Contact Queues Without Walls
If your contact center handles many types of media – voice, email, chat, social media, etc – chances are that your agents are segregated so that each pool, or silo, only handles one type of interaction. Whether this is by choice or not, you are probably missing out on productivity, putting SLAs at risk, and/ or struggling to deliver a rounded and satisfying customer experience.
But help is at hand. There are technology designs that can help you achieve better results with the same resources. One of these is the omnichannel/ multimedia/ multichannel approach (pick your favourite buzzword). With this, the walls between contact queues are broken down, and agents can flow freely between them. Sessions of all media channels are handled and routed centrally, and all data generated is collected in a central store.
Here are 3 major areas where an omnichannel approach gives significant benefits over the siloed approach:
- Agent utilisation
- With silos:
Forecasting is critical in scheduling the right number of agents to meet SLAs. But even the best prediction will be wrong some of the time. During slack periods agents may be sitting around waiting, or if demand spikes, they may be swamped and unable to meet SLAs. Any movement of agents to cover demand must be done manually, possibly from a pool of standby agents, and may have knock-on effects. Any way around, wastage occurs. - With omnichannel:
Forecasting is less critical. During slack periods, agents can be kept busy with less time-critical work, e.g. email. At peak times, they can be moved up the value chain in response to demand, and back again when demand allows. Agent movement is automatic. Agent wait times are low, and SLAs are rarely under threat.
- With silos:
- Customer contact history
- With silos:
Customer contact history for each media channel is stored separately, so a single view of the customer is often out of reach. In order to find out if a customer has previously sent an email, text, etc, agents must log in to the relevant system – time-consuming for the agent and frustrating for the consumer. Or an aggregator application must be bought/ created that queries the separate systems and gives a unified answer. - With omnichannel:
History of customer contact across all media channels is kept centrally. This 360 degree view enables- a faster agent response, using a single system
- an agent response more tailored to each customer, and made in the light of all previous contact
- strategic analysis of the customer journey, e.g. discovery of what prompted customer actions
- With silos:
- Agent visibility across all media
- With silos:
If agents are reassigned manually, it can be difficult to find out how agents have been spending their time on. Reports must be generated by separate systems, and compared by hand. This makes it very hard to spot any behaviours that need correcting, or opportunities for coaching. - With omnichannel:
All event/ outcome data is stored centrally. This enables centralised reporting across all media channels, which can be analysed to see how to improve agent efficiency, and therefore customer effort and satisfaction.
- With silos:
The omnichannel approach may be a new way of thinking for some, old hat to others. As we have seen, it has significant advantages in terms of keeping agent efficiency and customer satisfaction high, and customer effort low, but it’s surprising how few make use of it. Contact centers that don’t measure up in these areas may quickly find themselves overtaken by more agile and holistic competitors.
