Call Center and Contact Center
[ From chapter-16 of the book "Information Technology in Banking" written by Abul Kashem Md. Shirin and Nusrat Tamanna Prianka and published by Institute of Bankers, Bangladesh (IBB) ]
1. What is a Call Center?
A call center is a customer
touch point used for the purpose of receiving and/or transmitting a large
volume of sales, requests, complains & quires over phone (by using voice
calls only).
2. What is a Contact Center?
A contact center is a customer
touch point used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume
of sales, requests, complains & quires by using multiple communication
channels like voice call, fax, email, letter/courier, SMS, web chat etc.
3. Difference between Call Center and
Contact Center
The difference between Call
Center and Contact Center is the use of technology which is being used to
communicate with customers. In Call Center, only voice call is used as a mode
of communication. On the other hand, in Contact Center multiple communication
channels are used as communication channel e.g. voice calls, email, fax, web
chat etc.
4. Mode of Communication in Contact Center
•
Voice Call: Voice
calls are used to communicate to the customer over phone. Different types of
voice career e.g. PSTN, GSM, CDMA or VoIP voice communication are used in a
contact Center. Voice calls are used in both inbound and outbound call Center.
Other than voice mode, the rest of the mode of communication in contact Center
is usually referred to as multimedia channels.
•
Web Chat: Web
chat is something which can be accessed by using internet with the help of a
dedicated chat service. By using web chat, customer can access to contact
Center from anywhere in the world. This mode of contact is important for
customers who frequently visit/roam around across different geographical
location.
•
Community Service
/ Forum / Blog: The most recent tools for contact Center are community service,
forum, blog etc. Unlike other mode of contact, these tools are used to provide
solution, to encourage other subscriber’s discussion, opinion, experience etc.
From contact Center side, agent guides the discussion, open the topic, provide
solution to a post etc. These mode of contact are very useful for technical
service contact Canters.
•
E-mail is: E-mail
is used as one of the multimedia mode of communication. This mode of
communication is usually used as a means of serving the off-line customer. Its
frequently used to communicate in international contact Center.
•
SMS: Short
Messaging Service is frequently used to the contact Center where poll, public
opinion, push pull service etc. are provided. SMS is also effective tool for
contact Center for information dissemination to the customer/target at lower
cost.
•
Fax: Fax is used
as an alternative to the physical paper processing activities e.g. sign on a
hard papers to get customer’s approval on a particular issues. Two types of Fax
can be used in contact Center like i) Traditional fax, and ii) e-Fax.
•
Letter / courier,
postal: Contact Center where physical paper processing is required is suitable
for using this mode of contact. Law service, layman customer service etc. Where
literacy rate is low, this mode of contact is significantly used in contact
Center.
5. Key Components of Contact Center
5.1. Interactive
Voice Response (IVR)
IVR
handles the calls in an intelligent way where customer can give the input and
get the static & dynamic output from the banking systems. Here IVR works as
query analyzer. Moreover, IVR gives an option to the customer to talk to the
Agent. If customer wants to talk to Agent then IVR handover the call to ACD
5.2. Automatic
Call Distributor (ACD)
ACD
route the calls to the agent based on the defined setting. With an built-in
intelligent system it can route the call to an agent under a given criteria.
Most common logic is “passing the call to the longer idle agent”.
5.3. Computer
Telephony Integration (CTI)
Once
ACD route the call then concerned agent’s CTI takeover the call and bring the
relevant customer information from different banking systems based on
pre-defined queries set by CTI field definitions. Upon population of the
customer data it gives call treatment option to the agent.
5.4. Call
Recording System
All
the calls between agent and customer are being recorded with voice and screen
recording enabled. 100% call recording is designed for banking call Center.
5.5. Staff
(Agent / Supervisors)
Contact Center’s key resource is obviously its human
resource. The person who directly serves customers is generally known as
“Agent” though they must have a different business designation which is used on
cards. A typical contact Center agent should have nice voice over phone, high
level of listening, writing and speaking skills; he must also have positive,
proactive and helping attitude while high level of patience is the key success
factor to work in contact Center. One of the critical factors in contact Center
is to identify the right number of agent requirement. Several factors affect
calculating the number of agent requirement. These factors included in but not
limited to the following;
–
Number of Calls Arrival in an hour
–
Average Handling Time of a call
–
Target Service
Level
–
Target Call
Answer Threshold Time
–
Working hour in a
shift, number of shifts in a day, working day in a week
–
Shrinkage
(weekend, holidays in a year, different types of leave quota etc)
Usually,
Erlang-C theory is used to calculate number of agent requirement by using
above-mentioned information.
Supervisor
requirement is determined by the number of agents and by the number of shifts.
