Technology Used in Call Center

Technology

Call Centres use a wide variety of different technologies to allow them to manage the large volumes of work that need to be managed by the call centre. These technologies ensure that agents are kept as productive as possible, and that calls are queued and processed as quickly as possible, resulting in good levels of service.

These include ;

• ACW (After call work)

• ACD (automatic call distribution)

- In telephony, an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) is a device that distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals that agents use. It is often part of a computer telephony integration system.

• Agent performance analytics

• Automated surveys

-are used to gain customer feedback through the internet and via the telephone. Automated surveys are particularly used for customer research purposes in call centre for customer relationship management and performance management purposes. They are also used for market research and job satisfaction surveys.

• BTTC (best time to call)/ Outbound call optimization

• IVR (interactive voice response)

- In telephony, interactive voice response, or IVR, is a computerized system that allows a person, typically a telephone caller, to select options from a voice menu and otherwise interact with the computer phone system. Generally the system plays a pre-recorded voice prompt and the caller presses a number on a telephone keypad to select an option - i.e. "press 1 for yes, press 2 for no". Some IVR systems can also recognize the caller's simple spoken answer such as "yes", "no", or a number as a valid response to the voice prompt.

• Guided Speech IVR

- The Guided Speech IVR approach for call centers is a hybrid model that integrates live call center agents with all the advancements of speech in a new real-time approach for callers. This new approach creates a "safety-net", as the new role for the agent as a guide who assists the automation invisibly helps the caller using human intelligence and transcription to ensure the correct computerized service is provided.

This new approach follows a new trend in software and business solution design that integrates humans into complex applications that lack human understanding and intelligence. In telephone interactions, humans are much more effective at solving problems such as meaning, intent and context.

New types of dynamics are realized with technology like this:

1. A live guide agent, unlike a typical call center agent, can assist four or more callers at the same time.

2. When automation runs into a recognition problem, then the live guide agent can transcribe what the caller said and guide the system to the next appropriate action.

3. Open ended questions can be asked in the automated call flow and live guide agents can listen and interpret, then guide the automation as to what action it should take.

4. Higher gains in caller completion rates can be achieved due to the live assistance and “understanding” that the automation gains from the guide agent assistance.

• CTI (computer telephony integration)

- Computer telephony integration (CTI) is technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be integrated or co-ordinated. As contact channels have expanded from voice to include email, web, and fax, the definition of CTI has expanded to include the integration of all customer contact channels (voice, email, web, fax, etc.) with computer systems.

• Enterprise Campaign Management

- An Enterprise Campaign Manager solution is used to provide advanced management capabilities for the data used to conduct Outbound dialling campaigns.

• Outbound predictive dialer

- A predictive dialer is a computerized system that automatically dials batches of telephone numbers for connection to agents assigned to sales or other campaigns. Predictive dialers are widely used in call centers.

• CRM (customer relationship management)

- Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer information.

• CIM (customer interaction management) solutions (Also known as 'Unified' solutions)