The Emergence of Applications in the Small to Mid-Size Enterprise
1 May, 2005
By: Mark StanleyWhen most people hear the phrase “call center” they imagine a giant room of headset-equipped customer service agents stuffed into tiny cubicles, each one methodically asking the caller for their 16-digit account number, please. In days of old that vision was pretty accurate. But today, nothing could be further from the truth.
The old “call centers” were historically operated by large companies such as those in financial services or travel who needed to provide access via toll-free numbers to customer service agents who could assist with account inquiries and make travel arrangements.
But three recent changes have revolutionized that model. The first change happened with the introduction of alternative communication channels, namely e-mail, instant messaging and text chat. The term “call center” has officially been replaced with “contact center” to reflect the notion that people use a variety of methods to communicate, sometimes even using more than one method to resolve a single issue.
The second change was the move away from running proprietary applications on big iron boxes with a price tag out of reach to all but the largest companies. Instead, the industry has moved toward open standards software that can run on a range of commercially available hardware for a fraction of the cost. This change made fully integrated systems available to a much wider audience, which allowed small to mid-size enterprises, or SMEs, an opportunity to open internal contact centers just like the big guys.
The third change is the growing awareness of a need for customer relationship management in all companies, regardless of size. Getting at the roots of how to get and keep a customer, as well as leverage the relationship at every opportunity so that both parties get something meaningful out of the arrangement, is the Holy Grail for every provider of a product or service.
How Technology Changed
As recently as a decade ago the typical call center had an ACD sitting on a PBX, perhaps with an IVR and CTI, and perhaps an automatic dialer thrown in for good measure. Sounds like alphabet soup, doesn’t it? Worse yet, each of the devices was manufactured by a different company, which made procurement and implementation a grueling process. To be fair, most of the equipment was solid because it was built by teams highly focused on one single product.
The challenge was in finding people who knew how to make the disparate pieces play well together. Beyond several million dollars’ worth of equipment were the several hundred thousands of dollars needed to integrate the platforms into an environment that actually got the caller through the PBX, ACD and IVR to the agent. And when all that was through, the integrator got to create lots of reports that attempted to show what actually happened.
However, several smaller software developers found the opportunity for change when Microsoft NT was launched because it allowed enterprise applications to be run on almost any server. The days of running proprietary software on proprietary hardware were over. The upstarts started off small, simply trying to replicate some of the “classic” systems on open standards platforms, but they quickly discovered that development of fully integrated solutions offered tremendous bang for the buck.
How Customers Changed
Any good marketing representative will tell you that there is a curious relationship between need and invention, and it’s not always easy to tell which one is in control. Within a relatively short period of time we have come to enjoy practically everything being available 24 hours a day. As technology grew at an exponential rate during the 1990s, a corresponding insatiable appetite for technology was developing on the part of average consumers.
The result? We now have a society that has come to expect being able to book the family vacation to Europe online at any hour. Watch any movie on-demand, any time. Order groceries. Buy stocks. Shop for a car. You name it, it’s probably available.
Result Greater than the Sum of the Parts
Many SMEs have figured out that low cost, full-featured applications and ever-increasing demands for customer service come together in the contact center. Some see this as a threat to be managed; others recognize it as an opportunity to be exploited. The truth is that with the right amount of strategic planning this is a marriage made in heaven.
Let’s look at a simple scenario to see how well this can work if done properly. Assume that ABC manufacturing builds widgets. Not much margin on the manufacturing, but plenty of margin with ongoing maintenance. Your goal is to get the buyer to sign up for the maintenance plan just as the warranty period expires, and then provide parts and service as necessary.
To make this work you need a robust database that contains widget and client information. Next, add a link between communication channels to the database so that when the client initiates contact you can quickly and easily assess the situation, route to the most appropriate resource, and offer the correct solution. Simultaneously you are tracking and reporting on the event to develop a better understanding of why the client contacted you in the first place, what it says about your product, and the effectiveness of your response in shaping the relationship with the customer.
With older technology this process worked, but required lots of money for proprietary hardware and software for each aspect of the interaction, as well as professional services for the integration to work. Once it was all in place, changes were equally difficult and expensive to make.
Today, however, you can choose from a variety of vendors who offer the integrated solution out of the box. That means that your development effort is limited to using a process mapping tool to identify how things should flow, since the application already knows what relationships exist between hardware and software. So instead of several weeks configuring several devices individually and then collectively, you spend minutes configuring only one process flow.
The Shift
The focus now is on really enhancing the customer experience rather than trying to remember how to make disparate devices work together. The point of reference is now from the outside looking in, rather than from the inside out. Instead of playing a list of menu choices designed around how your company is organized, you can play a menu that makes sense to the caller and helps them get to problem resolution quicker. The result is more meaningful to the customer, and it’s better, faster and cheaper for you to implement.
Current State
When the economy began to slow in the late 1990s, many companies decided to cut quality and focus only on quantity. Customer service agents were coached on reducing average handle time and increasing number of calls handled. But what we have learned is that the customer didn’t appreciate that approach and started to look for alternatives. The reason: quantity measures are an internal gauge of productivity; quality is an external gauge of customer satisfaction. You need both internal and external measurements and be able to understand the difference if you want to be successful over time.
Customers today will compare the experience they have with you to other experiences they have had that may be completely unrelated. In the customer’s mind it comes down to this: If they think it’s simple, it’s simple—no matter how complex it may be for you to actually deliver behind the scenes. So to keep customers happy, you have to look at the world from their point of view. Ask for only as much information as you need to respond to their request, and only ask once. After you know the answer, update your data and use it accordingly. The timeworn example: After the customer has keyed in their 16-digit account number, they don’t need to provide the same number to the customer service agent when they come on the line!
The Future
Technology has fueled the insatiable appetite people have for wanting what they want, when they want it—and yesterday couldn’t be a moment too soon. Because change happens so rapidly now it’s imperative for SMEs to incorporate the ability to change into the way they run their business. The days when you could wait for the competition to do the research and development are over—if they do the work, they’re going to keep the prize.
Customers are hungry for SMEs that do a good job of connecting the dots to make the overall experience seamless and easy. SMEs utilizing applications that easily enable change are positioned to be proactive in their customer relationships, which is crucial to keeping the customer.
Vendors in the application space will continue to expand the offerings and offer more hooks native to the software that will tighten the integration to external data sources. Price per seat will also continue to drop as these systems proliferate. All of this should be seen as good news to SMEs.