Usually 08:1 agent: supervisor ration is maintained in a non-technical contact
Center. For technical contact Center it might be up to 2:1 ration. Supervisors
play an important role in contact Center operations. They are the solution
maker and service coordinator of the organizations.
5.6. Key
Performance Indicator (KPI)
Contact Center runs by KPI, which indicates how
contact Center agents are spending their time, how they are performing, what
level of quality standard are being maintained, how customers are being served,
how many customers are smiling after the call is finished etc. All of these
questioned can be answered by the KPI. In contact Center, KPI can be set two
different levels like at Agent level and at Supervisor level. Agent level KPIs
should include the factors that affect the speed and quality of the service. On
the other hand, supervisor KPI includes the factors which can and do affect the
contact Center output e.g. Service Level, ASA, FCR etc. Once the KPI design is
perfect, the service goal can be achieved with service provision only.
6. How does the Call Center / Contact
Center function?
Call flow of a Call Center is
narrated below:
1)
The customer calls the Call Center number
2)
The call will be routing to BTCL channels from its carriers (PSTN, GSM,
CDMA, VoIP)
3)
The call then will be carried in to DBBL side trunks using ss7
4)
The call then would be landed at IVR, where IVR will treat the customer
as per customer’s profile and his given input; at this stage customer will get
two options:
i)
If customer selects “Self-Service” then he would be served by IVR itself.
IVR will retrieve data from different banking systems and will play it to the
customer as per customer request. Moreover, IVR will also execute service
instructions given by customer himself.
ii)
If customer selects “Assisted Service” then:
(a)
Customer’s call will be transferred to ACD where all the agent profiles
are kept.
(b)
After getting customer’s profile from IVR, ACD will check the agent
profile and select the appropriate agent for the call
(c)
Then the ACD will transfer the call to the selected agent’s CTI (if there
is no free agent then the call will be queued in ACD until a free agent is
available)
(d)
CTI will query the banking systems and populate the pre-defined data on
agent’s CTI screen and give agent option of taking actions (answer the call,
reject the call, transfer/forward the calls etc.) on the call
(e)
After closing the call agent will select the reason code of the call and
save it to the database
7. Types of Call Center /Contact Center
Service
Call Center/Contact Center can play two different
types of roles in the organization:
·
By providing “Self-Service” through IVR only – here IVR plays relevant
information and execute request / instruction as per customer’s input.
·
By providing “Assisted Service” –
here human agents answer the call and do the needful.
In typical call Center/contact Center, a mixture of
‘self-service’ and ‘assisted service’ is simultaneously to ensure cost
effective operation of call Center.
Key Features of different types of service:
Parameter
|
Self-Service
|
Assisted Service
|
Service
Delivery Mode
|
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
|
Call Center Agent
|
Key Factors to
Success
|
•
Ease of Use/ simplicity of IVR flow
•
Security checking
•
Availability of Popular Services
|
•
Attitude
•
Communication
•
In-depth knowledge
•
Solution within TAT
|
Why to Use this
Touch Point?
|
•
Cost effective
•
Ensure participative service delivery
•
Reduce service delivery risk
•
Enhancement of service capacity
•
Always ready service
|
•
To handle customized and complex issues
•
Complaints handling
•
Unstructured service delivery (queries etc.)
•
To serve layman customer
|
8. Call Center/Contact Center Activity
Type
Based
on Call Center/ Contact Center activities we can categorize it in the following
group;
Inbound: Only receive calls on queries,
request/instruction and complaints
Outbound:
Making calls to customers with a
view to sales, survey, product promotion, collection etc.
Mixed Mode: Inbound and outbound activities are simultaneously used to ensure
best customer experience in terms of service, sales etc.
8.1. Common Inbound
Activities
•
Answer to queries
•
Register
complaints
•
Receive
instructions
•
Up & Cross
selling
•
Promote the new
products
•
Escalation of
issues to the concerned authorities
•
Manage community
service, blog, forum
8.2. Common Outbound
Activities
•
Welcome Calls
•
Regular Call Back
•
Sale Campaign
•
Up & Cross
selling
•
Special Campaign
•
Information Collection
& Data Entry
•
Customer feedback
/ satisfaction surveys
•
Promotion of new product
•
Collection
•
Retention
9. Quality Assurance at Contact/Call
Center
Quality assurance is the process of monitoring,
evaluating and controlling of the service delivery systems & process to
ensure that the services are delivered in compliance with the defined service
quality standard or not.
• Setting up the standard of
service delivery process
• Defining service evaluation
mechanism
• Monitoring & evaluating
service delivery
• Feedback to agent,
supervisor and management regarding service
• Recommend for training
• Investigating service
complaints
• Highlighting critical
service factors, incidents
• Recommend for process
improvement and changes
• Ensure updated product and
system knowledge of agents
• Conduct daily clinics
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