A New "health check" service to help companies maximise their investments in customer contact centres has been launched by the consulting arm of Dimension Data Interactive (DDI).
The new service has been designed to help organisations attain maximum return from their contact centre with all three elements of the operation - the people, process and technology - aligned with business needs and drivers.
"Too many South African companies throw technology at their contact centres without truly analysing whether it serves their business needs," says Bradley Snaith, general manager, DDI Contact Centre Consulting.
"Box dropping is not the solution. Many companies don`t really know the full capabilities of the technology purchased. It could be the wrong `box` for the job, or could duplicate functions already available on other parts of their system."
Recent SA research on call centre utilisation shows 40% of companies have undocumented procedures, 29% have no MIS systems and 58% of agents` time is spent talking to customers.
"These indicate the extent of the problem. Two fifths haven`t determined the `why` and the `what` of their call centres; a third can`t evaluate their efficiencies and effectiveness; and finally, if agents spend only some three fifths of their time talking to customers - what are they doing the rest of the time?" asks Snaith.
The new health check takes a `snap shot` of the contact centre to evaluate operational efficiencies such as the speed and effectiveness of agents` responses to customer queries; the ability of users to maximise the capabilities of the technology at their disposal; how many calls are abandoned (10% according to the research); and the frequency with which first-time calls are resolved.
The service also looks at how the technology is being implemented and if it`s being used to its full capabilities; the scalability of the system; the business drivers behind the technology and whether or not either has changed.
"It`s not just technology that is continuously evolving. Business strategies are not static and it`s very easy for them to slip out of kilter. The health check will identify problems and enable remedies to bring them in line again.
"The contact centre has become too strategic to allow for less than optimum performance," Snaith concludes.
Share
