Download The Next Step In The Evolution Of Customer Care:

The Next Step In The Evolution Of Customer Care:
The Customer Interaction Network
By Laurent Philonenko, Vice President and General Manager,
Cisco Customer Contact Business Unit
Businesses have for years understood that providing their customers with a superior
customer contact experience means connecting customers to the right person with the
right information as quickly as possible. Comprehensive customer information must be
available to customer service agents immediately, regardless of where they are located.
As a result, phone, Web and other communications channels can now be fully integrated
with business and customer relationship management (CRM) applications, creating a true
“customer interaction network” that goes far beyond the traditional call center.
As companies embrace Internet Protocol (IP) as the foundation of their business networks,
they’ve already laid the groundwork for supporting integrated communication channels
and greater customer visibility.
To make the vision of the customer interaction network a reality, businesses need to
rethink the way their contact center technologies support and define their business
capabilities. Unfortunately, the limitations of time-division multiplexing (TDM)-based
contact centers dictate the way organizations handle customer contacts and manage
customer service resources.
Overcoming The Barriers To Better Customer Service
The technology at the core of traditional contact centers, including TDM-based automatic
call distributors (ACDs), interactive voice response (IVR) systems and private branch
exchange (PBX) phone systems, can severely limit the way companies manage customer
interactions. The technology was designed for companies that house all of their customer
service resources at one location, where there is little need to distribute functionality over
geographic regions or to incorporate enterprisewide call-routing intelligence. But few
companies operate that way today.
Today’s enterprises typically have multiple contact centers distributed domestically or
globally. They use different channels to serve their customers, including telephone, Web
sites, e-mail, Web-based chat and even video. Despite these advances, decades-old call
center technology makes many contact centers inflexible, inefficient and difficult to
integrate into a modern, distributed business operation.
For example, effectively sharing resources or applying call-routing intelligence across the
enterprise is impossible. Any incoming call must be queued to one contact center location
before any information can be gathered from the customer, before any routing rules can
be applied, or before any action can be taken by CRM applications. And if the customer
needs to be transferred to another location, rerouting a call over the public switched
telephone network (PSTN) means additional take-back-and-transfer (T&T) toll costs and
longer customer wait times.
TDM-based technologies isolate contact centers and customer service staff. Many
companies separate business processes by location, with each contact center specializing
in a specific product or service. These contact centers cannot effectively distribute
resources to respond to changing customer demands.
Isolated contact centers carry high administrative costs. Enterprises must staff each
contact center with skilled (and costly) IT employees. Any changes or upgrades to
ACD/IVR software must be duplicated at each location.
Is there a way to shape customer contact technologies around business objectives, to fully
integrate multiple communication channels, and to streamline call-routing processes?
The answer is yes. By moving from TDM-based technologies to a system built entirely
on IP, companies can shift from a simple contact center model to an intelligent,
enterprisewide customer interaction network.
Unleashing the Flexibility of IP
A modern customer interaction network is built on a distributed, IP-based architecture,
and the network supports an evolving suite of multichannel services that streamline
customer exchanges and enhance the customer experience. Voice, e-mail, Web and other
channels are unified under a single customer service umbrella and are fully integrated
with enterprise applications, databases, directories and CRM systems.
A core component of the modern customer interaction network is the convergence of
voice and data services, referred to as IP telephony or voice over IP (VoIP).
Once disparate voice and data services are converged over a single IP network,
organizations can use a single, universal ACD system and a universal queue for all
incoming customer calls. Incoming calls can be immediately directed to the right location,
eliminating most T&T costs and reducing customer wait times.
Having a single, universal ACD system also gives companies true global visibility into
customer contact operations. A unified customer interaction network provides
comprehensive, real-time reporting and analysis for the entire enterprise. This type of
flexibility offers built-in protection against network outages, natural disasters or other
unexpected occurrences.
Of course, for many enterprises, the greatest draw of a distributed IP customer interaction
network is the potential for substantial savings. With a single, unified ACD system,
enterprises can manage the entire customer contact environment from a single location,
reducing on-site IT staff at individual contact centers. Updates to ACD and IVR systems
need only be made once, and every contact center across the enterprise immediately
reflects the changes. And for many enterprises, the toll savings from moving site-to-site
calls to the data network alone pays for the entire solution within the first few years after
deployment.
Making The Most of Employee Resources
A modern customer interaction network also provides greater flexibility to attract, retain
and connect customer service employees. Employees can field calls from anywhere as
long as they are connected to the company’s network.
Some enterprises use this flexibility to support home-based employees. A home-based
workforce can substantially reduce overall contact center costs and also presents a great
incentive for attracting and retaining the best staff.
Delivering Customer-centric Experiences
Customer contact environments that harness IP intelligence can have a profound impact
on the way customers interact with the company. More streamlined, enterprisewide call
routing means that customers get the information they need quicker and more easily. It
also accommodates full integration among all customer communication channels,
because all voice, Web and other services are delivered over IP.
A unified customer interaction network also unlocks the full potential of enterprise CRM
systems by providing global visibility and full integration across all channels and
business applications. Enterprises can better identify and track customers entering the
environment via multiple channels and use all of the tools at their disposal to cross-sell
and upsell, enhance customer loyalty and ensure a consistent customer experience.
Moving Toward The IP Customer Interaction Network
Many enterprises have already made the leap to distributed, fully integrated IP customer
contact systems, already reaping the benefits. Companies considering this approach
should recognize that a successful customer interaction network requires more than
simply deploying a new technology. Enterprises need to re-examine the way in which
customer communications systems fit within the framework of their business; they must
ask the important questions about how those systems have reshaped business objectives.
Some technologies on the market offer incremental steps toward a distributed contact
center model by “IP-enabling” traditional TDM systems and creating hybrid solutions.
Certainly, businesses with major investments in legacy ACDs and PBXs have good
reason to consider these solutions. But while a hybrid approach may provide some of the
benefits of IP intelligence, organizations relying on TDM technologies will in the long
run still be locked into an inherently rigid, inefficient model for communicating with their
customers. To take full advantage of the intelligence, efficiency, cost savings and
enhanced customer care offered by a unified customer interaction network, organizations
should consider a more fundamental shift toward embracing IP.