Business Intelligence Lowdown: Multichannel Contact Centers

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November 28, 2005

Multichannel Contact Centers

From being a basic call center, this service has evolved into a contact center wherein the multichannel center offers touch points such as telephone, e-mail, Web chat, and fax. The type of service that companies can offer at these centers now includes in-depth customer service and sales functions including troubleshooting problems, prospecting, and leads generation. However, companies face certain issues when launching such an initiative:

Management sometimes tends to be out of touch with the day-to-day operations of the business, and takes decisions based on these inaccurate perceptions. It is important for managers to keep senior management in touch with such issues, so they have a realistic view of the scenario.

Integrating disparate applications or similar databases running on disparate platforms is another problem faced when trying to upgrade the contact center. The solution to this issue is APIs (application program interfaces) that use ODBC (open database connectivity) standards enable disparate databases and platforms to communicate. Some enterprises may need middleware instead of point-to-point or direct integration between data sources. Middleware creates a plug and play environment and doesn't require each field within a database to match up to a field in another database.

For handling customer queries in a contact center that offers multiple touch points, multitalented CSRs are required. The CSR skills required for such a contact center include being able to coordinate information coming into the organization via the Web, e-mail, and collaborative chat. CRM Today reports:

"I know of one company that got a handle on its high agent turnover rates by turning the job into a salaried position with benefits. After the agents saw themselves as being valuable to the company, turnover rates declined, and the company's investment began to pay for itself."

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November 28, 2005 in Data Integration | Permalink