Shifting from a traditional call centre to a multimedia contact centre is a must for the industry; however, it requires precise execution, else it could be damaging to the business.
This is according to Karl Reed, sales and marketing director of telephony vendor Elingo, who emphasises that in such a sink or swim scenario, wrong moves can result in chaos as well as more expenses, leading to a dent in the quality of customer experience.
He believes that as more and more business people talk about the multimedia or multi-channel contact centre, as is often the case when any media hype kicks in, a lot of the detail is lost.
Reed says integration is a primary issue that must be addressed. “A multimedia contact centre will only deliver on the vision of improved customer service if it is governed by a single processing engine.”
He adds that a proactive approach to a multimedia contact centre can open up new business development opportunities, noting that the days of the one-way communication street are over.
“Customers want to choose how they interact with your organisation - they certainly don't want to be told how they will interact with you.”
He is of the view that multimedia contact centres have the capacity to meet primary service challenges.
“They deliver important cost and efficiency benefits. The bottom line is that it is cheaper for organisations to handle a wide range of electronic communication efficiently than to attempt to force all customers to use the telephone.”
“Instant messaging offered from the company Web site is just one such option. In the realm of Web-based electronic product sales, for example, the ability for clients to chat directly with service agents as they browse sites can add significantly to competitive advantage in a very competitive sector,” he says.
He points out that multimedia covers the full range of communication channels, including voice calls, e-mail, fax, Web chat, call backs, SMS, video calls and social media discussions.
“Leading multimedia contact centre technologies route all these forms of communication between customers and the business through a single processing engine.
“The fact that all communication is routed through a single engine enables measurement, recording and reporting across all interaction types, creating a strong understanding of the brand's customer service experience, via a single interface,” Reed explains.
It is also Reed's view that the communications landscape has changed dramatically over the past five to 10 years.
“But, ultimately, whether people want to use Twitter and MXit to communicate with you is less important than the fact that brands are facing a strategic context where they can no longer dictate how consumers speak to them.”
This is a major shift, he explains, only a few years ago, was it acceptable for a brand to demand that consumers use a voice-oriented contact centre.
“Today, this approach will simply see the consumer try another company that is more sensitive to his or her individual context.”
Paul Fick, MD of Spescom DataFusion, says contact centres need to implement technologies that can handle automatic multi-channel classification and prioritisation.
Fick notes that when a contact centre is prepared to satisfy these needs, it drastically improves its customer satisfaction, optimises resources, reduces costs and, in most cases, significantly improves productivity.
“To achieve this goal, organisations need to choose an integrated suite which is able to efficiently handle phone calls, e-mails, faxes, SMS, Web chats, Web call back and social media and, in addition, provide support to handle administrative tasks,” he says.
Fick adds that it is just as critical for contact centres to look towards implementing a flexible module that manages their inbound voice communications, allowing easy integration with corporate tools such as customer relationship management applications and databases.
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