The challenges of a global contact center

In order to handle calls successfully, a global contact center needs its agents to have a background in multiple products and to understand multiple cultures.

As companies go global, one of their central challenges is effective contact center management. Agents may need to be trained in multiple product lines or serve customers in a variety of countries.

Routing calls to the right agent with the availability and skills to handle the call becomes a complex task. Agents need to understand customers' preferences and expectations and be able to bridge language or cultural gaps. Routing calls efficiently and to agents with the right knowledge has to happen seamlessly, without customers' need for speed being compromised.

A global contact center can handle these issues in two ways. First, they try to address the cultural challenges that can arise from having agents handle calls that may come from multiple countries. Second, they try to address the internal operational issues that handling multiple product lines, countries or even company units may pose.

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When Should You Conduct a Survey? - How Do You Prepare a Survey?

A survey may be your best choice when:

• You need a quick and efficient way of getting information.
• You need to reach a large number of people.
• You need statistically valid information about a large number of people.
• The information you need isn't readily available through other means.

How Do You Prepare a Survey?

Decide on the purpose of the survey. If you have decided to do a survey, you must first be sure exactly why you're doing it. What questions do you want to answer? Is it to get a general idea of the demographics of your area? To find out what people think about a particular issue or idea? Or is there another reason you're considering a survey?

In any case, you will need to keep the purpose of the survey in mind throughout the process, as it will influence the choice of questions, the survey population, and even the way the survey is delivered (e.g., a computer-savvy population can be surveyed over the Internet; a population that is largely illiterate shouldn't be asked to take a written survey, and so forth).

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Four features of contact center evolution

Contact center evolution is explored through four key features, identifying how contact centers have changed through the past, present and future. Call centers were created to provide an efficient way for customers to contact a company when they have questions regarding its products and services.

During the past 40 years, call centers have evolved tremendously becoming contact centers; today's capabilities weren't on the radar even 10 years ago. Who can imagine what a contact center will look like in another 10 years? Here we take a look at contact center evolution by examining where contact centers were, where contact centers are and where contact centers are going in the following key areas:

1. Technology

Where contact centers were. Contact centers used separate on-premises-based systems, each performing specific functions. Organizations were responsible for integrating their Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) with a separate workforce management system with a separate call recording system. Each system had its own licensing requirements, and all systems had to be integrated seamlessly to function properly. Especially when problems arose, working with multiple vendors was not an easy task.

Where contact centers are. Currently, various providers offer integrated contact center software technologies, especially in the cloud environment. A single solution provides an integrated suite of features including workforce optimization, call recording, analytics and more. There is no longer a need to work with a variety of vendors paying multiple invoices and integrating different platforms.

Where contact centers are going. The integration of software will continue to be a part of the contact center evolution, especially as it relates to contact center software and CRM technologies. Currently, some contact center software can track the history of customer interactions. Some "intelligent" CRM solutions can route contacts to agents. It is only a matter of time until a single set of integrated software technologies can improve the customer experience and drive operational efficiencies.

2. Communications channels

Where contact centers were. For some time, the only way to reach out to a contact center was by making a phone call or sending a letter. ACD technology was new and did an effective job of routing calls to agents. Mail involved a host of problems, including illegible handwriting as well as letters being misplaced (sometimes purposely -- remember finding stacks of letters in agents desk drawers?) and never being processed.

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A guide to call center metrics

Customer service is a cornerstone of most businesses, a large part of what keeps customers loyal or sends them running for the competition. For years, businesses have used metrics to measure their call center operations, such as number of calls answered, length of call and call resolution. Those metrics worked fine -- for a while.

Now, businesses are zeroing in on the customer's needs and upgrading their call centers to do the same.  They're taking a kinder, gentler approach to call center metrics that measures the overall performance of call center agents rather than simply their adherence to operational metrics. Agents are trained to view calls from the customer's perspective to improve problem-solving and enhance customer relations. Call center agents are also being mentored to help develop their skills and learn as much as they can. The hope is that both agents and customers will be happier and remain loyal to the business.

