| | July 20198ey to survival and success of any busi-ness lies in the manner it treats its customers. Call Centers are the di-rect interface of a business to its ex-isting or potential customers. Call Center operations and its underly-ing processes have a direct impact upon customer satisfaction. It is therefore important to constantly monitor and continuously improve the processes being followed in a Call Center. It is a Knowledge Process driven setup and therefore knowledge is the key to its opera-tions. This knowledge has to be kept updated, available and used efficiently for delivering what the customer seeks. Technology has a major role to-day in shaping the outlook of a Call Center and its operations. Applica-tion of relevant technology directly affects the employee, incumbent infrastructure, processes, operat-ing costs, delivery and provides the opportunity to expand opera-tions or diversify. Technologies like Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Unified queuing, Adminis-tration Console, Feedback systems and Supervisory Control are more or less mandatory for efficient call handling. While the Call Centers handle calls, a Contact Center is a location for centralized handling of individual communications, includ-ing letters, faxes, live support soft-ware, social media, instant message, and e-mail. However, it is important to be aware of customer experience and therefore it should be an endeavor to keep the hold time minimal, en-gage the customer through enjoy-able response while on hold and maximize on the customer hold period through focused advertising.In order to achieve the best out of customer engagement, call handling (by the system and the agent em-ployee) has to be assisted through skill training and decision support systems. Technologies like Voice Biometrics can be used for custom-er authentication to speed up con-tact. Learning Management System based decision tree implementation system can speed up the resolu-tion time and achieve better accu-racy based on past learnings. Focus should be on Digital Transforma-tion where all in one approach to communications (Omni Channel) should be incorporated to enable customers to connect using any of the digital channels and ensure that they are served with the same effi-ciency across all channels. Also, a customer today uses multiple chan-nels to communicate and would most likely present his interaction and feedback on different channels. Thus the Omni channel approach IN MY OPINIONKBy Shiv Kumar Singh, SVP - Head of Technology, Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd. CALL CENTER: TRENDS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN CALL CENTER He heads the Technology Function of HFCL comprising the Pre-Sale Solutions, R&D, Technical Business Development for internal SBUs.
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