Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

July 02, 2008

Research Shows Personalized Intelligent Service Drives Satisfaction

By Susan J. Campbell


Genesys (News - Alert) Telecommunications Laboratories has announced the results of its latest research on how contact centers can improve the customer experience. The survey polled contact center managers and customers to show that offering a more personalized services should be a contact center’s top priority.

A more personalized service can be delivered as a result of an intelligent Customer Front Door (iCFD) approach to routing that will identify both the caller and the purpose of the call. The problem is that half of contact centers still employ DTMF systems that force customers to wait through may options.
 
This survey also found that only five percent of contact centers are using speech activated systems, which enable callers to voice their requests and ‘jump the queue.’ While speech activated systems are considered to be a step forward from DTMF, only 22 percent offer this as a personalized service.
 
To a certain extent, this service identifies the customer on the call. It could be identifying them by their account number of calling the customer by name. This extended knowledge makes the customer feel valued and improves the customer experience.

"iCFD is the next generation of call routing," commented Bruce Eidsvik, Vice President of Voice Portal Sales, EMEA at Genesys, in a company statement. "It not only identifies the caller based on his or her name or account details, it also intelligently maps the intent of the call by collecting context information from the back office system.”
 
“For example, in the case where a customer puts a call into his or her insurance company to check on the status of a claim recently submitted, the iCFD system would, once initial identity and account number verification checks have been completed, do a "data dip" into back office information and see that the caller logged a claim only five days ago.”
 
“It would then assume that the customer is looking for an update on the claim and would first ask 'Are you calling for a progress report on your recent claim?' If that were not the case, then all other available call options on the system would be put forward to the caller thereafter,” Eidsvik added.

While personalized, intelligent service is believed to be the key to improve customer satisfaction, survey results show that more than 50 percent of contact centers are not using personalized routing as part of their applications. Such a practice can have an adverse effect on customer satisfaction.

In order to protect the customer base, the contact center must be able to deliver personalized service. Consumers are demanding it and competitors are providing it. Without a strategic plan to move operations this way, the contact center can easily lose customers to those companies that give the impression that they really “know” their customers.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) and has also written for Market Drive News. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.


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