww.callcentre.co.uk
The Call Centre Management Association, with information on
standards and best practice
www.ccma.org.uk
A search for "call centre solutions" will elicit a number of case
studies, articles and Nortel product
details
www.nortel.com