I called this frickin 1-800 number for my insurance company and got one of those darn automated systems. It wanted me to tell it what I wanted. After several failed attempts I told it that I wanted it to F-off. That didn't work. Then it asked me for my policy number. I read it in. It got it wrong. I tried again. It got it wrong. Finally it transferred me over to a real person. That's what I wanted right from the start. A real person.
Yah - IVR and CTI are those cold systems that make call centers and contact centers run. And, they are the systems that everyone hates. Even the people who created them hate them. The first thing all of us do is attempt to zero out.
At a party, the best way to end a discussion is to tell people that you create IVR and CTI systems. Typically an Internal Auditor or a Colorectal Surgeon will have better luck starting an interesting conversation than an IVR and CTI consultant.
But, I have seen the light. What do I mean?
Improving a call center or contact center is not actually about shaving a second off each call. While operations personnel in a call center believe that it is, the Marketing department knows better. Improvement in a call center is all about synchronizing the experience at the customer touch-point with the brand's promise.
The process to synchronize a Call Center's operations with a Marketing Department's brand aspirations starts with a mini brand audit, and ends with a road-map for improvement. The road-map provides a call center an appropriate technology, process, training, and "people" plan that will empower the call center to deliver on the brand promise. It also involved educating Finance, IT, HR, and other departments along the way about the need to align the brand promise, and the cost and (even bigger) benefits of doing so.
The road-map can include IVR, CTI, and other technologies. However, it will specify the brand alignment that is critical for success. In the end, you can have your branding and save some seconds too.
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