The idea of client-centricity, an emerging trend among companies within the South African context, is intrinsically linked to how you run your contact centre.
Speaking at the Bytes Systems Integration (SI) and Microsoft CRM event in Bryanston last week, thought leaders and industry specialists provided key insights into how to leverage business from a contact centre environment. The event also focused on how organisations can transform the contact centre into a customer value centre, and in turn unlock the true potential of a CRM solution.
“The face of the call centre has changed dramatically over the years; it is no longer just a back office cost centre. In fact companies with any foresight are fast turning these operations into front office profit centres,” says Henning Swanepoel, Divisional Manager - Microsoft Dynamics, Software Solutions at Bytes SI.
The message was clearly that contact centres have had to evolve just as the customer has evolved. Looking at the current Y generation, speakers highlighted that in five years time this generation will be our customers, and they are a mobile, tech-savvy generation who reject face to face communication and are generally confident and bluntly expressive.
Mohammed Areff, CRM strategist at Mint, stated in his presentation that in order to cater for the emerging Y generation, companies need to start using multichannel communication, adopt self-service options and transform the customer answer centre into a product sales centre through up-selling and cross-selling.
Some of the tips given to maximise the power of the call centre include empowering your call centre agents with the right technology like a CRM integrated system and a simple interface and by improving customer service by providing the communication channels that the customer prefers.
“Basically all our clients come to us wanting three things: smarter agents, satisfied customers and operational efficiency, and its very satisfying being able to satisfy all those needs with one holistic solution,” says Riaan Greeff, team lead of sales and presales for Microsoft Dynamics at Bytes Systems Integration.
Some of the benefits of implementing a CRM solution in a contact centre include improved customer satisfaction, reduced training costs, increased agent retention and productivity by reducing frustration and increased accuracy for data capturing.
In the case study given, the third-largest bank in Brazil, Unibanco, implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM within its contact centre to handle its 27 million customers and up to six million calls per month. One of the aspects that impressed the IT staff at Unibanco was the fact they achieved seamless implementation within 15 days and the solution worked accurately from day one. Unibanco used its CRM solution strategically to really improve customer satisfaction and customer retention, and the results speak for themselves.
According to a survey conducted by Ibope (Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics), Unibanco received an overall 6.51 grade for its services on a scale of one to seven. Using the knowledge of its customers, Unibanco adopted a forward-thinking policy that deterred the need for customers to physically visit branches and instead used the Internet as a valuable tool to streamline communication and reducing costs. In 2000, Unibanco launched the first fully virtual Brazilian bank in the form of www.banco.net as a direct result of understanding what its customers want and need.
It also implemented a 30 hours banking concept whereby Unibanco was only available for six hours at the branches but available another 24 hours through various other communication channels, thus revolutionising client services.
“With the help of the capable tools in Microsoft CRM, Unibanco has stretched its potential and has been able to analyse its customers and give them what they want, that's the potential of CRM,” ends Greeff.
http://www.rao.unibanco.com.br/arq/publicacao/004/ing/02_Businesses_ING.pdf
For more information contact: Riaan Greeff Riaan.greeff@bytes.co.za 011 205 7000
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Bytes SI's core objective is “to design, implement and support customised IT solutions through the integration of hardware and software systems from global technology leaders that deliver a return on investment expectations”. To this end, we have distinct business units, all providing clients with world-class software and service offerings based on platforms, processes and methodologies from acknowledged industry leaders.
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