Innovation will determine success of contact centre of the future, says Spescom DataFusion

In the contact centre arena, innovation is becoming more important as new trends in technology drive transformation in the deployment of customer service and customer contact solutions.

Says Paul Fick, MD of Spescom DataFusion: "There`s a paradigm shift coming in South Africa in terms of bandwidth use and it`s going to prompt a transformation in the way contact centres function - from location to operation - and in the demands customers place on the contact centre. And while technology is important, it`s not what will make contact centres successful going forward.

"Rather, success will be determined by their ability to innovate using existing technologies to deliver services that offer real and sustainable value to the business and to customers."

Fick sketches an interesting picture of the changing communications landscape. "With the explosion of bandwidth availability in South Africa, the Internet is going to change business," he says. "Just consider the following: the Internet will be 75 times bigger in 2012 than it was in 2002.

Global IP traffic is doubling every two years, mobile data traffic is doubling every year and in 2010, there are six million users in SA and 1.8 billion users worldwide. Knowing the profile of these customers and what communication devices and platforms they use and prefer, will be important.

Half of Internet users are 25 to 55 yrs old, with the fastest growing category being the 55+ age group, he says, and there is a 60/40 male to female ratio online. Devices continue to proliferate: there are 1.4 billion PCs worldwide and 8.7 million in SA; there are five billion mobile phones worldwide, 41 million of whom are in SA. Ninety-seven percent of SA Web users have cellphones and 75% of SA Web users use SMS.

Social media platforms cannot be ignored. "Half of Facebook users go online every day and overall, 22% of time spent online is for social media access," he notes. "In fact, 74% of SA online sessions are for social media access."

Among the trends that will transform contact centre technology, Fick lists cloud services (public and private), new networks that are wireless by default, increased mobility the proliferation of devices, the social media phenomenon, access to information, greater availability of bandwidth and the introduction of video to the contact centre.

"Contact centres need to be thinking `services` not `technology`," he says, "because computing in the cloud is going to prompt some interesting questions. For instance, will contact centres remain in the `centre`? This technology allows virtual contact centres, remote sites and agents, and virtual days. In fact, Gartner predicts that internationally, by 2013, 50% of enterprises will mix premises solutions with cloud solutions in their contact centres."

The upshot of all this is that market models are getting more complex by the week, says Fick. "New competitors are innovating and using business channels you may not understand yet, and your customers are talking to one another all the time. Your customers are demanding multiple ways to talk to you, and your sales people want to talk to your customers in this way too. People want things now, `all the time` and for free.

"Customers have never had so many choices - the challenge will be to understand what they prefer."

The contact centre operation has to be efficient and cost-effective while furthering customer satisfaction.

As the distinction between networks continues to blur, what sits where in the network becomes less important, he says. "Multimedia enablement is something of the past; now it is about `all media` in the core of the contact centre. Social media cannot be ignored and the emphasis needs to be on people interaction via an ever increasing amount of media and channels.

Process automation, workflow and business application integration need to follow suit. In addition, finding alternative ways to serve the customer or market a product must play a big role. In achieving this, access to skills, knowledge and expertise will be critical."

Identifying and developing the capacity for innovation within the organisation means fostering a passion for change and treating every line function as a target for innovation, says Fick. "The time to optimise is now. Don`t cut costs until you have nothing left - be innovative, think outside the box. Understand the potential impact on people in the centre and people who support the technology, on process and on cost.

"For now, for older people, voice is still the preferred communication channel, but understand where and in what circumstances you have to address mail, chat and Web collaboration. Social media feed and response mechanisms also need attention. Proactive outbound, voice and other channels are becoming mainstream and self-help has its place, especially for Generation-Z people. Also, consider customer contact as a service, whether it`s an outsourced, hosted, owned or a hybrid of these service`s models.

For the `contact centre in the cloud`, Fick notes that organisations should consider the potential impact on process, bandwidth requirements and cost, security implications and disaster recovery and business continuity risks.

Looking forward, Fick proposes organisations identify how to serve the consumer of the future applicable to their business. "Consider the `context centre` - take advantage of where you are and your time zone and factor in reality in digital terms, gear to serve at the juncture where the digital world meets the physical world."