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Contact centre strategies within SA

By Suzanne Franco, Surveys Editorial Project Manager at ITWeb.
Johannesburg, 06 Dec 2016
Most local contact centres do not know their cost-to-serve per channel or media-type, says Deon Scheepers, strategic consultant at Interactive Intelligence.
Most local contact centres do not know their cost-to-serve per channel or media-type, says Deon Scheepers, strategic consultant at Interactive Intelligence.

"The contact centre must find the correct balance between delivering quality service and managing or reducing operational costs (the cost to serve) and must use the correct metrics and KPIs to ensure they drive the correct agent behaviour in support of the customer service and customer experience strategy," says Deon Scheepers, strategic consultant at Interactive Intelligence.

On this note, Interactive Intelligence in partnership with ITWeb is conducting an online Contact Centre Survey during November and December to gain valuable insight into the contact centre strategies within South African organisations.

Scheepers believes that the contact centre management team must have a clear understanding of the "cost-to-serve" on all channels, and be able to show their value-add to the business from a financial and customer experience point of view.

He says that the contact centre can no longer just be viewed as a cost centre.

"One of the objectives of this survey is to get a view of the importance of customer experience (CX) in organisations and the role of the contact centre within this customer experience strategy," says Scheepers.

He adds that another objective is to gain insight into the contact centre technologies that are being used to deliver on customer service and customer experience initiatives.

"The survey will also give us a better understanding of the media-types or channels offered by contact centres and used by customers to interact with those contact centres."

SA contact centres slower in adaptation

In terms of South African organisations, Scheepers believes that South African contact centres are, in most cases, on a par with the rest of the world, but are slower in adopting new technology types such as customer self-service tools, analytics and some new digital channels.

"Although customer experience is viewed as import and key to the future success, most SA organisations do not have a detailed customer experience strategy in place," he continues.

"The local market's understanding of how digital will impact and change their business and customer is also not on the level that it should be. Digital will disrupt the organisation and the way they service their customers. Very few local organisations and contact centres have a digital transformation strategy in place."

Scheepers points out that the majority of local contact centres still do not have a single-view of their customer interactions within the organisation. Budget constraints and "sweating" of assets has prevented a lot of organisations from investing in the latest contact centre and customer experience technologies.

"In South Africa we have access to the world's best and leading contact centre solutions. Technology is therefore not preventing any organisation from empowering the contact centre and agent to provide exceptional customer experience at every customer touch-point.

"SA contact centres must embrace digital transformation and ensure they have a digital strategy in place for servicing customers. Customers demand being serviced with ease and consistency on any channel they prefer and expect the agent to see the context of previous interactions across the various channels used," Scheepers advises.

With regards to new trends, Scheepers says the digital customer prefers self-service and the use of mobile, social-media, messaging and webchat.

"Calling the contact centre and speaking to an agent is their last option and only used if they cannot resolve their issue using the other service channels."

In Scheepers' opinion, South African organisations are investing too much in people and not enough in their contact centre technology and processes.

"By investing in technology that can provide more customer self-service options and automate processes, organisations will be able to drive efficiencies, reduce costs and improve customer and agent satisfaction levels. Because local contact centres are still struggling to show and promote their value proposition within the organisation, they are still seen as a cost centre making it very difficult to obtain the required budget that will allow them to invest more in the latest technology solutions. They must understand their operational cost structures better, and then create a sound value proposition and business case that shows the ROI that can be achieved," he says.

According to Scheepers, local contact centres are not being managed adequately.

"Local contact centres are still measuring their operations using incorrect metrics and KPIs. Using the correct metrics and KPIs will help ensure they drive the correct agent behaviour in support of the customer service and customer experience strategy. Most local contact centres do not know their cost-to-serve per channel or media-type. They must understand their operational cost structures better if they want to improve their position in the organisation and no longer just be treated as a cost centre."

Click here to complete the survey and you can win an Apple iPad mini (WiFi).

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