CONTACT CENTRE OPTIMISATION
What do we mean by
Contact Centre Optimisation?
First up, a quick explainer.
By “Contact Centre”, we’re talking about Call Centres as well as other types of customer contact such as emails, webchats and social media interactions. Basically, anywhere a business talks to its customers.
By “Optimisation” we mean less waiting time for those customers, faster resolution of issues, instant access to information. If you’ve ever been asked on the phone to “Hang on there while my system loads your account information”, well, it’s the opposite of that.
Often, Contact Centres are the only way for customers to talk to a company. And the company wants the same outcome from each contact as the customer – an efficient exchange of information followed by a resolution which is accurately recorded on the system.
No time waiting
No call backs
No further actions required for the customer service agent.
Robotic Process Automation can be used in Contact Centres to improve employee efficiency, customer satisfaction, and company profitability.
The digital workers interact with the business systems in the same way as a call centre agent – they log in, launch applications, enter data, press buttons, make decisions, read and understand content, create and update files, send updates and more – only much faster and without errors.
Contact Centre Automation examples
Here are some examples of how RPA can be applied in the Contact Centre.
1. Identifying the Customer in the System
When a customer reaches the agent, the agent needs to identify them in the system in order to view account details, order status, order number, pending support tickets (if any) etc. The agent often accesses more than one system to find all customer information. This can lead to multiple logins slowing down the agents, inconsistent information across systems, frustration for customers and agents alike.
RPA Solution
Automation can load a detailed customer profile from multiple systems before the agent has even begun talking to the customer. All details on one screen, shorter call, quicker resolution, happier customer.
2. Updating Customer Information in the System
As the call progresses, the agent updates the customer’s account, usually navigating through several applications and multiple fields which can be slow to load. Manual data entry is tedious and error-prone task.
RPA Solution
Automation can integrate data across various fields of associated systems using a single form. RPA eliminates the time spent on cross-application desktop activities and the struggle between various systems. Faster agents, consistent data, accurate systems.
3. Repeat Calls
In many scenarios, the customer has already called in the past or been passed through several different agents in order to achieve a resolution. Depending on the nature of the issue, the customer may be asked to reconfirm their account details more than once and repeat the details of the issue to various agents. The repeated information is frustrating for the customer and leads to a longer call duration.
RPA Solution
With automation, the various company systems are integrated. So a single click loads the complete customer profiles including the details from previous interactions. No need to monitor all the applications, no repeat questions, happier customer.
4. Other examples
There are many other areas that RPA can optimise the contact centre experience for customers and agents.
• Billing data – viewable with a single click
• Issuing refunds – efficiently processed to keep customers happy
• Employee data management - automatic updating of personnel data from forms
• Invoice creation – scheduled invoicing based on Contact Centre interaction
• Data migration – elimination of clerical errors during data migration
• Report preparation – scheduled reporting and analysis emailed to key stakeholders
The automation benefits described above are applicable to all contact centre channels, whether through social media, chatbot or video calls. And the automation can interact with any CRM software, online portals, and client databases, whether on premises or in the cloud.
Here are a few figures to summarise the expected benefits of Contact Centre Optimisation:
24/7 working hours of digital workers
50% reduction in call duration resulting in significant savings of both time and money
100% accuracy from the digital workforce
Business processes accomplished up to 20 times faster than the average human