All you need to know about FCD and its impact on call centers

A fast clear down is a call center term for a caller who hangs up upon hearing a delay notice. FCD is basically used for callers who hang up immediately after they come to know about the delay in reaching a customer care agent. This is a scenario where a caller hangs up the call after listening to the notice that ‘our customer care agents are currently busy, your call is important for us, please hold the line’. Fast clear down is a result of the fact that such customers are not ready to wait even a minute or two.

Fast clear down
Fast clear down

In such cases where a caller hangs up before the agents get a chance to talk, the call centers are likely missing the opportunity of making them satisfied and happy. For an exceptional experience, a customer should be able to reach an agent and get his/ her queries resolved without any delay. But this is not possible when the call volumes are high and customers have to wait in queues. There can also be many other reasons responsible for a lengthy or even short call center queues. Some of them, are:

i) Sub-optimal staffing: If there are not enough agents, it could lead to the calls getting piled upii

ii) Agent incompetence: It means, the agents may not be competent enough to finish the calls on time.

Unhappy customers
Unhappy customers

FCD has an adverse impact as it is directly related to call abandonment rates. Since customers call into a contact center to get immediate support and answers to their queries, so, they are less likely to be in a mood of wasting their time waiting in the queue. Also, due to a negative experience, they hang up and never call back. Hence, abandonment rates are related to customer churn.

Call abandonment
Call abandonment

 

 

A complete guide to call center analytics: III

1. Cross-channel analytics

Customers today, have been provided with multiple channels through which they expect to be able to reach and interact with call center agents. The data flowing in from each of these channels contains valuable insights. This call center analytics enables organizations to identify and evaluate the data so gauged and choose the best channels for interaction with customers. Cross-channel analytics provides a way to determine what channels any of their customers are using at a given moment, and tailor their service options accordingly. Agents can provide a personalized and exceptional customer interaction if they have the required information at their fingertips.

Cross channel analytics
Cross-channel analytics

2. Self-service analytics:

This is yet another call center analytics that enables the users to access and analyze corporate data even if they are not trained as a data scientist and do not have any working experience with business intelligence and data mining. Self-service analytics helps to do so through the use of tools that simplify the ease of understanding. It further enables organizations to solve the problems and needs of a large number of businesses that too without the need for data professionals. Self-service requires minimal human involvement and helps cater a larger number of customers efficiently.

Self-service analytics
Self-service analytics

3. Performance analytics:

Performance analytics exempts the dependency of call center managers on daily reports and roll ups so as to know how well things are going. It basically offers online reporting and dashboard views of critical performance data, both real-time and historical, in context. This call center analytics enables the organizations to gauge and update relevant information and insights. Based on this information and insights, it further enables the organizations to take pro-active steps to ensure the best possible service to their customers. Thus, it actually helps enhance the customer experience to a large extent.

Performance analytics
Performance analytics

 

 

A complete guide to call center analytics: II

1. IVR analytics

IVR analytics is a highly effective end-to-end call assessment solution that is a part of customer experience strategy. As a matter of fact, the customers who are greeted by linear thinking IVR systems instead of human voices already assume that their self-service experience is going to be less than favorable. Conducting IVR data analysis helps produce valuable insights that answer many important questions. With insights to these questions, organizations can improve their IVR systems, make them more clear, efficient and user-friendly in responding to callers. Thus, IVR analytics contributes to the success and profitability of companies of all sizes by helping to reduce costs, increase and enhance self-service options, improve first contact resolution, and boost customer satisfaction by providing an exceptional customer experience.

IVR analytics
IVR analytics

2. Predictive analytics:

Predictive analytics consists of a number of statistical techniques from predictive modeling, machine learning, and data mining that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events. Using in-depth review of past performance in call volume, service level, handle time, and customer satisfaction, the predictive analysis makes it possible to apply past solutions to upcoming problems. This information can also be used in training to boost call agent effectiveness and enhance the customer experience. Predictive analytics help organizations determine which operational changes would be the most effective at improving the call center’s overall performance. As an added bonus, it also reduces handle time and operational costs by providing more effective communication.

Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics

3. Call center desktop analytics: 

Call center desktop analytics enables companies to capture inefficiencies, improve security, and explore potential coaching opportunities for phone agents. By viewing the phone agent’s activity during the call and capturing all activity on the agent’s desktop, a company can ensure that the agent is using their systems most effectively, and that the systems themselves are functioning properly. Using comprehensive desktop analytics, an analyst can find and remove redundant tasks that increase call handle time and frustrate both agents and customers alike. This would further help in providing exceptional customer service.

Desktop analytics
Desktop analytics

A complete guide to call center analytics: I

In order to measure the performance of a call center’s customer service representatives individually and as a whole, call center analytics is used. Also, this is used to gauge a call center’s overall approach to customer relationship management (CRM) in a quick and responsive manner. Call center management uses this analytics to evaluate interactions, spot patterns, identify knowledge gaps, and make corrections through more training or other means.

Call center analytics
Call center analytics

1. Text analytics:

The term text analytics refers to a set of linguistic, statistical, and machine learning techniques that model and structure the information content of textual sources for business intelligence, exploratory data analysis, research, or investigation. It is extensively used to respond to business problems, whether independently or in conjunction with query and analysis of fielded, numerical data. Also, the communication with customers these days is not limited to just the written documents. It is also carried out through email, secure messaging, Facebook, Twitter, and other text-centered media. Text analytics, as call center analytics, can review and monitor not only the messages sent to customers but also the message they send to the company. This helps in having a thorough knowledge of customers’ issues.

Text analytics
Text analytics

2. Speech analytics:

The process of analyzing recorded calls to gather customer information to improve communication and future interaction is known as speech analytics. This process is used by customer contact centers to extract information buried in client interactions with an enterprise. Using speech analytics, companies can monitor calls in real time and unearth inefficiencies in their current model, and make process improvements, such as moving to a call script or developing systems for call center agents to utilize in order to achieve the desired outcome. Moreover, the technology can pinpoint cost drivers, trend analysis, identify strengths and weaknesses with processes and products.

Speech analytics
Speech analytics

 

Cross-media queuing and its components

The term “Cross-media queuing”  refers to a call center methodology in which all incoming messages, be it a phone call, an e-mail, fax, interactive voice response (IVR) message, website submission or an instant message, is routed in the same way. As per a resource, Intel provided a whitepaper which states that the cross-media queuing application needs five components. Cross-media queuing is achieved with the help of technology tools that help in creating a queue engine, media interaction modules, agent application modules, configuration and administration modules and a statistical and reporting module.

Incoming queries
Incoming queries

The specified components and their functions have been described in detail below:

1.A queue engine:

The cross-media queuing requires a queue engine to act as a central coordination point. A system manager configures business rules. This coordination point negotiates all interactions with customers based upon these business rules.

2. Media interaction modules:

Customer queries may be received through a number of channels. In order to accept incoming customer queries from media channels and send the queries to agent applications as directed by the queue engine, media interaction modules are needed.

3. Agent application modules:

Customer queries arrive every now and then at call center agents’ desktops. Therefore, in order to enable automatic management of these queries, agent application modules are needed. The modules could be built by the system developers. Agent application modules can even be modified to be integrated into specific desktop applications.

5. Configuration and administration modules:

Configuration and administration modules are the ones that system administrators can use to establish business rules for routing media configure and manage queuing features.

6. Statistics and reporting module:

This type of module is required for recording and reporting purpose in a cross-media queuing system. A statistics and reporting module records and reports upon the flow of communication. It also lets you measure the system’s performance and record it as well.

 

Screen pop and its importance in a customer support center

A screen pop is an enticing feature of a computer telephony integration (CTI) application. It automatically displays all of the relevant caller and account information on a call center agent’s screen during a call. In order to match the incoming call against a customer database, caller ID , voice response or an automatic call distributor (ACD) may be used. This is done to identify the caller before the connection is made to the agent.

