ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 - (Page 21)

RECOMMENDED READING the company wants to make another tool enhancement, and once again its multi-sourced agent groups fall out of sync with the inhouse group. Over several years, in fact, they are out of sync more often than not. During this time, repeat callers are apt to get contradictory answers to their questions, leaving them with the impression that the company isn’t well managed. > BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE OBSTACLES. Competitive pressure and poor showings in quality of service surveys have lit a fire under a company’s senior management, which now wants better results ASAP Call . center management decides to elevate service levels by introducing threaded business intelligence from its CRM system and enterprise databases into call center applications. The project becomes immensely more complex, expensive and time-consuming, however, when the question of whether outsourcer platforms can support these integrations — and keep in sync with CRM and database changes and modifications going forward — is considered. The company opts for a phased rollout, focusing on its in-house call center initially. Agents in this facility get CRM screen pops that provide all the necessary information to handle calls efficiently and accelerate transactions — information agents at other locations still have to rely on callers to provide. Customers notice, and in the next quality of service survey, the company’s scores continue to dip, which is a huge frustration for senior managers after the hefty investments made in pursuit of improvements. These types of delays and obstacles, with their resulting inconsistencies, should not be accepted as a “necessary evil” of call center multi-sourcing. Common hosted platforms resolve such problems, ensuring that call center management — not the outsourcer or the outsourcer’s technology — determine business processes, policies and workflow. They enable companies to establish a common baseline of capabilities for all their call center resources, to provide all agents with a common user interface and to leverage service introductions, integration and scalability across the entire agent population. They also increase visibility and interoperability between agent groups, facilitating call transfers, including warm transfers when necessary. • In order for your staff to receive the coaching and development they need, the ideal agent-to-supervisor ratio in your center should be about With that in mind, we at ICMI would like to make you an ideal book offer: Right now, for Buy every copies of A Career for the 21st This Century or The Voice of Your Company by And get Cliff Hurst you order for your staff, we’ll this for give you copy of Your Pivotal Role: FREE! Leadership in the Call Center by Cliff Hurst Or for FREE! That’s supervisor This book for every agent books that you order. 15:1. 15 1 1 FREE 15 This offer is not aonly bargain, it’s bargain, it’s clever This offer is not only great a great and symbolic! And, more importantly, it will enable you to provide clever and symbolic! your frontline staff and supervisors/team leaders with loads of actionable, honest and insightful information to help them succeed in their respective positions in the contact center. So take advantage of this unique order today—it’s a ratio you can’t refuse! To order, call 800-672-6177 or 410-267-0700. VISIT THE AUTHORʼS BLOG icmi’s insight www.icmi.com | APRIL 2008 21 http://www.incoming.com/WebModules/Products/ProductList.aspx?CategoryId=101 http://www.careerimpact.typepad.com http://www.icmi.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 Operations: Small Call Centers, Big Potential Ad Index Contents Editor's Page Contact Center Spotlight People: Assessment Tools Recommended Reading Technology: Speech Recognition Special Feature: Best of Show Strategy: Service-to-Sales Success Expert's Angle - High Volume, High Stakes: A Better Strategy for Hiring Experts Angle - Secrets of Recruiting Success/Job Brands: Changing Applicant Reactions to Your Openings Experts Angle - Speech Analytics: Uncovering the Voice of the Customer

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.