In case you've missed it, the next big thing in marketing and customer service isn't twitter - it is relevance. While the entire world is a-flutter with twitter and social media (blogs, facebook, Linkedin etc) they are merely a reaction to the consumer push for more relevant communication (on their terms).

Today's era of media fragmentation, consumer empowerment, increasingly disengaged consumers and global competition, has created a new phase of marketing based on consumer focus. Consumers, weary of mass-media bombardments, are rejecting generalised outbound offers and blanket one-size-fits-all strategies in favour of more relevant (even one-on-one) approaches that take the consumer as an individual into account. A recent Australian e-marketing report¹ noted better open and response rates from emails with smaller distribution lists with the assumption that these emails were more segmented and therefore more relevant.

So how can the relevance concept improve the inbound call centre experience? Relevance is intrinsically tied to time-efficiency, the customers not yours. Creating a more time efficient inbound experience boosts customer satisfaction and loyalty with knock-on impact to sales - callcentres.net research² showed over half of those dissatisfied with their last call stated length of time reasons for their dissatisfaction.

Making your inbound operation more relevant and more customer-time-efficient could simply require a combination of the following factors:
- correct use of the IVR
- integration with other customer systems such as CRM
- implementing clever skills based routing (not complex, clever)
- expanding your working models
- automated call volume management

Get the basics right

Badly designed, confusing and ‘self-serve only' IVR options are a personal pet hate. IVR technologies have been around for so long you would think everyone has had the time to get it right but customer-hostile IVRs still exist. (read the Inbound Intelligence is an Oxymoron story for more). Getting it right in today's environment is a prerequisite for all that follows, getting it wrong is the equivalent of a slap-across-the-face greeting instead of the traditional hand-shake.

Getting clever

Assume the IVR basics have been done. Now add value to the IVR experience, integrate customer relationship management systems (like salesforce.com) so the customer's inputs will pop a customer data screen when the call arrives at the agent. Even better use this to help manage call queues using skills based routing (see the Five Minute Model the boys propose here). This also helps first call resolution as the most likely person who can answer the call, gets the call.

Look beyond the office

Virtual call centre agents can help to expand your knowledge base of experts - whether they be super-gurus from within the company or experts at home who wouldn't be caught dead in a call centre environment. Home based agents can also be the key to ‘all day, all night' call centres so customers don't have to wait (and percolate) to resolve their issue or complete a purchase with routing automatically adjusting to agent availability regardless of location - Teleconnexions is a great example of a business model tuned to customer demand, even if that's at 3am.

Some might even say that's thinking too small; with Australia's proximity to south east Asia, incorporating multi-lingual agents from those countries might make a lot of sense for non English-speaking customers. If you are using a really clever hosted system you can also change the language of the system presentation layer (also known as screens and scripts) to suit each agent within the same system while still viewing all reports, monitors and measurements in your chosen language.

Computer says switch

In turbulent inbound situations, customers can potentially face extended on-hold times that ensure that if they weren't irritated when the initial call was made they are when the agent finally takes the call. Studies have shown consumers react better when they feel a degree of control over the situation³. They might still have to wait 15 minutes in the queue but if they are told it's a 15 minute wait, they can now exercise their control and choose to stay on the line or call back later. Either way they are less irritable. For inbound sales situations ‘name and number' techniques enable the customer to partially fulfil their desired action (purchase) immediately and accept a call back later; again the customer feels in control. By automating the switch between ‘name and number' and ‘normal' mode based on call volume, helps to ride out volume turbulence with minimal impact on sales and no lengthy delays in IVR queues - Teleconnexions provides a great real-life example. Also see the more detailed explanation on managing turbulence.

Finally, in providing a more relevant experience for consumers, one that values their time, also consider their communication preferences. We referred to twitter and social media earlier, and while the media enjoys splashing the buzzwords around, there is still some debate in marketing circles about whether these will be long-term, effective marketing and business communication tools. Regardless of the outcome of the debate, the idea of relevance might provide some simple direction - let your customers guide you and ignore everyone else!

By Simon Burke

Simon is the CEO at IPscape and while overseeing the IPscape business also finds time to speak at conferences and seminars on next-generation call centres and the technologies that drive them.

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