The Benefits of an all IP infrastructure

Call centres to date have been a complex mix of non-standard equipment and services from multiple manufacturers. So difficult is the integration of dissimilar technologies that companies have emerged to specifically address the integration issues in call centres. It would not be unusual to come across an installation such as:

Switch/ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) - Avaya
Call Recorder - Dictaphone
Dialler - Amcat

Then there would be scripting software, database software, legacy applications, IVR (Interactive Voice Response), CTI (Computer Telephony Integration), ... the list goes on, all from separate firms. On top of this, to make sense of the data coming out of the call centre, likely a Business Intelligence application, perhaps Cognos, is in place as well. This is maintenance hell and can lead to finger-pointing between vendors when something goes wrong. On the other hand, many large firms successfully run their enterprise customer management solutions in such an environment and continue to deliver excellent service. However, there has to be an easier way?

Using IP (Internet Protocol) organisations can now streamline services and rationalise vendors. Take, for example, the all-IP solution from Cosmocom. This is a software solution that provides enterprise grade switching, call handling, routing and multimedia contact management. The solution runs on standard server hardware (non-exotic mid-spec devices from Dell or HP, for example) and delivers a rich feature-set without the integration headache of a diverse vendor set. Plus, since all traffic is IP, voice calls, video calls, emails, etc. are all transactions that get processed through the applications and served out to advisors through a Unified queue (more on this in a forthcoming article). The Cosmocom solution is elegently designed to be used in a premises environment or in a hosted environment and is truly multi-tenant (with the current exception of the dialler, but that will addressed shortly). The application set sits on standard Microsoft applications (Exchange, SQL Server, etc) and cleverly integrates all data in the same database format. So, information about customers and information about calls is able to be easily linked. This is a major benefit for accessing data and turning it into actionable intelligence.

Designing a contact centre (multi-media call centre) is difficult enough without involving 10 different vendors. Increasingly organisations are looking at IP based solutions and taking a step away from traditional vendors. As Voice over IP (VoIP) traffic increases, most contact centres will only deploy IP based solutions, be these evolved products from traditional call centre vendors or custom designed applications from the likes of Cosmocom.

Copyright 2006 Robert A Innes

Supermarket Trolleys and associated thoughts

It's a tough life as a trolley. Being dumped in a river having been pushed home from the Supermarket, your user too lazy to return you to the trolley park. This used to be the fate that awaited unlucky trolleys up and down the country. The campaign to save trolleys, led supermarkets to came up with an ingenious scheme - chain up trolleys and make customers use a £1 coin to access a trolley and then retrieve their coin by re-chaining the trolley after use. Pretty smart, eh?

Trouble is, the designers of the scheme planned without the great British public, throwing up a number of challenges:

a) ever forget to bring a £1 coin to the supermarket? Yup. Been there.
b) ever found a chained up trolley that would not accept a £1? Yup.
c) ever returned a trolley and found that you could not retrieve the coin? Yup.

If "a" above, that leaves you with hand baskets which are usually stacked by the front door but on busy days are stacked under each checkout. No-one available to re-stack on Saturdays?

Whilst I'm the subject of trolleys. Sainsbury's in Blackhall, Edinburgh - could you possibly have found a bumpier surface to use on the car park? The driving lanes at the back of the car park are smooth enough to roller blade on, however, the front of the car park (nearest the store) is surfaced with what appears to be rocks selected for their pointyness - perfect for pushing a trolley across. Did anyone test this?

And my favourite pet hate at Blackhall - people apparently too lazy to ferry their purchases all the way to the car park and get their partner to wait on double-yellow lines outside the front door. Come off it. How lazy are you? And, could you get any closer to the pedestrian crossing, to make things even more dangerous? Take the trolley to the car park. Please.

Tough life as a trolley.

Copyright 2006 Robert A Innes

T-Mobile and Third Party content providers

As a new T-Mobile customer I was interested to see how they would respond when I had a concern over an unexpected charge on my first bill. My query concerned "Third Party Charges" which are charges that appear on your mobile bill but are originated by some independent content delivery company (for example, news alerts, ring tones, sports updates, etc). The content delivery company sends the content to your device via services such as SMS or WAP push. I received a charge on my T-Mobile bill for a service that I did not recognise (entitled "Third Party Charges" with no further information).

T-Mobile, and presumably other network operators, do not take any responsibility for these services, though presumably they do take a fee in exchange for billing the customer. If you have a query you are directed to different customer support help lines, not provided by your network operator.