Screen pops
Screen pops

In other words, a screen pop is a feature that automatically displays caller information on call center agent screens when a call rings into the system. It is also known as automatic screen pop, automated screen pop.

CTI

How it works:

i) A customer or prospect reaches out via a phone call

ii) As soon as the call center software receives the call, it alerts the agent.

This alert includes information that there is a caller on the line and other relevant caller information found in the system. A screen pop can pull the data from a number of sources. As an example, some of this information can be pulled from public databases like data.com. However, the main information present in a screen pop should come from a company’s robust database as accessed through their call center software and helpdesk systems.

Screenpop
Screenpop

A number of advanced call center software solutions allow for customized screen pops, where companies can choose specific information to be displayed. Generally, this may include the caller’s name, phone number, address, email address, company, job title, information entered in your IVR, and other relevant information.

The screen pop feature is of utmost importance for a customer support center as it is a way to ensure that call center agents are primed to help customers even before the call is answered. Also, it is easy and automatic. Moreover, it allows agents to personalize conversations from the get-go, which improves customer satisfaction. This personalized service speeds up call resolution and helps your company stand out of the crowd.

 

All you need to know about ITS in a call center

In call centers’ context, ITS stands for issue tracking system. It is also known as trouble ticket system, support ticket, request management or incident ticket system. An ITS is a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of issues, as needed by an organization and is used in its customer support center. They are basically used to create, update, and resolve reported customer issues, or even issues reported by that organization’s other employees. As a matter of fact, support ticket should include vital information for the account involved and the issue encountered.

Issue tracking system
Issue tracking system

In most cases, an issue tracking system also contains a knowledge base containing information on each customer, resolutions to common problems, and other relevant data. An ITS is similar to a “bug tracker”, and often, a software company will sell both. In fact, some bug trackers are capable of being used as an issue tracking system, and vice versa. Consistent use of an issue or bug tracking system is considered one of the “hallmarks of a good software team” as it enhances the quality of customer service.

Knowledge base software
Knowledge base software

A ticket element, within an issue tracking system, refers to a running report on a particular problem, its status, and other relevant data. They almost always have a unique reference number, also known as a case, issue or call log number which is used to allow the user or help staff to quickly locate, add to or communicate the status of the user’s issue or request. Also, they are commonly created in a help desk or call center environment

Support ticket
Support ticket

As far as issues are concerned, they can have several aspects to them. An urgency value may be assigned to each issue in the system, based on the overall importance of that issue. Of all the issues, low or zero urgency issues are minor and should be resolved as time permits. Other details of issues include the customer experiencing the issue (whether external or internal), date of submission, detailed descriptions of the problem being experienced, attempted solutions or workarounds, and other such information.

 

 

What is meant by skills-based routing?

Skills-based routing refers to a call-assignment strategy used in call centers to assign incoming calls to the most suitable agent, instead of simply choosing the next available agent. It can be considered as an advancement to the ACD systems found in most call centers. Call centers these days have become larger and have to deal with a wider variety of call types. Skills-based routing comes as a perfect solution to this problem. A successful skills-based routing strategy enables you to increase agent productivity by allowing agents to draw on their personal knowledge and experience base to answer questions faster. this further reduces call-handling time, increases the likelihood of first-call resolution and increases customer confidence and satisfaction.

Skill based routing
Skill based routing

 

A simple automatic call distributor (ACD) system might do nothing more than route calls to the next available agent irrespective of that agent’s expertise and skills. On the other hand, skills-based routing allows contact centers to designate agents as specialists in certain products or issues. Basically, skills-based routing is used to assess the skills needed for a particular call by the dialed telephone number and the calling number or caller’s identity, as well as choices made in any associated IVR system. Thereafter, this highly efficacious system attempts to match the call to a suitably trained agent. The basic idea behind the functioning of skills-based routing is that an agent with matching skills will be able to provide a better service and enhance the customer experience.

