What it’s Used For | Computer Telephony

Voice response systems are front-ends to the phone system that deliver recorded information when someone calls. Interactive voice response is two-way; it responds with information when a caller enters digits on the touch tone phone. And when that information comes from a host database, that’s CTI in action.

Customers can call at any hour of the day or night looking for account balances or order status information. The IVR engine queries a database in the background and reads the information to the caller. In this way it can be made dynamic — instead of just reading off a set of canned, pre-recorded announcements (“we’re closed right now, please call again tomorrow” or “to leave a message for our sales department, press one”) it pulls real time data out of corporate databases.

When this is translated to the Web, the kind of information you can make available to customers is expanded dramatically. Anything visual, from catalogs to product schematics, can be dropped onto a customer (or agent) desktop. Customers can help themselves when problems arise. They can learn about your products before they buy. And when it comes time to talk to an agent, they are better prepared; so the call is shorter, more effective, and more profitable. The “shopper” does his shopping without consuming your most valuable resources. But the buyer gets your full attention.

CTI is an information delivery tool. It won’t make a seller out of someone with no sales ability, but it will give someone who deals with customers the knowledge they need to address the needs of the customer.

For starters, a customer record is brought to the agent’s desktop at the same time as the customer’s voice arrives on the phone. The caller can be identified in many ways, including the information that travels with the toll free call, or through digits entered by the caller himself. When the agent has the customer information in front of him, the call doesn’t last as long. The customer doesn’t have to repeat himself every time the call is transferred. And the agent sees the entire history of the relationship with that customer. If the customer has a history of problems, the rep will know about it. And if the customer has a million-dollar lifetime value to the company, the rep will know that too.

Better still, if that caller is really a million dollar value, the CTI system will know it before the rep will, and can be set up to send the call directly to someone equipped with the experience to handle priority customers.

Another way CTI helps is with quality control. In call centers, calls are often monitored — recorded and archived so that the agent and his or her supervisor can listen to them later and assess performance.

That analysis process is made much more productive when it’s augmented by the data that passes through the agent’s screen during the call. A complete record of every transaction can be kept indefinitely, including every screen viewed by the agent. This “screen scrape” is an audit trail and a training tool.

All these things help a company cut operating costs by reducing (or stabilizing) support staff headcount. A company can be more productive with the same staff by handling more calls (or customers, or transactions, depending on which metric is most important to them).

And most important, it lets a smaller company look like a big one — without sacrificing the personal touch. Customers don’t care how big a company is, they care about what kind of response they get when they call or contact that company. If they get good service from Federal Express or L.L. Bean, they’re going to learn to expect it from every other business they deal with, no matter how large. CTI applications allow companies to appear more fully outfitted than they really are. This could mean putting systems in place to answer calls during off-hours when no agents are available, or having a website take orders at all hours. In any of these cases, the underlying technology that links the computer networks and the telecom systems enables the small company to decide for itself how to manage its customer relationships.

A call center that uses computer telephony knows who its customers are and why they are calling. It knows what they like, what they dislike, and how much they are worth to the company. On the other hand, without computer telephony every customer interaction is like a blind date — full of expectation, and possibly, frustration.

CTI lets a company respond faster to changing market conditions. But it must be implemented correctly: with clear and ongoing support from upper management and a clear-eyed view of the company’s goals for the technology.

For a company to put computer telephony into place requires that they determine, from end to end, exactly what they want a customer interaction to be like. Every contingency must be accounted for: phone calls; emails; fax requests; even Web hits. Far too many companies have had disappointing results because they didn’t put in the computer telephony they needed; they put in the technology they imagined. The right CTI is the mix of applications and core technologies that add value to the company’s existing operations, and allow it to do more: voice mail, unified messaging, advanced call routing, fax redirection, Internet telephony, call center apps, customer service software, sales force automation — whatever combination is most useful in their particular circumstances. The key is to figure out which pieces are right for which circumstances.

There are many ways to make it work. There are also many places to go for expert advice. Component vendors start the process, and often point the way to application partners whose product works with the core pieces. Telcos and other large service providers can also provide an umbrella under which integration between all the pieces are certified to work correctly. There are systems integrators, who specialize in matching the various pieces to the custom needs of a particular company, or vertical industry.

Whichever direction, the growing company needs upper management buy-in, direction on the goals of the project, and a clear-eyed view of the relationship between the company and its customers.

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