Segmented Customer Service
A key design principle when building the core customer service workflow which takes a customer from their initial point of arrival to closure is to avoid duplication.
This means thinking in terms of:
- Unified queuing and routing; capable of managing all forms of voice/text/video traffic
- A single set of business rules that define how customer groups are managed
- An integrated knowledge system that can feed online customers, voice self service customers and live agent interactions
- Desktop simplification that provides a unified view of customer interaction and transaction histories
- Composite SLA reporting that encompasses all media, channels and sites
Enabling technologies such as SIP and SOA have allowed vendors to aggregate point solutions so that such functionality is now pre integrated. These so called interaction hubs provide the technical backbone for the core customer service workflow.
Some are built on single platforms and provide 80% of next generation call centre functionality for 20% of the effort to bring them on stream. Others provide a set of building blocks around which their own and other vendor solutions can be rapidly integrated.
These are more fully explored below.
When operated within a virtualised infrastructure and run over a converged network, service levels and agent productivity can be dramatically improved as greater intelligence is introduced into the management of customer queues.
Voice portals interfaced with web services provide a seamless customer experience from intuitive identity and verification to any form of self service provision.
If web chat and collaboration are to provide a seamless online experience into live assistance, the same routing and identification processes used for voice traffic need to be available.
To avoid the negative impact of mass marketing, outbound campaigns need to be tempered with intelligent list management based on access to complete customer interaction/transaction histories and customer segmentation criteria.