Enhanced customer service
Enhanced customer service

According to manufacturers skills- based routing provides the following benefits:

i) it improves customer service

ii) shortens call-handling time

iii) makes training shorter and easier

iv) increases agent utilization,

v) boosts productivity

vi) increases revenue growth

 

Thus, skills-based routing has become a major selling point, over the simpler ACD that it replaces efficaciously!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tips to reduce call center shrinkage: II

1. Forecast down to appropriate intervals:

A particular number of agents is needed at different times of day to handle typical call volumes. This number is termed as “Base staff” and varies by time of day or day of the week. It is said to be a good practice to forecast down to about 15- or 30-minute intervals and to take into account variations in both volume and average handling time. This would help reduce call center shrinkage to a large extent.

Base staff
Base staff

2. Employ WFM application:

A WFM application with schedule adherence allows you to measure call center shrinkage at a granular employee level. It has the ability to track the exact time spent in planned and unplanned shrinkage. It can help manage shrinkage in a suitable manner in the season based environment. Moreover, it enables you to calculate the impact of absenteeism, late individuals etc on the service that you deliver to your customers.

WFM
WFM

 

3. Avoid flat lining or rounding off the shrinkage:

You should avoid flat lining the call center shrinkage across the year. Instead, consider analyzing the trends related to shrinkage. The reason being, categories such as sickness, training etc cannot always be the same every week or month of the year. Also, you need to make sure that you use decimal points and do not round off the figures in the respective calculations. This is because even 0.1% has the potential of adding up to a cost over the course of a year.

Shrinkage calculation
Shrinkage calculation

 

4. Consider individual calculations for different departments:

In a multi-department call center, shrinkage should be calculated individually rather than for the centre as a whole. This leads a better and more efficacious calculation.

Individual calculations of different departments
Individual calculations of different departments

5. Determine strategies that would reduce shrinkage for your business:

Based on the trends related to call center shrinkage and further calculations, base staff can be determined so as to facilitate a productive work schedule. Consider analyzing the data gleaned from monitoring the factors affecting shrinkage and discussing it with the entire team. Thereafter, you can determine and employ strategies that would work best to reduce shrinkage in your business

Strategies
Strategies

 

 

Importance of callback messaging for call centers

Callback messaging is a service that allows callers to leave personal contact information, either spoken or through the number pad so that an agent can call them back and they retain their place in the queue. This is very useful when call volume is high. This amazing feature offers the caller an alternative to either holding on the line or losing their place in the queue.

Call back
Call back

1.Shortens the call length:

Keeping your customers on hold for long intervals can cause frustration. They tend to loose patience with time and finally when the call is connected they often waste time complaining. Instead of starting off with the query that they called for, they angrily talk about their bad experience hence, increasing the length of the call. Callback messaging can help you start every conversation off smoothly, resulting in lower handle times.

Reducing call duration
Reducing call duration

2. Exempts call abandonment:

With high call volumes, call centers are left with the only option of telling their customers that  “your call matters to us, please be patient” so many times. As a result, they hang up the phone and abandon the call. With the help of a callback messaging solution, customers have an option of receiving a call whenever an agent is available. This reduces call abandonment to a large extent.

Call abandonment
Call abandonment

3. Deflates telecom costs:

As a matter of fact, a PSTN line is occupied the whole time when a caller is kept on hold. Often, a toll-free DID at a premium per-minute rate. Callback messaging facility eliminates the telecom costs associated with hold time as no PSTN line is occupied.

Cost reduction
diagram of slope on white background

4. Enhances customer experience:

When customers are kept on hold, they tend to get irritated and abandon the calls. Since their calls go unattended in these cases, so, this leads to bad experience. Replacing hold time with a callback enhances the experience you provide to customers, hence, exceeding their expectations.

Enhanced customer experience
Enhanced customer experience

5. Increases productivity:

Callback messaging helps make more efficient use of agents by smoothing out the peak periods. this aids in improving call center productivity and reducing the need to hire additional resources. It further lowers the number of repeat callers, hence, reducing spikes efficaciously.

