The contact centre industry faces a number of challenges when it comes to managing risk, from managing its biggest asset, human capital, to complying with the various regulations and legislation that govern this field.
So says Kgabo Badimo, MD at Spescom DataVoice, who points out that this comes in the wake of risk management and regulatory compliance becoming SA's business terms of late, as organisations strive for greater accountability and sustainability following the release of the King III report.
According to Badimo, the need to create auditable trails and maintain high levels of customer service, while at the same time preventing fraud, managing transactions on a granular level and ensuring liability and accountability, add to this picture of complexity.
“Communication forms the crux of any contact centre, with constant interactions taking place between customers and contact centre agents, which means that managing and enhancing the quality of these interactions while mitigating risk and optimising business value are key aspects for any contact centre to meet business objectives,” he says.
He also explains that with sheer call volumes experienced by the majority of modern call centres today, manually managing all of these aspects becomes a mammoth task that can, in fact, open the business up to further risk and hinder the enforcement of compliance to the many existing and future expected regulations.
In this vein, he says, an integrated quality and performance management solution that combines voice recording with analysis, reporting and workforce management together with transaction management becomes a tool that can assist contact centres with risk and compliance issues.
This is achieved by enabling the recording, management, re-creation and analysis of voice transactions and addressing associated value processes, notes Badimo.
“This, in turn, provides a host of information to help these businesses to make the most of their human capital and optimise processes, leading to greater efficiency and effectiveness while at the same time ensuring better customer service and more satisfied customers as a result.
“When looking to implement such a solution, contact centre managers should look for a set of tools that take the entire process into account, from hiring right through to transaction auditing, with integrated reporting functionality covering a wide range of areas to introduce greater
accountability and enable access to focused business intelligence, which in turn will enable cost, risk and performance improvements,” he says.
Badimo also points out that intelligent risk management starts at the recruitment stage, as this will minimise the time and risk associated with hiring unsuitable candidates and will also provide cost savings both short and long term by ensuring that the best trainable people are hired for the job.
Furthermore, he says, performance management and quality assurance forms another important layer in managing contact centre risk by delivering in-depth analysis that enables proactive management and balanced scorecards to match performance against set targets.
“By providing this information, contact centres can better manage performance on a business objective level, ensuring greater accountability.
“On top of these aspects, one of the most vital spheres of contact centre risk mitigation and management is the ability to audit individual transactions and all calls relating to these transactions to ensure adherence and compliance with regulations,” he adds.
Badimo concludes by noting that by effectively understanding where risk lies, contact centre managers will be able to mitigate these risks and enable more efficient, effective running of contact centres which ultimately equals greater profitability and more satisfied customers.
Share