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The building blocks of contact centre consolidation
Contact consolidation is not for the lighthearted. For years, contact centre management has been attempting to control costs by reducing the number of agents, physical sites and consolidating software and hardware solutions. Often these attempts are in conflict with customer and corporate demands. So, how do we increase contact centre availability? Improve customer satisfaction? Reduce operational costs?
In an effort to address this dichotomy, we have seen contact centres go through a number of phases. First there was the "how many people can fit in a building" phase. Contact centre management thought that information-sharing and operational efficiencies would improve by doing this. This phase was soon disrupted by the need to provide 24/7 coverage and the availability of lower cost options offshore.
As the walls of the contact centre began to erode, another issue reared its ugly head: How do we get the right agent to address the customer's issue? When intelligent routing came to the fore and it enabled companies to rout calls to the agent best-equipped to deal with them. However, the proliferation of sites also brought with it new challenges. Technology incompatibilities' arose between sites and the ability to maintain and share accurate data became an even greater issue.
Hence, came the next phase. Would it be possible to create a virtual technology platform that spanned multiple sites and provide a platform that enabled the level of integration contact centres now required? The Aberdeen March 2008 benchmark "Contact Centre Consolidation" looks at these issues and identifies the technologies required to support this transition.
