Every contact center wants details on why customers call, both to route them in real-time and to report on call types. Many centers structure prompts to enable reporting on call reasons. Customers assume their selections lead to targeted service experiences. Yet quite often, they’re all routed to the same group regardless of menu choice! Prompt-driven reporting makes insight into why customers call easy, but you have to take a broader view to optimize the customer experience.
Start with well-designed prompts in the right place (e.g., network, PBX or IVR) that capture information which can be used to shorten but enhance the service experience, or that result in the call being routed to a specifically skilled agent. Ensure that the caller sees clear value in any data captured.
Understand the difference between IVR reporting and ACD. IVR reporting can provide insight into prompt selection, completion rates, and opt outs. For volume information on what paths callers choose, ACD queue and skill reporting can be useful as counts will be associated with wait times, answer speed, handle times, etc
Determine if speech recognition should be a part of your prompt/menu design. With directed dialog, prompts can offer suggestions on needed service (e.g., “Would you like to schedule a pickup, get pricing information, or track a package?”). Natural language is an option to reduce the complexity in very long menu trees by offering a more open ended “how can I help you?” Speech recognition requires a significant investment in design, testing, and ongoing tuning to make it worthwhile.
Once the call gets to an agent, a common place to capture data is “wrap” codes which the agents manually choose. Make sure you have an effective means for compliance and that the code list is not too long/cumbersome. CRM data captured during the call − or follow up workflow – may also deliver valuable insight.
Consider the role of CTI, whether via an IVR, CTI platform, or SIP-based solution. A small amount of caller-entered information with CTI can further optimize routing by making decisions based on what you already know (e.g., customer segment, earlier contact that day or last month). Through CTI/IVR integration you might further customize and optimize the caller experience by altering the information or menus received, or proactively providing information such as status updates.
Finally, desktop analytics can provide insight into what happens during contacts. It logs detailed event data from the desktop applications accessed and provide a reporting interface to build reports and analyze the data collected.
Knowing why your customers call ultimately leads to changes that improve center efficiency and effectiveness. You can reduce handle time by capturing more information up front through automation and then arming your agents with the necessary tools and knowledge to react quickly to the callers’ expectations once calls are delivered. You can use what you learn to reduce incoming contacts by offering more appropriate self-service options on the IVR/web or offering more complete information on your current self-service applications. Ultimately, you learn the information your customers need and in what timeframe so you can more proactively offer the information before they call through automated outbound communication (e.g., voice mail, email, SMS text).