Heavily hyped in its early years, the concept of and applications that drive customer relationship management (CRM) have given way to maturity of CRM solutions, and subsequently, many businesses are realising tangible value from their CRM efforts.
Often falling within the domain of the call centre, the new challenge that is now faced by businesses is that of integrating a variety of channels to allow the call centre to offer rapid, directed and effective service to clients - and to turn the call centre from a cost centre, to a strategic component of the business.
This is according to Daniel Nieuwoudt, Principle Consultant: Technology at Business Connexion, who says that over the past two years, the applications have been bedded down. "Activity in the call centre and business process outsourcing fields has increasingly centred on optimisation and integration," he says.
Nieuwoudt notes that integration plays a key role in enabling call centre agents to effectively handle customer queries, especially in the case where a large organisation has several different departments.
"We`re all familiar with the problem of one department operating in isolation from another. This presents a real barrier to the ability of a call centre agent to deliver service excellence, especially where they are expected to handle complex queries," he explains.
Furthermore, Nieuwoudt believes that integration is at the heart of turning the call centre from a cost centre to a revenue-generating department. "If call centre agents are ill-equipped to deal with customer queries, they are unable to add real value to the business. Poor integration of the systems that contain customer information is a major factor that can hinder the performance of the agent - with easy accessibility of fuller customer data, the agent can not only handle any calls fast but also more accurately," he explains.
Delving into the issues faced, he says that, for example, the processes typically followed when it is necessary to recall recorded voice calls for verification is often convoluted, ill defined and time-consuming.
"Establishing and fine-tuning of such processes can significantly improve the capacity of the call centre to add value to the business; if the time of agents is streamlined, it allows them to begin playing a proactive role within the business - suggesting sales, pointing customers in the right direction, and more than anything else, delivering service excellence that engenders respect for the business," he says - noting too, that retention of existing customers is a lot easier than acquiring new ones.
"The call centre can become a competitive differentiator; that depends on having the right systems in place. But once the systems are established and honed to perfection in support of agents, astute businesses will invest more on their people - as customer-facing individuals, agents have to be properly trained, remunerated and equipped to deal with the queries and problems of customers," he says.
Based on its experience and understanding of the necessity for integrated information access, Business Connexion helps clients to create contact centres that equip agents with the tools that enable them to rapidly and effectively address customer queries.
"An effective call centre relies on well-defined business processes, detailed and easily accessible information, and well-trained agents who can quickly understand and address the issues faced by customers," Niewoudt concludes.
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