Call Center Systems

If there is any one aspect of modern customer value management that telcos have a lot of experience with, it is call centers and call center management. After all, telecommunications companies invented the concept and were the first business to make extensive use of the capabilities.

The call center of today, however, is very different from that of even just a few years ago. These telephone centers have been undergoing a metamorphosis of tremendous proportion as new technologies, new business philosophies, and new customer demands have found relief in the professionalization of call center functionality.

It's Not Just About Answering Phones Anymore

Perhaps the most obvious change to the call center has been the rapid expansion in the available tools. In the past, call centers were strictly about answering the phone and responding to customers. The call center was a decidedly reactive, passive, and responsive unit and was considered an overhead activity to be minimized wherever and however possible.

More Than Just Telephones

Call center personnel are expected to do much more than simply answer phones. The repertoire of the typical call center rep also includes:

• Manage outbound phone activities (sales, canvassing, and proactive customer service)

• Manage email and Website traffic

• Interactive chat help desks

• Respond to and respond with fax

• Manage and integrate voice recognition, interactive voice response, and many other new efficiency enhancement tools

More Than Just Inbound

Even more dramatic than the toolset expansion is the greatly increased responsibility. The call center is fast becoming the low-cost, best option for maximizing customer value in a variety of situations. Call centers are now regularly expected to function as:

• Order entry and activation points

• Customer service call contact points

• Technical support personnel for a wide range of problems, from how to program the cell phone ring-tone to how to set the configuration for a fiber optic portal station.

• Billing and collections

• Proactive customer service

• Churn prevention

• Aggressive outbound phone campaigns

• Market research centers

• Sales program information clearing points

• Many others

The New Breed of Professional Call Center Reps

With all of this new technology and new responsibility has come the need for an entirely new breed of professional call center reps. These reps must be highly trained, experienced, motivated, and able to deal with a lot of pressure in order to meet the demands of this new environment. These new professionals are in need of a new generation of support tools.

The New Breed of Professional Call Center Managers

The new ranks of call center reps must, obviously, be supported by a new breed of professional call center managers who know how to keep track of complex technological conditions, chaotic call load balancing, as well as a whole new set of difficult to manage deliverables in the areas of customer satisfaction, sales values, promotional penetration, and scores of other calibrations.

How Telcos Use Call Center Systems

To do their jobs, modern call center employees need the right kinds of systems that provide them with the information they need to make the right decisions in an ever-changing and increasingly volatile environment. Call center systems are used to provide the following.

• More efficient routing and management of call flows (inbound and outbound)
• Outbound efficiency tools (such as autodialing)
• Inbound efficiency enhancers (such as IVR, VR, and scores of others)
• Intelligent routing to match the best available agent with the right customer at the right time
• Intelligent routing to minimize cost and maximize value
• Better support for staffing and staff allocation decision-making
• Better management, communication, and integration of the overall call center work team
• Built-in training capabilities
• Ongoing employee monitoring, feedback, and coaching capabilities
• Transaction management
• Employee activity measurement and rewards
• Continuous monitoring to identify new efficiency or value opportunities

Call Center Systems Value Propositions

Call center systems provide a wide range of values to the telco. The following are among the value propositions for the creation or enhancement of these systems.

INBOUND (Customer Service) Value Propositions

• Better alignment of telco cost/benefit with customer value received
  (appropriate amount of time and effort spent on the right customers)
• Assuring that valuable customers are treated accordingly and that they know they are important
• Alignment of corporate strategies
• Consistency in customer treatment and messages across organizational boundaries

• Cost reductions and improved service levels

OUTBOUND (Sales) Value Propositions

• Turning "overhead" department into revenue-producing department
• Making more efficient use of each customer interaction
• Building upon good relationship with customers
• Run better, more effective, and more efficient outbound campaigns
• Cost reductions and increased sales

TTA has much of the information and many of the tools that can help telcos realize these values.

TTA Call Center System Offerings

There are many good non-telco specific call center system companies that can do a much better job than we can with the setup and execution of your core call center functionality. But TTA can offer assistance with the following.

• Define the cost justification for call center system replacement or upgrade
• Define the requirements for call center systems
• Integrate the call center activities with the rest of the organization
• Realize the efficiencies you can gain based on the experiences of other telco call center

Service Offerings in the area of call center systems replacement and upgrade include the following. 

• Call center analytics

  • Segmentation of call center customer by type of call, time, on line, etc.

  • Development of more efficient routing schedules based on call center traffic patterns

• Call center integration

  • Integration of call center systems and activities with marketing, sales, customer care, and other telco business areas

  • Provision for access to detail billing, sales, marketing, and other information

• Call Center upgrade/replacement  cost justification

• Call Center upgrade/replacement requirements and specifications

Call Center Software Vendors

TTA can help you with many of your call center enhancement, upgrade, replacement, or startup needs. Whether you will be doing the work yourself or using a solutions provider or software vendor, we can help you make the right decisions.