A recent survey released by BT and Avaya has revealed that the availability of self-service online portals has done little to diminish consumers’ desire to speak to a real contact center agent.
But the increasing complexity of calls have left call centers struggling to keep up.
The BT-Avaya survey had more than 69% of respondents say their call center experiences had been marred by agents trying to rush calls to an early conclusion, while 90% of respondents in the higher income brackets reported being subjected to suggestions that they might be better off trying a self-service website.
As smartphone proliferation takes its toll on call centers, and with self-service portals not proving an effective solution for many complex issues, the need for tools and technology to improve on a call center’s efficiency becomes essential.
Erwann Thomassain, head of marketing for APAC at Amdocs, said service providers could aim to resolve inquiries at the first point of contact so calls need not be transferred to specialized agents. Potential enhancements to a call center’s capabilities could include prediction technology that might help anticipate the reason for a customer’s call by automatically gathering background data on bills and device interaction on a particular customer.
“With tools in place to help first-level agents diagnose and resolve smartphone support inquiries via an over-the-air fix, an agent could be solving a billing inquiry one minute and resolving smartphone support issues the next minute, without specialized training,” said Thomassain.
“This is an improvement over having to transfer the customer over to a specialized agent and wasting time repeating details of the problem to the second agent.”
Remote support technologies could enhance and speed up the quality of support calls. “With the increased sophistication of smartphones, a vast majority of issues are actually configuration problems. Remote support enables the call center agent to remotely configure the handset once permission is granted by the user,” said Thomassain.
Active monitoring technologies could also promote proactive device care, so customers’ problems get solved before they’re even aware of it.
Further improvements to call center capabilities could come in the form of integrating the current infrastructure with various media, so agents could send customers instructional videos. The reach of contact centers should also not be limited to the phone, said Thomassain. Instead, multiple touch points such as kiosks could be implemented.
“Consumers expect resolution to simple tasks often without the need for two-way communication – a self-service approach,” said BT account director for Avaya Gary Bennett.
“But when there is a critical element to the contact – the ‘sale or fail’ scenarios – the customer’s choice of communications channel is critical, and companies have to be ready to communicate with their customers via any channel they choose.”
The BT-Avaya survey also highlighted the importance of technology in the future of the call center - 60% of respondents liked the idea of speaking to exactly the same agent by email and telephone, while 74% were annoyed at having to repeat identity details even after keying them in. A further 48% liked the idea of using speech recognition as a form of identification when calling in.