Tag Archives: multi-site

Deep Dialing allows multi-site call centers to work seamlessly

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Multi-site call centers

Many companies operating large call centers today have multi-site deployments; usually some mix of company-owned sites and outsourced 3rd party providers. This situation is, in fact, a key reason for many of the missed opportunities in improving the call center experience. And it makes any solution that requires on-premise installation and integration even more cumbersome. See Shai’s post from last year: “The ubiquity of multi-site…”

However, setting up Fonolo is the same regardless of the number of call centers you operate, the technology behind them, and their location.

Deep Dialing

The reason Fonolo is able to connect callers directly into your phone system is its revolutionary technology called Deep Dialing. Fonolo creates a map of your phone menu through automated calling and speech recognition. It then uses this map to interact and navigate with your phone system on behalf of your callers.

Don’t replace the IVR, build on it

Regardless of its flaws, the traditional IVR will be handling calls for many years to come.

Furthermore, you have a deep investment in your IVR. It is not just a tree of options, it is the front-end to key business processes your company has developed over the years.

Advantages of Deep Dialing

Deep Dialing makes Fonolo completely agnostic to your call center equipment. And because the service is delivered from the cloud, interacting with multi-site call centers is no problem at all. If Fonolo can call your number, it can map your phone system.

Are you asking your customers to repeat information that the IVR has already asked?

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One of the great benefits to using Fonolo is that you can fix the “data pass-through” problem. You may not have heard this phrase before, but you have surely experienced it. Whenever you are asked for information by the IVR and then asked for the same information again by the agent, the culprit is broken data pass-through. More info on this in Jason’s post “Fonolo fixes the dreaded…”

Why is still happening?

You’ve probably thought to yourself “surely, we have the technology to make this work! What’s going on here?” Call center commentator Greg Levin writes:

What’s universally aggravating to callers is – after providing the IVR with their name, account number…  having to repeat the very same information to the agent to whom their call is transferred… To avoid [this] .. leading contact centers incorporate CTI (computer telephony integration) technology into their IVR system [which] … deliver that information directly to the desktop of the agent handling the call. With today’s technologies, it’s really quite simple (though, granted, not always cheap), and the impact on the customer experience is immense.

Ultimately, a technology problem

So, this thing called CTI should solve the problem. So what’s the hold-up?

Although CTI has been around for a long time, it is often broken in modern call centers because of the multi-site problem. In short, most companies with significant call volume use multiple call centers (their own, or outsourced). Since call centers all run on proprietary technology and there are no standards to exchange data, data pass-through doesn’t work. Read more here: “The ubiquity of multi-site call centers”.

Multi-site call centers make multi-channel communication even harder

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The challenges faced today by the executive in charge of customer service are very different from what they were ten years ago. Since I spend most of my days talking to these executives I have a front-row seat to the dramatic change that is happening in the industry.

The success of the call center used to be measurable with a few key metrics: Average hold time, average handle time, cost per call, first call resolution, etc.  But today the dominant challenge is how to manage the different communication channels: Web, phone call, email, chat and social media. In particular, it can be very tricky to keep the experience consistent across those various channels.

Consistency is a big challenge

What makes those challenges even tougher is that, for a company with large call volume (>10m calls per year), it’s a good bet that the call center is multi-site to some extent.  Being multi-sited makes it harder to achieve consistency because it impedes both innovation and optimization. Read Shai’s recent post on this for a great overview.

In [multi-site operations] one of the biggest challenges … is providing a consistent experience across all locations…  A hosted contact center environment provides a centralized platform from which to do that, and is more flexible than premise-based solutions that can be difficult to manage across multiple sites, regions, time zones, broadband reliability, communications protocols, etc.

– Jon Arnold, Industry Analyst

Fonolo can help

One of our goals at Fonolo is help provide a consistent interface. Behind the scenes, our system automatically stays in sync with your IVR, so all the business rules that are tied to that system are propagated to the visual interface on your website (click-to-call) and your mobile app (tap-to-call). If you want to find out more, drop me a note.

Fonolo fixes the dreaded “data pass-through” problem

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Our mission at Fonolo is to fix common aggravations with the call center experience. One common aggravation is the “data pass-through” problem. You may not have heard this phrase before, but you have surely experienced it. Whenever you are asked for information by the IVR and then asked for the same information again by the agent, the culprit is broken data-pass-through.

Why is it so common?

Fixing this integration point seems like an obvious investment for companies to make. Clearly the time required for agents to collect account numbers (or other “call attached” data) has a real cost. As does the aggravation of customers that answer the agent’s request by saying: “I just punched in my number! Why don’t you have that information?”

The problem usually arises because 1) the company is running multiple call centers; 2) it is rare for any two call centers to be built on identical technology; and 3) there are no standards for interoperability between call center equipment. The result is incompatible proprietary systems which means that call centers have to fall back on the lowest common denominator functionality. The following quote says it all:

Most midsize to large contact centers are based on complex and unstable architectures that integrate many disparate technologies into distinct, unique and costly combinations of components … [even] acquiring an IVR system from vendors such as Avaya, Nortel Networks and Genesys does not ensure tight integration with those companies’ ACD or CTI products.

– Yankee Group, “VoIP and Lower TCO will Drive Adoption of Hosted
On-Demand Contact Centers” Yankee Group, April 2006.

Fonolo to the rescue

Fonolo can fix this problem because it lives “outside” the realm of the call center equipment. With our visual interface the caller can enter information before the call and it gets delivered to the agent, regardless of the way the call center is built.

Pre-call questions

You can find out more here.

 

The ubiquity of multi-site call centers

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I wrote on my blog recently about the prevalence today of multi-sited call centers. My guess is that nearly every company with significant call volume (>100 million calls/year) is multi-sited to some extent.

“Multi-sited” typically means that the company runs multiple call centers or that it outsources some of its calls to a 3rd party. I extend the definition to also include companies that outsource all of their calls to a 3rd party because, from my vantage point, it leads to the same issues. Being multi-sited has a large impact on the customer experience because it impedes innovation and optimization.

Being multi-sited impedes optimization

Being multi-sited impedes optimization simply because it is very hard to coordinate changes across multiple sites. Even before multi-site situations became popular, there was often an organization schism between the people running the call center and the people close to the business objectives of customer satisfaction and improving revenue. Thus even simple changes like changing an IVR prompt that is clear need of fixing become difficult to synchronize.

Analyst Jon Arnold wrote recently:

In these scenarios [multi-site operations] one of the biggest challenges faced by enterprises is providing a consistent experience across all locations.

Being multi-sited impedes innovation

On a larger scale, this issue impedes innovation because 1) It is rare for any two call centers to be built on identical technology and 2) There are no standards for interoperability between call center equipment. The result is incompatible proprietary systems which means that call centers have to fall back on the lowest common denominator functionality. The following quote says it all:

Most midsize to large contact centers are based on complex and unstable architectures that integrate many disparate technologies into distinct, unique and costly combinations of components … [even] acquiring an IVR system from vendors such as Avaya, Nortel Networks and Genesys does not ensure tight integration with those companies’ ACD or CTI products.

– Yankee Group, “VoIP and Lower TCO will Drive Adoption of Hosted
On-Demand Contact Centers”, April 2006

Fonolo to the rescue

Fonolo is particularly well suited for a world of multi-sited call centers. That’s because the product lives “outside” the realm of the call center equipment. We like to think of it as a layer above the call center implementation that gives a new level of control to the business owners, without requiring any changes to the call center infrastructure.