The line goes dead for traditional call centres as customers demand real-time contact integrating all contact channels and technologies.
In 1999 only 11% of European call centres were Web-enabled. Customers often face a `dead end` when conducting businesses over the Web and have to resort to other means of contact, with frustration, dissatisfaction and decreased loyalty a certain outcome.
Customer relationship management specialist, PricewaterhouseCoopers, says businesses must rapidly respond to the new technologies and channels that customers use to make contact with supplier organisations.
Customer demand for one-to-one marketing, sales, service and care has created a need to replace traditional call centres with Multimedia Contact Centres. Customer contact programmes must be integrated across all channels (face-to-face, branches, ATMs, kiosks, stores, check out, call centres, Internet) and technologies (Webchat, voice over IP, integrated queues between voice and Web calls, WAP, video, digital TV).
To this end PwC is launching eCRMLive, Europe`s first Multimedia Contact Centre. It will demonstrate the options available to clients wanting to develop effective customer contact solutions for the future. Located in Uxbridge, eCRMLive represents a working vision of how the full range of customer contact channels and technologies can be integrated to deliver customer acquisition (as part of marketing campaigns), business development (through cross-selling and up-selling), customer retention (through loyalty schemes and personalisation), and customer satisfaction, as well as capturing every piece of customer information and intelligence that can then be used across the organisation.
Customer relationship management is now a major issue. Recent research by PwC shows that, in many cases, customer expectations in this area are increasing faster than the organisation`s ability to respond. In the electronic world, styles of service are diverging and customers are expecting highly personalised service. Businesses have to decide on what basis they are going to attract and retain clients and whether the Web will offer just an experience or a completely interactive service.
The challenge now is for enterprises of all sizes to make customer contact the point of excellence rather than a point of weakness. They must be able to capture customer preferences, behaviour and information at all touch points, and to analyse and transform this into customer intelligence which can then be used for programmes of one-to-one marketing, sales, service and care.
The key question is how to do this. How can businesses make this dream a reality in a world where they traditionally work in functional silos and where customer information is a bankrupt currency? PwC`s eCRMLive facility is designed to do just this, providing clients with an opportunity, often for the first time, to witness truly integrated multi-channel customer contacts happening in real time.
ECRMLive takes the confusion and mystique out of customer relationship management and the impact of new technology on customer interface, providing a working experience of how companies need to deliver a new CRM driven business model.
eCRMLive demonstrates how companies can start to have full access, from anywhere in the organisation, to customer information and intelligence. It shows the building blocks for true multimedia customer contact, bringing together all customer interactions, and linking the front office functions of sales, marketing, and customer service with the back office functions of order management, billing and delivery.
So when a customer one day places an order over the Web, on the next day telephones in with a billing enquiry, and on the third requires product information, the interactions are handled in a way which is personal to that customer and takes into account all previous contacts.
Denis Collart, PwC`s Global CRM Consulting Leader, Management Consulting Services, said: " The way forward is clear. Multi-channel contact centres will be the hub of effective customer management and the multi-channel platforms required to support these contact centres will be the heart of the full suite of CRM systems.
Endorsing the benefits of eCRMLive(tm) , Judy Andaloro, Senior Analyst E-CRM, AMR Research, said, "By integrating close to 10 different technologies, PwC is able to demonstrate capabilities including call centre and e-mail integration, voice over IP, Web call back, and interactive chat all tied into the call centre. eCRMLive(tm) is a great tool for service providers to demonstrate the power of integrating different applications and technologies in order to improve the quality of customer interactions and relationships."
The opening of the European facility is part of a planned eCRMLive(tm) global network, with centres already operational in Chicago and one under construction in Melbourne, and reflects PwC`s global leadership in the CRM arena, from strategy through to technology solutions and operational implementation.
Share
