The major cost of providing customer service is still human resources. So if we’re looking at cutting costs, what we’re really interested in is reducing Total Traffic Time (TTT) for voice calls handled by agents. TTT is determined by the average length of calls and by the overall volume of calls. Targeting agents to reduce Average Handling Time (AHT) might achieve some cost-cutting goals, but it will almost undoubtedly do so at the expense of quality of service. So, what else can we do?
Reducing the overall volume of calls handled by live agents not only reduces TTT and therefore costs, but can actually improve quality of service. Why? Because it aligns with customers’ new preferences. Their willingness to use telephone and web self-service is that rarest of things; a confluence of both business and consumer preferences. It allows us to cut costs and improve quality at the same time. These are the implications for your business:
- You must provide telephone and web self-service, and integrate these with the contact centre and back office for consistency and to allow customers to move seamlessly between channels.
- Your most important KPI for reducing contact centre costs is not AHT but Total Traffic Time (TTT) for live agent interactions.
- If simple queries are automated then live agents will only have to deal with more complex or emotional interactions, so AHT might actually increase – which is OK as the overall reduction in live agent calls more than compensates.
Web self-service
Web self-service platforms, such as those provided by Infinity CCS, have been shown to reduce call volumes by as much as 20% and can reduce the cost of a support interaction by 98%. These use machine learning technology to determine a customer’s real intent by relating concepts and recognising the meaning of words in context. This means that a customer is able to interrogate your Knowledge Base in a much more natural way.
Using it, one company was able to answer 97% of web self-service queries accurately, and on average companies switching to the platform manage to double their online resolution rates. The platform can also be integrated into your agents’ desktop environment, providing them with context-sensitive Knowledge to help improve service and reduce AHT.
Integrating everything to meet customer needs
To deliver on the promise of self-service you need to provide customers with consistent information across all channels (web, IVR, chat, etc.) and integrate all these channels with each other and with your back office systems. Infinity CCS – which also provides unified desktop technology, CTI and telephony solutions – is able to ensure all your systems are connected, enabling you to present the customer with a single unified interface through which to interact with you.
The result of providing self-service channels and ensuring they are properly integrated is that you are able to handle each type of interaction by the most appropriate and cost-effective method, while still giving customers enough choice to meet their personal preferences. This is the key to reducing Total Traffic Time (TTT) and therefore gaining the cost reductions you seek while actually improving the quality of your service and meeting customers’ new expectations.