Today’s call centers must be flexible enough to accommodate the growing spectrum of communication channels. Requests and information sharing must be prioritized to ensure seamless customer service. Additionally, information must be linked across both internal and external channels. Failure to communicate in this way can result in reputational damage and processing overload.

Customer support is a basic requirement. People who purchase goods and services often need help. Since many purchases take place online or in larger stores where an expert with specialized knowledge is not available, customers are forced to contact the vendors or their representatives directly to resolve issues.

If necessary, customers first try to access the service offering available to them. This can be a telephone number, an email address or an online contact form.

In most cases, such calls are forwarded to a call center for processing. In our classification, we have identified different types of call centers and this type is generally referred to as a “service call center”.

Today’s service call centers are an important element in providing services and support options to customers. However, today there is of course a much wider range of communication media and channels that need to be managed; Service call centers may receive telephone calls, fax messages, emails, social media messages, web forms, instant messenger chats, etc. This versatility is likely to increase as communication channels expand. An example of this are click-to-call calls, which are made possible using WebRTC.

This means that call center staff – both management and employees – must be very flexible in order to meet the different requirements that different media bring with them. At the same time, it means that the systems that staff rely on must be able to handle media from a wide range of channels. They must be flexible enough to deal with new forms of communication as they are introduced and adopted by users.

In addition, a centralized reporting channel is essential so that media can be distributed effectively – not only according to type but also according to the skills and service level required. This task is done by a modern multi-channel system for distributing calls (Automatic Call Distribution, ACD).

With a modern, complete, multi-channel ACD system, tasks such as reporting and handling various forms of communication (e.g. email and calls) can be handled more efficiently. Call center management staff can control daily operations using a “cockpit” from which they can view events in real time and thus provide the necessary monitoring to provide intervention and escalation routes if necessary.

To achieve this, you need a call distribution system that can handle today’s communication channels and has the flexibility to integrate emerging channels as they become more widely used. The ACD system must be coupled with reporting tools that enable effective monitoring of activities to ensure a consistently high level of overall service.

The customer may then become frustrated and send three more emails within a relatively short period of time. The frustration can turn into anger, causing the customer to post derogatory messages on Facebook to draw attention to the problem. Unless the call center actively tracks inquiries both internally across all channels and in external media and correlates them effectively, this activity could be completely lost – until the negative comments trigger a snowball effect across various social media.

A multi-channel ACD must be able to not only track such activities, but also link them into a single case, report or incident. The example presented above could have resulted in multiple incidents being handled separately, even though they all actually involved the same issue. In this case there would have been five incidents. If the volume of calls is taken into account, such a case could lead to situations in which the call center is overloaded and operations come to a standstill, which then results in further reputational damage.

Since many retailers do not have direct, face-to-face communication with their customers, it is essential to consider customer service issues. Good customer service is the foundation of a business and companies must ensure they deliver the level of service expected. This includes guaranteed response times, uncomplicated escalation channels as well as monitoring and linking activities across all internal and external channels. Failure to do so will result in:

• An unnecessary escalation of problems
• the increased likelihood that customers will choose another provider in the future
• potential reputation management issues when news spreads virtually in the online world.

This is why a multi-channel ACD is so important. If your infrastructure is unable to meet the demands of a diverse and growing range of communication channels and effectively link the information received, it is time to address this issue.

Talk to jtel to find out how.