Contact centre survey highlights opportunities for savings
In a survey carried out by call centre software provider Rostrvm
Solutions, over 70% of contact centres relied on back office teams to
complete customer transactions, yet nearly half were not measuring
operational performance in the back office. Another key finding was that
whilst the use of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) is increasing, over
half of respondents still did not use CTI in their call operations, despite
the benefits it offers such as intelligent call routing and improved call
handling.
Ken Reid of Rostrvm Solutions said, “We asked 50 call centres in
both the public and private sectors to complete a questionnaire to gain a
‘real world’ insight into IT complexity in the call centre and the
supporting back office operations and our findings suggest that most
organisations struggled in both areas.”
Firstly, measuring back office performance as well as that of the
front office is crucial because, from the customer’s perspective, a call
centre agent can perform superbly but it counts for nothing if the back
office then fails to complete the transaction efficiently.
Call centres are used to recording and analysing data to assess
performance: it helps managers to assess how long it takes to complete
tasks, how efficiently staff are working, and how many staff are required to
handle the workload, whilst delivering high-quality customer service. It
makes sound business sense that the back office team should be included in
that assessment.
rostrvm BackOffice supports back office staff
through the task-handling process by delivering guides, prompts and data to
the user in easy-to-follow steps, as well as monitoring activity. All
information gathered is stored in a management information database allowing
real-time management information to be accessed and historical reports to be
run quickly and easily.
Another area where cost savings can be made is by improving call
handling through use of Computer Telephony Integration.
Two out of three call centres surveyed by Rostrvm still use three or more
applications at the agent desktop to process transactions. Desktop
optimisation technology offers many advantages in call handling and back
office environments; it integrates many of the applications which teams
typically use to process a transaction providing a single interface,
removing repetitive data handling, reducing errors and supporting business
processes. By adopting this technology, organisations can reduce avoidable
contact, workload and ultimately costs.
Full survey details are available here.