Real-time Really Matters to Call Centers (Part 2)

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This post was authored by guest blogger, Arnab Mishra.  Arnab is VP of Products and Solutions at Transera.

In part 1 of this series, I described the implications of real-time information on customer service organizations.  It turns out that companies successfully implementing a real-time customer service strategy have three things in common:

1. A culture that views its customer service strategy not as a periodic business event or project, but rather as an on-going business process
2. Investments in infrastructure that support the rapid creation, aggregation, and dissemination of data
3. Implementation of systems that support the real-time implementation of business strategy in an intelligent, automated, and adaptable manner

I find it heartening to see companies engaging actively in the first two requirements through business process re-engineering and in continued investments in analytics and business intelligence technologies.  What I find generally missing though is the third component.  This problem is relatively acute in customer service organizations. 

Implementation of real-time business strategies in a call center typically requires that data be brought to bear at the moment a customer is being serviced.  This paradigm has been embraced in some self-service IVR applications where callers are provided specific prompting by the application based on a real-time view of their customer profile, history, and value.  Self-service IVR applications, however, at best represent one-third of inquiries entering a call center.  The vast majority of transactions require live agent assistance, and for these callers, no real-time data is being utilized to identify the agents who are best suited to handle their request accurately and efficiently.  This gap in agent-assisted interactions is where customer service organizations can take a leadership role in moving the enterprise to a real-time model. 

In part 3 of this series, I will discuss the required elements and potential benefits of moving a customer service organization to a real-time model.