Increases productivity
Increases productivity

 

 

 

Why you should employ a predictive dialing system: II

1. Helps organize and maintain client database appropriately:

Making use of a predictive dialing system can help organize and manage the client database and maintain all relevant records systematically. In other words the manual process of manually scribbling down the notes is replaced by an automated one. Also, it can rework the call structure based on the record of previous calls, so the fear of misplacing the data is eliminated as well. Predictive dialing provides you a separate list of numbers which were busy or had received no answers, so that, you can call these. In addition to this, it also mantains a do-not-disturb log so that the manager knows who doesn’t want to be called again. The entire process helps filter the other numbers which don’t have any potential of generating sales so that the agents can focus entirely on the productive ones.

Organized database
Organized database

2. Keeps the database updated:

The predictive dialing system helps ensure the database is always up to date. Relevant information about the customer and past call history are taken into consideration. Also, separate call-back lists are maintained along with the time of preferred calling. The predictive dialing system automatically places the call at the right time, puts an agent on the call and supports him on a real-time basis with the relevant and updated information required to handle the call and solve the queries.

Update
Update

3. Improves administration-workforce relationship:

Sice in this system, workload is assigned by an automated system, so, all the agents get an equal chance to improve. This makes the work challenging and hence, improves the efficiency of each agent working in a team. Also, it helps improves agent morale and makes it easier for them to fulfill sales targets. This further improves the professional relationship between the administration and the workforce.

Professional relationships
Professional relationships

4. Cost reduction

With this highly efficient system, there is no room for an expensive PBX setup or an operator who manually maintains the call log or routes calls to agents. Thus, it helps in cost reduction to a large extent.

Cost reduction
Cost reduction

 

 

Advantages of using a power dialing system: II

1. Improves idle rate per agent:

Power dialing system refers to an automated telephone dialing system that connects prospects with agents more efficiently by allowing agents to focus on live connections instead of manual dialing. It makes use of a manually-configured calls-to-agent ratio based on which the system automatically dials the next contacts as soon as the agent becomes available. As a result, the agents do not have to waste their time managing list of telephone numbers and rectifying errors. They can simply focus on enhancing their interaction skills with frequent coaching and training sessions. Power dialing system ensures maximum engagement with the customers such that the agents are always connected to a live call hence improving the idle rate per agent and boosting customer satisfaction.

Agent productivity
Agent productivity

2. Eliminates time wastage:

Whenever a call is placed, there are a number of reasons for agent time wastage, some of them being uninterested parties, busy signals or empty households. Employing a power dialing system helps eliminate all these possibilities and ensures that the agents connect with the right prospect at the right time. It further eliminates unanswered calls, dropped numbers and automated answering machines. This is how time wastage is eliminated and unproductive calls are avoided.

No time wastage
No time wastage

3. Boosts sales:

Now, with all the advantages mentioned earlier, call centers can gain huge profits and long-term customer relationships. As mentioned earlier, power dialing system helps you eliminate time wastage, increase agent productivity, generate and nurture leads more efficiently, and also avoid missing opportunities. Collectively, all of these advantages lead to a bigger advantage i.e. boosted sales. With the help of power dialing system, call centers can witness their sales to get double or more. It further leads to improved ROI as it not only increases the quality of calls dialed but also the quality of customer interaction and hence, customer satisfaction.

Boosted sales
Boosted sales

 

Steps to design an effective quality monitoring process

Quality monitoring process aims at evaluating the agents in an effective manner. It is employed to identify the calls failing to meet predefined standards. Thereafter, you can make informed decisions to make the process better, faster and quicker. The following steps need to be followed when trying to design an effective quality monitoring process:

1. Determine and define the objectives:

The very first step of this process is to determine important goals. Once it’s done, these goals need to be defined along with intended results. Based on the goals and intended results, tasks should be assigned to the various individuals.

Goals and objectives
Goals and objectives

2. Educate the agents about the process’s merits:

When you decide to install a quality monitoring system, you may face resistance from the agents. You can combat this problem by explaining the merits. This would encourage them to support you.