This guide also examines the prominent role social media now plays in the call center, and how metrics have been expanded and updated to keep in step with the march of time and technology.

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What is Omnichannel?

In marketing and technology you often know that something is still new when you can’t find one unanimous way to spell it. Ecommerce, eCommerce, e-commerce – remember those days? We now find Omni-channel, omnichannel and omni channel across the web, each attached to prestigious brand and pundit thinking. Instead of arguing about the correct spelling, we just see it an indicator of something new and yet to be decided by the masses. By no means is the concept under-noted or fledgling. And, as with most things that are new, there are still developing ideas.

Omni comes from the word Omnis which can mean all or universal. This is in comparison to other categories out there, like “multichannel”, from the Latin word Multus, meaning multiple or many and from crosschannel, derived from the Latin word Crux, meaning to go across. The way that many are explaining omnichannel today is: ‘cross channel being done well’. Examples are often that the mobile app should match the responsive design of the website which should thematically reflect the look and feel inside the store. We’d argue that doing cross channel well with the user in mind, is not worthy (nor useful) enough to  deserve a new category. Instead, we hold the belief that Omnichannel is something new and notable, even revolutionary, not just a marginal evolution of existing thinking.

Great, so now that we’ve stated that omnichannel is being used merely as a buzzword for crosschannel with finesse – what is  omnichannel? Omnichannel is about true continuity of your experience. But what’s key is that it extends beyond a single brand’s universe. Being omniscient is perceiving and understanding all things.  Not all things at Best Buy. Not all things at Target. Not all things at Gucci. Omni is perceiving all things. And the best way for a customer to perceive everything is to allow them to own their data and experience, then give them the ability to use it to guide creation and context of every future experience.

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5 Reasons to Send a Survey

In a perfect world, you’d know exactly what your customers were thinking and could give them exactly what they want at all times. Unfortunately, things don’t quite work this way, so you’ve got to use the tools you have available to find out more about your customers. The availability of online surveys today means anyone can create an effective customer survey in a matter of minutes or hours without a degree in market research. Here are five great reasons to survey your customers:

• Get Feedback: Ask your customers what they honestly think about your products, services, events or marketing. You won’t know until you ask. The knowledge you gain will be invaluable to your business.

• Set the Bar: Surveys allow you to look at your business at a certain moment in time. Benchmark how you are doing in different aspects of your business and make goals to improve or maintain that status over time.

• Evaluate the Competition: Ask what other products or services your customers use, and find out why or what they enjoy about them. Doing this will make you aware of the alternatives in your market and how best to compete.
• Learn New Ideas: Your customers are an untapped resource for you. They are smart, creative, and likely have ideas that you haven’t thought of. Just imagine all the cool ideas you can get from the people that matter the most and know your business!
• Guide Business Decisions: Using surveys, you can gather information that is helpful in making informed business decisions. The feedback you get from your customers can guide you in future product, marketing, or organizational decisions – both big and small.

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5 Ways Surveys Can Help Your Small Business

While marketers have long used surveys as a key tool, online variations now make the process of surveying your customers so easy, it’s almost a crime not to do it.

By using surveys routinely, you can demonstrate that you value your customer’s opinions while also gaining important information about the kinds of product, services and enhancements they might be willing to actually pay for. Here are different ways to survey your customers:

1. Market analysis. The most obvious reason for launching a survey in business is to find out what your market prefers, or what needs it identifies as important. Asking questions about the choices people make when interacting with products or services like yours will turn up valuable information for your future plans.

2. Tracking performance. You can use a short survey simply to keep your operations in order. You can ask for customer feedback regarding their experiences with your company and use that information to keep track of how well you and your staff are doing. Call centers, for instance, often track performance this way.

3. Customer follow-up. Sending a more detailed survey immediately following a sale (particularly for more expensive items) is often revealing in terms of how well you are answering the customer's needs. It is also an important way to show the customer that you are grateful for your interactions and that you're dedicated to continual improvement.

