Interplay at many levels
3 November 2006

In overseas markets, call centres are becoming contact centres that provide multiple interaction channels, including phone, fax, e-mail, SMS and the web. South African companies have been slow to move in this direction, but with the drive to improve customer service are starting to realise the benefits of doing so, says Dawn Wood, business executive at ATIO Corporation.

She says all interaction channels should be a reflection of a company's customer relationship philosophy and strategy and provide the same level of service.

"It is no good a company having great advertising campaigns when it makes it difficult for customers to interact with it."

A customer interaction strategy should include web interaction, and a lot of thought should be given to ensuring this channel addresses customers' needs.

To interact with customers on the web a company's web site needs to be well designed and easy to navigate, while providing all the information customers might need. But this is not the case with 70% to 80% of websites, Wood says. "Web interaction needs to be as easy as interacting face to face or on the phone."

A customer does not want to wade through many different operations in order to get the information they are looking for or they will lose interest, as often happens with interactive voice response (IVR) systems. It is important to identify as quickly as possible what the customer wants, for example if they want to transact or are just window-shopping, Wood says.

The website must therefore be designed to meet multiple customer needs and behaviour patterns and respond accordingly. "People learn through doing, reading and verbal interaction, and if they have never been to the website before, it will be a new experience."

If customers get stuck finding information or transacting on the website they need to have access to a person that can assist them, as easily as by pressing a help button to request a call back, or to interact with them using instant messaging. In this situation e-mail interaction does not have the same sense of urgency, and if they do not get a prompt response it may put the customer off dealing with the company.

One of the biggest advantages of web interaction is that customers can help themselves to information 24 hours a day, says Wood. On the other hand, only 10% of the population has access to the internet, except perhaps at work.

E-mail is an important customer interaction channel and needs to be responded to by a qualified person, Wood says. She says technology tools are available that allow predefined responses to e-mail that contains frequently asked questions, by identifying key words in the text and matching them against a database, but there would need to be some human checking process for scanning these responses before sending them out to ensure they are valid, and to make any necessary adjustments.

Software solutions such as interactive intelligence support multiple-channel interaction through voice, e-mail, fax, the web and SMS, and provide this type of functionality, Wood says.

South African companies should begin to implement a web interaction strategy in preparation fro 2010. Wood says that by then, foreign visitors would want to forward-book travel and accommodation and they may also want to buy local products during their stay.