Educating the agents about the process
Educating the agents about the process

3. Call selection:

Non-routine customer calls need to be selected for greater effectiveness of your QA program. These calls include the ones:

i) that were transferred multiple times

ii) those were either shorter or longer than usual

iii) that originated from certain geographies or customers

iv) that involved some particular activity on the PC screen of the agent

Call monitoring
Call monitoring
4. Conduct a monthly audit procedure:
Conducting a quality audit procedure can help examine the various qualities and skills like adherence to processes, product knowledge, call control, courtesy, empathy, accuracy, and clarity of voice. The scoring evaluation should be capable of reflecting the goal of a contact center. Moreover, scorecards or quality monitoring forms should be arranged by categories.

Call scoring
Call scoring

5. Make use of process maps:

Consider creating and documenting a process map for the call center’s quality monitoring system. The document should describe responsibilities of people, their roles, and the techniques/tools to be used. Calls recording should be employed and the agent must listen to his/her own calls from time to time to conduct a self-assessment.

Process map
Process map

 

All you need to know about call scoring

Call scoring is a process that enables you to derive additional benefits from efforts to analyze recorded calls for information. This process can benefit customers, agents and company sales and marketing plans. It provides a systematic means to conduct these reviews and identify the weakest areas of agent performance. Moreover, it lets you know the steps necessary to improve the agent’s performance.

An example of call scoring
An example of call scoring

Contact center call scoring can be regarded as a useful training and management tool. Scorecard is an essential element in the entire process. Using this scorecard and setting contact center standards, you can improve your contact center performance. Call scoring can be done by determining whether:

i) the customer was met with a friendly greeting or not

ii) he/ she was asked their name and was it used during the call

iii) the agent keeps a positive attitude across all customer contacts

 

Call scoring tools
Call scoring tools

 

The very first step in the call scoring process is to determine what elements are important in each customer engagement. This is followed by a process of knowing how each effort should be scored against these pre-determined criteria. As a matter of fact, most of the scorecard elements are fairly standard and are derived from dividing a call into segments. Moreover, the calls can be scored on a 1-10 scale, or 9 in the form of A-F letter grades.

Example of scorecard
Example of scorecard

A basic open-middle-close format is employed in many companies. This approach focuses on determining:

i) how the customer is greeted

ii) how the problem or question is resolved

iii) how the call ends

iv) whether the agent was able to answer all questions

v) whether the agent was friendly when the caller was hostile

vi) if any upsell opportunities were missed

Once the scoring has been done, the results can be shared with each agent. Additional training can also be scheduled in cases where the agent performance falls below the expected level.

 

 

 

Call recording and its significance: III

1.Enhances customer satisfaction:

The quality of interaction between a call center agent and a customer decides the efficiency of customer service which further affects customer satisfaction. Therefore, the agent has to communicate clearly, maintain phone etiquette, treat the customer with respect, maintain a pleasant tone throughout the conversation, and provide resolution to all their queries. As mentioned earlier, call recording helps management check whether an agent has efficiently performed in an expected manner or not. It helps managers to resolve customer complaints in an appropriate manner. Also, it enables the agent to play nice knowing that his / her call is being monitored.  Moreover, this forces the agent to be consistently professional in all the calls.

Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction

 

2. Improves security:

An appropriate call recording system can be highly beneficial to a company employing it. It helps reduce inappropriate calls and detect any security problems. It enables you to monitor employee interaction to reduce inappropriate conversations. Call recording exempts the chances of agents using the resources for personal use as it also helps to reduce personal phone calls. However, all the call centers are required to inform the customer beforehand that the call is getting recorded. This, in turn, causes the customers to refrain from using abusive language on the call. In other words,  a call recording system actually helps to keep the conversations professional.

Improve security
Improve security

3. Corporate liability and compliance:

As a matter of fact, even a simple miscommunication can lead to a potential lawsuit. So, almost all companies have the potential to face lawsuits.  Hence, a call recording system enables your company to diffuse many such scenarios. Moreover, new and old government regulations require all companies to be compliant with their business practices. So, call recording also helps to maintain compliance with all these regulatory groups. In other words, it exempts any chances of you being prosecuted or fined.

