The Contact Center Blog

"On Hold" Video

Here's a great video from RightNow Technologies...

Voice, Chat, Email… Video?

When I first started in this industry a few years ago, one of the first questions that came to mind was the plausibility of outsourced support that featured a live video feed between consumer and agent.

One service delivery model I envisioned at the time had to do with paid search. I thought it would be revolutionary if, as a consumer, you were to scroll over a paid search engine advertisement- and there to assist you was a live person via a video window pop up. This person could invite you into their ecommerce store and could help with placing an order or provide customer service.

I had not given this idea much thought recently until the beginning of the month when in the New York Times I discovered that Google was about to begin testing video ads on search results pages. Now this is not a live link to customer service agents, but I would argue it is definitely a step in that direction.

After reading the Times article, I decided to research ‘video support’ further and it turns out there is a formal term for this technology/service: ‘Interactive Voice and Video Response’. CosmoCom, a provider of contact center technology provides a video demonstration of this type of support here.

IVVR is apart of what industry experts are calling Call Center 2.0.

According to Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) President Rich Tehrani ‘video will play a huge part of call center 2.0. Call centers will video-enable themselves to increase the customer service of phone calls. In some cases conversations will be 2-way video enabled in other cases the benefits of having video calls will be so obvious that all call centers will scramble to show their agent’s faces.’

We have seen call centers become contact centers, and service offerings grow from simple phone support to email and live chat assistance options being available; I wonder if IVVR will be the next big step forward, and I look forward to hearing other people’s thoughts on the matter.

How Do You Maximize Existing Customer Revenue Potential?

One of the most valuable ways to increase your bottom line is by expanding the services of existing customers.  In the call center industry there are a number of ways to accomplish this via technology enhancements, quality assurance improvements, up sell marketing offers, chat, email utilization, fulfillment and IVR. 

At my company we utilize a wide network of partner experts to provide non-core call center services to enhance value, grow the customer and deepen the relationship.  On example is in the area of servicing  fulfillment.  Through strategic relationships we are able to service our customers enhanced needs with one contact person and one contract.  In addition we are able to offer preferred pricing that the customer would not be able to find on their own. 

What best practices has your company used to maintain an operational focus and still have a focus on program enhancements for customers once they are on service?

Top 50 Largest Call Centers

Technology Marketing Corporation’s (TMC®) just announced this week Customer Interaction Solutions® Magazine's 23rd annual Top 50 Inbound Teleservices Agencies Ranking.

This Top 50 Ranking recognizes the top inbound and outbound call center outsourcing agencies, both domestic and international, as well as interactive inbound and global aggregate ranking, as measured by the amount of billable teleservices minutes companies completed during the past year.

“The Top 50 Teleservices Agencies list offers our readers the most honest and reliable ranking of companies.  It is truly the benchmark for choosing large-size, large-capacity teleservices agencies,” said Nadji Tehrani, Executive Group Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Customer Interaction Solutions.

The list includes various large scale public call center outsources such as Convergys, Sitel, APAC, and Teleperformance, as well as medium size centers such as Hamilton, Archway, Telerx, OKS Ameridial, The Connection, and 24-7 INtouch contact centers. Click here to view the full list and rankings.

Congratulations to all of this year's winners!

- MK

Learning to Speak Contact Center-ese

While getting familiar with the contact center industry, one of the most challenging things is familiarizing yourself with all the terminology and acronyms. In hunting around I found a call center “dictionary” of sorts which you can find here. I thought it might also be useful to briefly summarize some of the key terms which you might encounter and explain how they could impact you if you were selecting an outsourcer.

Talk Time – This includes the total time spent on a call when an agent is talking to a contact. It’s the time from when the phone is answered and the agent says “hello” right to when the caller hangs up.

Wrap Time – This is the time at the conclusion of the call when the agent is still working on something to assist the contact, however the actual call itself is over. This might include data entry, etc.

HT – This is an acronym for “Handle Time”. Basically this includes the entire length of time required for dealing with one customer contact. The HT includes the talk time of the call plus the wrap time.

AHT - You might also hear AHT which stands for “Average Handle Time”. You can get this by taking the total of all the HT’s for a particular group of calls divided by the number of calls in that group to get the average.

When shopping for an outsource contact center AHT can have a strong influence on the price. Most outsourcers charge a price per agent minute or per agent hour. While a potential service provider that offers a cheaper rate per minute might seem like the obvious choice, shaving a few seconds off the AHT – for example a shorter wrap time – can result in significant savings when multiplied times your total number of calls.

When you’re shopping around, ask what techniques each center has for reducing the AHT.  If they don’t know what an AHT is, refer them to this blog (and choose a different provider).

February Call Center Absorption

Site Selection Group, LLC just released their February numbers for call center openings and closings for the month. The company researches the absorption of the call center and back office jobs across the world and releases the numbers on a monthly basis.

For February 2008, they report "Our research identified the creation of 12,285 call center jobs at 27 facilities and the displacement of 2,675 call center jobs at 14 facilities." The following table identifies the employers creating jobs during February of 2008:

ACCM Early Registration Savings

Mark your calendars for the Annual Conference for Catalog and Multichannel Merchants (ACCM) taking place in Orlando, Florida on May 19-22, 2008.

The ACCM is one of the only conferences devoted to merchants who need to understand, segment and market to today's customers and prospects across an array of media. ACCM will help you focus on the strategies you need to successfully integrate your catalog, web, store, phone, sales force, e-mail and other channels.

To REGISTER visit - www.accm4me.com/merch. If you register by March 7th you will save up to $100 on a full conference pass. Use savings code E05.

24-7 INtouch (Booth 607) will be at this event along with other call center outsources such as AnswerNet, Cyber City, Hamilton Call Center, and Midco.

- MK

What Are You Good At?

In life and business those that do everything generally do nothing really well, is this reality or myth?  Hard to say for sure but one thing that does hold true is that by doing everything you are bound to get lost and not stand out in the crowd.  In my professional life I am tasked with aligning companies together that might best complement each other and add value to each other and the end customer.  When a company makes a decision to focus on a core service offering and leave the external services to experts it is very important to ensure that you are aligned with partners that have a targeted approach in their market niche; this will ensure the value ad offered is a true differentiator and stands out from the competition.  Aligning with a customer that believes they are experts in everything is a recipe for a mediocre value ad service for your customer.