4. Customer demographics. Another way to deepen your relationship with customers is to provide a survey that asks them about themselves: their preferences, their lives, their problems and challenges, even beyond the area your business serves. You can then use this data for product and service development and even in developing key strategic partner relationships.

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WebRTC: What Is It and Why Companies Need to Embrace It

Recently I was tasked with corralling busy executives for a monthly advisory board meeting at a startup where I consult. The trouble was getting these jetsetters all in the same place at the same time. The best we could do was pithy back and forth emails and try to set a date that worked for everyone. It wasn't ideal. Then, I was handed the job of improving this situation, and I rolled out a video conferencing solution in five hours, without any cost to the startup. Now, the virtual monthly meetings have gone off without a hitch, and everyone thinks I’m brilliant.

I’m not brilliant. I just know tech trends. WebRTC is the real star here, and smart businesses are turning to the technology just like I did. WebRTC, which stands for web real-time communications, is an emerging standard for voice and video communications that is taking the telecommunications industry by storm. The open-source protocol enables video, audio and file-sharing through a standard web browser, eliminating the need for platform-specific software, plugins, or vendor lock-in that complicates and raises the cost of existing video-conferencing solutions.  

The technology is still new, so not every browsers support it out of the box. But Disruptive Analysis reports that there will be 6 billion devices that support WebRTC by the end of 2019, and both startups and established businesses are using it today, because it is so easy to use -- never mind the cost savings.

Here are five reasons why startups of all types should be embracing WebRTC.

1. WebRTC is easy

Currently, there are three main options for video conferencing: over-the-top commercial solutions like Skype, cloud solutions such as GoToMeeting and hardware-based unified communications solutions like Avaya and Cisco. But these solutions have issues. Using Skype and GoToMeeting, of involves jumping back and forth among applications to pull together contact information and passwords, among other things. There’s also the issue of logging everyone into the same system.

With hardware-based unified communication solutions such as Microsoft Lync, there’s deployment complexity and integration costs.

WebRTC avoids these issues. All you do is click a link, the browser opens and there’s your video conference. WebRTC is game changing, even above and beyond the likes of easy-to-use Skype.

2. Better sales and customer service

The trouble with existing video solutions is the complexity. Since WebRTC makes video as easy as web browsing, it opens up new opportunities both for sales and customer service. As we all know, “new opportunities” is code for startups kicking butt and “disrupting” existing business processes.

For sales, WebRTC enables superior selling opportunities, because it can connect sales staff with potential customers more fully than phone sales or chat options. Its screen and file-sharing functionality also helps the presentation process and customers can easily see PowerPoint presentations and other visual collateral even if they are not there in person.

For customer service, WebRTC can bring ultra-personalized customer interactions like we recently have seen with Amazon’s Mayday button on its Kindle Fire, which uses WebRTC.

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Do WebRTC and SIP perform the same functions?

Comparing WebRTC and SIP is comparing apples to oranges. WebRTC is a media engine with an application program interface (API) on top of it that happens to be built into a Web browser, while session initiation protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol that happens to need the use of a media engine.

In some ways, WebRTC and SIP complement each other -- like when you are trying to reach an SIP-based service from a Web browser. But in other ways, WebRTC can end up competing indirectly with SIP. How can that be?

As a free technology embedded in browsers, WebRTC technology reduces the barrier of entry to those needing to develop VoIP-related services, while at the same time opening up this rather "arcane" knowledge of VoIP to Web developers.

Many Web developers will end up using other signaling protocols such as XMPP, MQTT or a proprietary one instead of SIP. The reasons for that vary:

• They have no experience with SIP.
• They don't need SIP for their specific use case.
• They already have other means of signaling for their use case, such as messaging inside a dating service.

In these cases, WebRTC ends up replacing SIP indirectly.

But in other cases, vendors who use WebRTC technology will adopt SIP either because they want to connect it to legacy telephony services -- and as of now SIP is the best way to do that -- or because they like SIP's architecture and capabilities.

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