Corporate liability
Corporate liability

 

 

Benefits of using speech analytics: II

1.Deflates operating expenses:

Speech analytics can help deflate operating expenses by detecting cost savings and ways to avoid spending money while generating incremental revenue. In order to tune a speech analytics application for a specific site, a significant investment in time and resources is required. This highly efficacious technology then filters out and provides cost savings data across the board. This enables the call center owners to avoid counterproductive spending and enhance their reputation among businesses requiring call centers. Moreover, it improves customer experience.

Reduce costs
Golden coins and red arrow Graph falls on white background

2. Reduces customer churn:

Speech analytics can help businesses/ organizations to curb customer churn. The tools engaged in this process can be used to identify the factors responsible for customer churn. It provides an opportunity to all such businesses to make the changes necessary to keep customers coming back. This results in improved quality service which further improves customer experiences and satisfaction, giving customers less of a reason to leave. Also, the more information companies gather about existing and potential customers, the better they can take advantage of general consumer behavior.

Reduces customer churn
Reduces customer churn

3. Improves customer experience:

This amazing software can be used for audio data analysis. This data analysis includes:i)

i) detecting things like emotion and stress in a customer’s voice

ii) the reason for the call

iii) the products mentioned and more

With the help of speech analytics, organizations can quickly identify a customer’s needs, wants and expectations, and work to meet them. These days, more and more call centers are relying on call center speech analytics to enhance customer experience. Organizations depending on call centers to provide their customers with satisfying and fruitful interactions can actually leverage the power of this wonderful technology to take their business elsewhere by discovering inferior agent-customer synergy.

Customer experience
Customer experience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benefits of using speech analytics: I

As we mentioned in an earlier post, speech analytics refers to the process of analyzing recorded calls to gather customer information to improve communication and future interaction. The information cumulated using speech analytics can be used to discover information relating to strategy, product, process, operational issues and contact center agent performance. Moreover, it can be leveraged to identify areas in which contact center agents may need additional training or coaching, and can automatically monitor the customer service provided on calls. Easing out a number of processes at the call center, speech analytics provides a number of benefits.

1. Helps manage operational and performance issues:

Speech analytics can be used by call center managers to monitor customers and call center agents simultaneously. They can actually keep an eye on their performance in order to make sure regulatory requirements are met. Moreover, this highly efficacious technology can be used for coaching call center agents. Well trained agents are efficient enough to resolve customer queries which further improves first call resolution and reduces call volume. In other words, operational and performance issues that occur throughout the enterprise can be tracked and managed, hence, resulting in improved service quality.

Monitoring call center agents
Monitoring call center agents

2. Provides valuable insights regarding marketplace:

Not only call centers but the entire enterprise can benefit from speech analytics. As an example, sales organizations can leverage the power of this amazing technology to identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. The tools engaged in this process can actually be used to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Sales managers can utilize the data gathered using speech analytics to learn about how a particular up-sell or cross-sell impacted a customer’s level of satisfaction. They can also determine how different customer demographics respond to the offers, using this technology. This does not end here! Personalized up-sell and cross-sell opportunities that meet a customer’s specific needs can also be created using this wonderful technology.

Upsell and crossell
Upsell and crossell

 

 

Blended universal queue system and its advantages

Blended universal queue, more appropriately known as the universal queue (UQ) refers to an advanced concept in contact center design. As per this concept, multiple communications channels (such as telephone, fax, and email) are integrated into a single queue to standardize processing and handling. In other words, the universal queue is essentially a combination of email, chat and other data enabling universal queuing along with call blending.

Blended universal queue system
Blended universal queue system

Importance:

1. Universal queue system provides a single unified workflow which integrates all the various trouble tickets, CRM cases, mobile, social and traditional channels into a singular entity so as to eliminate improper handling of customer issues.

Handling customer complaints
Handling customer complaints

2. This highly efficacious system allows the customers to opt for a communication channel of their choice. Thus, people who do not wish to talk over a phone call can use email or another such channel of communication while the ones who are comfortable with calls can directly talk to the agents for query resolution.

