Page 151 - DMGT308_CUSTOMER_RELATIONSHIP_MANAGEMENT

Customer Relationship Management

Notes

Notes A new breed of inbound centres is starting to emerge—self-service centres. In
traditional contact centres, all interaction between the customer and the centre is done
with human agents. However, in self-service centres a good portion of the load is being
shifted toward non-human systems, such as automated response or even speech-enabled.
Automated response systems enable the customer to use the keypad on their phone to
answer questions by pushing buttons.

Each button push brings them closer to the information for years, giving the customer access to
simple (and common) information, such as addresses, balances, and procedural instructions.
Speech-enabled systems are more sophisticated and easier for the customer to use. In such a
system the customer actually speaks a response, rather than needing to press keypad buttons.
Speech-enabled systems are a great boon for cell-phone using customers because they no longer
need to perform gymnastics to keep pressing buttons on their phone. As speech-enabled systems
become more sophisticated, customers will be able to ask questions directly to the self-service
system and get a wide variety of answers.
Internal/External

Just as contact centres can be designed as inbound or outbound, they can also be designated as
internal or external.
(I almost said in-house or out-house, but figured that the unintended allusion might be
distracting.) When companies are small, they often develop their own contact centre capabilities
internally. As companies grow, they often look to outsource their contact centre functions, or
they spin off those functions to a subsidiary or partner company.
This is where the concept of the external contact centre comes into play—the centre is external to
the main company.
In fact, companies that provide nothing but contact centre functions to other companies have
grown into a multi-million dollar industry. At last count the traditional call centre industry
employed more than 6 million people in North America alone, and accounted for the sale of
more than US $700 billion in goods and services. Through today’s contact centres you can
purchase, complain, or just talk about almost anything from the comfort of your home, office,
car, or wherever you can get to a phone (or log on to the Internet) customer service person or
entire departments, the principles by which a contact centre are operated are still the same.
People involved in customer contact need the same skills and the same tools, regardless of the
number of people involved.
Thus, the information in this book has applicability regardless of the size of your operation, and
regardless of whether your operation is internal or external.
6.1.1 Contact or Call Centre

Traditionally, contact centres have been called call centres. The newer name—contact centre—
reflects the fact that more than just phone calls are being handled. Many call centres have
evolved over the years to do much more than just answer phones.
Bottom line, it’s up to the customer to decide how they want to communicate with your company,
and it’s up to your company to respond appropriately through its contact centre. Some companies
choose to separate the handling of customer contacts by medium. For instance, a company may

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