The lines to which I was directed are 0870 (national rate) lines. Conveniently 0870 numbers are not included in your inclusive minutes so any calls you make (say, to resolve disputed billing) are charged. The lines are invariably automated and provide "service" either through IVR (Interactive Voice Response - the "please press 1 for sales", etc., system) or through an answering machine. My experience was the IVR did not provide an option for what I wanted - dispute the charge and organise a refund. The answering service did not lead to my call being returned. I re-called T-Mobile but they would not take on my issue and directed me again to the 0870 numbers from their partners

I then resorted to emailing T-Mobile. I emailed first on 8th May. After three days I got a response from T-Mobile quoting a number I should call, but this led to an answering machine which again did not lead to a returned call. I replied to the email to advise this but received no response. A good week later I emailed again, but no response. Out of the blue, this afternoon, some three weeks after emailing I received a call from T-Mobile - a helpful man who tried to explain the relationship between T-Mobile and third party content providers. He organised a refund without argument and also made a contribution towards the 0870 numbers I had dialled. A very satisfactory end to the problem, but did it really need to take over three weeks? After several calls and several emails my issue is fully resolved, however, I remain unconvinced over the Third Party relationships and disappointed in the lack of ownership shown by T-Mobile service centre staff.

What went wrong?- not taking ownership and not checking that third parties live up to the promise of T-Mobile

What could have been done?- that's a tough one - clearly mobile operators want the third party revenue, but their content delivery partners seem not to be up to the service job when things go wrong. I always think disbelieving your customer is going to place you on a sticky wicket in terms of customer relationship development. Had the refund been applied instantly, call and email servicing time would have been lower and total subsidy would have been lower as no 0870 refund would have been required.

Summary:- 4 out of 10 - saved from poorer score by final advisor who took ownership and quickly sorted out the problem. My relationship with T-Mobile is off to a bad start - over three weeks to resolve a simple issue. I hope they don't think this is a relationship that's going anywhere.

Copyright 2006 Robert A Innes

Calling the Government, again and again.

What could be more frustrating when you call a call centre, than being passed from one advisor to another, to another ... ? Well, perhaps more frustrating than that is being given different numbers to call for other departments. Here's an example: Today I called HM Revenue and Customs to register a new business for VAT. It's easy to download the VAT registration form from the self-service web site and the form itself is pretty self-explanatory. However, at the end, the form has a checklist of things to do. The final point was to inform Inland Revenue of the new business but did not give any contact info. I went back to the website but could find no details so I called the helpline. This was a local rate 0845 number. After giving various pieces of information I was told to call another 0845 number. Which I did, only to be told to call another 0845 number. When I did that I was told to contact yet another 0845 number. Finally I found someone who could help. The second and third numbers I called gave me the same response: "I don't know why they gave you this number - they must have just picked the first one they thought of".

What does this tell us about the way UK Government works? Well it's always dangerous to draw conclusions from one incident, however, some things are clear. Firstly, governments are complex organisations and routing calls is a challenge with so many different services to be provided. This gives the government some get out. Secondly, the ability to correctly route a mis-routed call appears to be, on occasion, poor. For a service organisation, and surely a government is the ultimate service organisations, if you can tell that a call has been mis-routed, rule No.1 should be make sure the call is not mis-routed again. Sadly in this case, that didn't happen.

What went wrong?
- passing customer to new number without checking

What could have been done?
- previous advisors take ownership of problem and ensure that re-routing information is valid

Summary:- 6 out of 10 - saved from poorer score by fourth advisor who completed transaction quickly and competently

Copyright 2006 Robert A Innes

Why is customer service so variable?

Why is customer service so variable - sometimes helpful, inspiring and relevant, yet sometimes rude, dumb and unhelpful? Most organisations arrange customer service in a way that suits them, rather than in a way that suits customers. Customer Management is a more appropriate term and often it does feel very much like being managed - you must follow the process, even if it is nonsensical, you must listen to advisors talking to you as if you're ten years old and you must wait and wait until the organisation is ready. Compare this to the pre-sale experience. Fewer delays on the phone? Staff keener to help? Processes more suited to your needs? The fact is, once an organisation has you, especially true on a contract, such as mobile phone, cable TV/telephone, etc., then the pressure is off - they can put in place exactly the kind of service they want. Mostly this is a function of cost control, rather than service delivery.

My broadband supplier, Telewest is an example. Last weekend the service cut-out three times. On my first two calls I was told that there was service outage in my area and it was being worked on. On my third call, I had to provide much more information to complete DPA (Data Protection check - to ensure that Telewest could verify me as the customer). The first two advisors did not attempt DPA. I told this to the third advisor but was told this was procedure and he could not proceed without it. The call required no personal details on my account to be exchanged so the need for DPA was overplayed - they could tell from my CLI (calling line identification) that I was a valid Telewest customer. Eventually third advisor (chap called Zed I believe - very considerate chap) figured out that the service outage was not actually in my area but through a series of tests he had asked me to conduct, concluded that the problem was probably due to my cable modem. He arranged an engineer visit within 72 hours. We would have no web access until engineer calls. Engineer comes within the alloted time slot as promised and determines that modem is fine and problem lies outwith my property. Frustrating. OK, so no-one died, but did it really need to be so hard?

What went wrong?
- inconsistent procedures
- flawed problem solving

What could have been done?
- improved training to ensure process consistency
- improved fault finding and resolution

Summary:
- 4 out of 10 - saved from really poor score by third advisor (even though he incorrectly diagnosed the problem, his attitude was spot on) and excellent on-site engineer.

Copyright 2006 Robert A Innes