Choosing communication channels
Choosing communication channels

3. Blended universal queue system provides improved cross-channel flexibility. This further results in an enhanced user experience leading to a higher customer satisfaction.

4. As far as the business agents are concerned, they can leverage the universal queue to gather valuable insights and information available across the various channels. This may help them manage their customer care workload more effectively.

Valuable insights
Valuable insights

5. The universal queue system helps in increasing the productivity of an organization by providing the facility of optimizing work patterns of its employees according to the operational requirements of the center.

Increasing productivity
Increasing productivity

6. It facilitates a smooth delegation of work among the agents according to the customer priority, availability, and their individual skills. Moreover, this technology is capable of identifying as to which of the channels need precedence over the rest of them, based on the individual priority.

Delegation of work

 

 

 

Call blending and its unmatched benefits

Call blending refers to the capability to make outbound calls while also being able to receive inbound calls, all in one easy technologically created the system. It helps in the equal distribution of calls among the workstations in a call center. This means that all the agents have the same workload which further leads to increased customer satisfaction. These days, call blending is being used by a number of call centers to maximize the productivity of agents without overworking them. This process is entirely automatic as an agent finishes with an outbound call and becomes free, a tone will emit from his or her headset signaling that the line is connected to another caller.

Call blending
Call blending

There are a number of benefits of using call blending:

1. It increases customer satisfaction:

When you allow your agents to take both inbound and outbound calls at the same time, a number of incoming calls lowers down. This causes the workload to be equally distributed such that each agent receives the same number of callers. Since everyone stays busy and productive, the number of net calls accommodated in a day boosts up which further results in a higher satisfaction level from your customers.

Increased customer satisfaction
Increased customer satisfaction

2. It helps cut down on expenses:

Call blending enables your agents to take inbound and outbound calls which cut down your need to hire more employees. Thus, you can save on your payroll. With proper training, each agent can take on the responsibility of handling both inbound and outbound calls. Also, they can carry out the task without sacrificing the quality of customer service calls.

Cutting down the expenses
Cutting down the expenses

3. It helps accommodate customers’ needs efficiently:

With call blending each agent is provided with all the necessary information through utilizing a feature called screen pop. This enables all your representatives to respond more intelligently to their calls. Thus, with sufficient information on hand, an agent is able to accommodate a customer’s needs effectively.

An example of screen pop
An example of screen pop

 

 

 

Your guide to speech analytics software

Speech analytics refers to the process of analyzing recorded calls to gather customer information to improve communication and future interaction. The process is primarily used by customer contact centers to extract information regarding client interactions with an enterprise. Speech analytics is somewhat similar to automatic speech recognition, however, it can also be used for analyzing the topic being discussed, which is weighed against the emotional character of the speech and the amount and locations of speech versus non-speech during the interaction. The technology can be leveraged to know about cost drivers, trend analysis, identify strengths and weaknesses with processes and products, and help understand how the marketplace perceives offerings.

Speech analytics
Speech analytics

Speech analytics applications are capable of spotting spoken keywords or phrases, either as real-time alerts on live audio or as a post-processing step on recorded speech. It can also be used for categorization of speech in the contact center environment to identify calls from unsatisfied customers.

Spotting spoken keywords and phrases
Spotting spoken keywords and phrases

Call centers employ speech analytics software to identify things like the reason for the call, the products mentioned and the caller’s mood. Speech analytics software is capable of quickly identifying a customer’s needs, wants and expectations if used efficaciously. Moreover, it also helps in identifying areas that need improvement for agents and the business.

Speech recognition for call centers
Speech recognition for call centers

Speech analytics software can also be used to monitor and coach agents. It can further be used for assisting in managing customers and their data. In the case of call monitoring, speech analytics software can help identify selling opportunities and track script adherence and regulatory compliance. When inculcated in the training module, this software can help to improve first call resolution and shorten call times. Operational and performance issues can be found and managed effectively through customer as well as agent monitoring.

Training agents
Training agents