Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

This global “always on” society in which many of us operate, has created a world in which we want everything at our fingertips-- and we want it now. While technology gave us the ability to know that things could be accessed any time and any where, it is our constant push for impatience that continues to drive the demand.

 

The contact center industry is one that is not immune to this technological evolution. In fact, providing customers a self-service environment has delivered benefits for consumers, contact center agents and the organization. Self-service presents an interesting contradiction as the majority of consumers still want to speak to a live person, especially if the initial attempt at self-service fails.

 

However, this is slowly changing as companies are becoming more adept at offering consumers user-friendly self-service environments and consumers are becoming more independent in navigating both Web site and voice self-service portals. This developing trend is highlighted in Dimension Data’s Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2007.

 

According to this latest report, 13.5 percent of contact centers have already installed speech recognition and another 24.7 percent have plans to implement it. This trend is building on the already widespread use of online self-service as 21.6 percent of contact centers are currently offering this technology.

 

The 2007 Benchmarking Report also predicts that because speaking is such a “natural” communication style for people, organizations will increasingly use speech technologies to automate simple contact center queries to promote high levels of user adoption and improve overall efficiency.

 

Cara Diemont, editor of the 2007 Benchmarking Report, noted that the benefitsof implementing speech self-service in a contact centre environment can be substantial. She shared in a statement: “The advantages to the business itself are huge. If implemented well, speech self-service can achieve high levels of adoption from customers and, when applied to the right process, can improve efficiencies and lead to savings.”

 

“In addition there are positive outcomes for customers, for instance service being available on a 24/7 basis,” said Diemont. Other benefits of speech self-service include the ability to access service more quickly with less need to wait in a queue for an agent to become available.

 

“Self-service technology can also deliver benefits for agents, as it automates high volume, routine transactions such as balance enquiries or changes of address, freeing staff to deal with more complex, valuable calls. This drives staff motivation and satisfaction, addressing two of the contact centre industry’s most pressing issues – staff absenteeism and attrition,” Diemont concluded.

 

 

The report indicates that on a global scale, the highest levels of installed self-service technologies are Service Providers at 14.3 percent, Financial Services at 14.6 percent, and the Technology and Media sector at 15.8 percent. The industry that appears to have the most aggressive plans in place to install speech is Travel and Transportation as close to half or 41.9 percent plan to install speech recognition in the next 18 months.

 

 

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.