{"id":125385,"date":"2016-06-03T07:09:26","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T05:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=125385"},"modified":"2016-06-03T07:09:26","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T05:09:26","slug":"contact-centres-they-are-a-changing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/125385\/contact-centres-they-are-a-changing\/","title":{"rendered":"Contact centres they are a-changing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The days of direct sales agents cold-calling unsuspecting members of the public with irrelevant offers are numbered.<\/p>\n

Technology and customer-centricity are combining to change the way contact centres approach their sales and service tasks.<\/p>\n

Ed Reddy, Business Unit Manager of Bytes People Solutions\u2019 Horison contact centre on Gauteng\u2019s West Rand, is a contact centre veteran of 16 years.<\/p>\n

His enthusiasm for the current revolution underlines its significance.<\/p>\n

\u201cDirect sales, which is the marketing and selling of products and services directly to consumers away from a fixed retail location, has traditionally been associated with cold calling and spamming,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgents would get a database of leads and call, or send emails to, everyone on it, hoping that someone would buy the service or product on offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is coming to an end as contact centres harness technology and data mining to strategically drive sales and efficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

This new approach is built on five pillars.<\/p>\n

1. From database to omni-channel<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Over the past number of years, customers have started dictating their method of communication with companies.<\/p>\n

Going into a store or phoning a call centre are no longer the only options for resolving a service issue; increasingly, customers are choosing to engage on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis trend is now spilling over into the sales environment too,\u201d says Ed.<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomers are choosing their method of interaction and expect that the services they require will be available via their channel of preference.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opportunity presented by the omni-channel approach \u2013 namely, engaging according to the customer\u2019s preference and thus increasing the odds of a positive outcome \u2013 is also the challenge.<\/p>\n

Companies have to be geared to handle the different channels effectively to ensure that customers don\u2019t have to repeat their request or problem every time they switch channel.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the customer service experience has to be consistent regardless of the touch point.<\/p>\n

2. From cold-calling to hot-lead generation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"Bytes<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead of blindly calling every name on a list, companies are investing time and money in profiling customers to improve the odds of a generating a positive response.<\/p>\n

Data analytics are used to match customers on companies\u2019 books to specific products.<\/p>\n

For example, a customer whose cellphone contract is about to expire receives a text message from the provider with a renewal offer.<\/p>\n

Not only is the customer experience a positive one, but wastage in the contact centre is significantly reduced.<\/p>\n

Thanks to data analytics, sales methodologies are changing as companies see opportunities to use service-related calls to generate sales.<\/p>\n

For example, a customer calls the contact centre with a service issue.<\/p>\n

While dealing with it, the agent notices that the customer doesn\u2019t have insurance.<\/p>\n

Upon concluding the service issue, the agent asks if he may transfer the caller to an insurance sales agent.<\/p>\n

There is furthermore a shift away from one product per customer to a multi-selling approach, especially in the case of affinity databases.<\/p>\n

The latter comes about when companies, such as a clothing retailer and an insurance company, partner and make use of each other\u2019s databases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe speak to a store customer who could qualify for a hospital, a dental and a short-term insurance plan,\u201d says Ed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy addressing all the options in one call, the contact centre is more efficient and the customer doesn\u2019t have to field a barrage of calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome is that the consumer gets more cover, the store gets more value from the customers and we, as the contact centre, earn more revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Technology and profiling <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Previously, leads were loaded into the contact centre agent\u2019s dialer and he or she would start calling.<\/p>\n

The latest technology in dialers allows you to profile both contact centre agents and customers.<\/p>\n

Through a series of algorithm analyses, the dialer identifies which agent sells better to which profile of customer and allocates leads accordingly.<\/p>\n

For example, customers in Cape Town and Pretoria are more likely to respond favourably to an agent who is fluent in Afrikaans than to an English speaking person.<\/p>\n

Similarly, when a trend analysis reveals that Agent A performs best when selling to customers between the ages of 20 and 30, more of those leads are pushed to the agent.<\/p>\n

Dialer algorithms furthermore determine the best performing agents on the floor and pass the best quality leads through to them to close more deals.<\/p>\n

An example of customer profiling is the scheduling of leads based on which customers are more likely to pick up their phones at specific times of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding rapport is an important element of selling successfully,\u201d says Ed, \u201cand that is what we strive for with this level of profiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. The impact of regulation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Contact centres, like every other consumer-engaging entity, are subject to strict regulation. Ed mentions the impact of three specific pieces of legislation.<\/p>\n