4 aspects that make your care solution be “next generation”
By: Carlos Pieruzzi is a contact center solutions consultant, specialist in workforce management and customer experience at Talkdesk, a global Cloud Contact Center company for customer-obsessed companies.
Have you ever done a quick internet search for “customer service solution” or “contact center as a service”? If so, several links will appear from software companies that have been dedicated for years to solving the question of how to improve the experience and customer service, being cost efficient, while offering ease of configuration and administration. I can say that these companies have been dedicated to overcoming this challenge for a long time.
It is necessary to consider that there are several solutions available for service in the market, but most of them were created more than 30 years ago. Have you ever stopped to think what it means to trust your service to software built with programming code conceived three decades ago? Can you imagine the limitations of the technologies available at that time?
The good news is that new manufacturers are always coming up with the proposal to solve the same problem, but now with a perspective that is at least more modern and sometimes disruptive.
Today, it is already known, for example, that the recording of calls to a service must be included from the basic package of service offered to the customer and in an unrestricted and unlimited way. And, the system architecture, from its conception, must consider some aspects that do not even need to be discussed further. In other words, the technology that we currently have available has already solved this problem. Returning to the recording example, digital storage space should not even be discussed anymore. One less problem!
And what other issues were resolved, following the same logic? We can mention microservice-based cloud solutions, which solve a multitude of problems ranging from renting physical space to have a datacenter, to a set of routines and processes for security and IT governance.
The service solutions must be, from their conception, thought in a modular way, and, at the same time, when necessary, fit the pieces perfectly, forming a single piece. I will explain further. Until recently, we considered the concept of a diagram to be able to design the service flow in the URA (Audible Answer Unit), the famous automatic voice that answers us when we call in any telephone service, and when we exhaust the capacity of the URA we are transferred to the human care. Today, this form of diagram has been extrapolated and is used not only thinking about the IVR, but in every flow that involves a complete customer service journey, be it automatic, digital, or by voice.
See more: Annualized global crypto-asset electricity usage is down 17% since the beginning of the year
Now comes the explanation of what I called a single piece. This entire journey must be configured on a single screen, on a single system, bringing or removing resources according to context and even dynamically. It is only possible not to lose control of the customer’s journey in service, if the solution as a whole was created, from its conception, with this as a final objective. It doesn’t matter if the call is with human, virtual, voice or omnichannel service. The platform that claims to be unique needs to have control over the interaction at every step and be able to make use of available resources throughout the process.
An important piece in this context is the DAC (Automatic Call Distributor), the system responsible for sending calls to human assistance. It is common to hear the expression “return to IVR” which means to pass control of the call from the DAC to the IVR. This happens because only the URA can automatically collect a customer response.
With a truly unified system, there is a module inherent to the solution that is the great orchestrator of the call. This orchestrator is not just an IVR, it is responsible for knowing the customer’s next step in the service journey, regardless of the channel or their choice.
Bringing together all the mentioned features in a unique way is certainly a challenge. Still, innovating by incorporating disruptive technology such as artificial intelligence, in my view, is what today can be called a state-of-the-art service solution.
