Grouping Activities in the Contact Centre


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‘Grouping activities’, a feature of the unified agent desktop, plays an important role in saving the company money, time and embarrassment. Read below to find out what it is, what it does and how you can benefit from its employment in your software.

How it works: when a customer contacts customer service, it is usually due to a problem or complaint that they want to report. Due to the nature of the request, they are often impatient to get an answer, and if made to wait, may resort to trying to get the attention of the company via other communication channels.

For example, Dan’s recently purchased coat is fraying at the seams, so he contacts the company to let them know that he is disappointed in the quality of their product. Having dropped them an email and not receiving a reply that day, he may feel irritated at their delay in getting back to him, so he decides to tweet them in an attempt to get their attention.

Three hours later and nothing. Dan is frustrated now, as he is used to having quick – if not immediate – responses from all of his other customer service experiences. He decides to call the contact centre directly to see if he can speak to someone who can shine some light on his disappointment and the delay in response.

When he gets through, he learns that they have been experiencing a high level of customer requests and they are apologetic for keeping him waiting.

Through cross-referencing the customer details, the contact centre system has grouped all 3 requests from Dan together, so that the agent he is speaking to on the phone is presented with the tweet and email, all on the same screen.

All three are addressed simultaneously, so that Dan doesn’t need to repeat himself by re-explaining the situation. This also saves the company time, as Dan’s previous actions are removed from the request queue to avoid any other agents picking them up to deal with later on.

Without Dan having to explain anything further, his agent apologies for the poor-quality coat that he has received and offers him a replacement. He is also offered £20 off his next purchase within the T-shirt range, as the agent can see from the customer history that Dan usually orders these online from their company.

With this amalgamated, single view of the customer and his multiple communications with the company, the agent has resolved Dan’s wavering faith in their quality and rewarded him for being a loyal customer with thorough customer service.

The alternative to this feature is that Dan’s email, tweet and phone call are each picked up by a different agent, who repeats others’ workload and Dan receives £60 off T-shirts instead of £20.

 

Benefits:

  • Reduced workload as agents are not repeating what others have done. As all divisions in the customer service department are connected, there is no chance that this customer complaint would go to two separate silos to be dealt with by two different agents depending on the communication channel used.
  • Money saving in cases of offered compensation as all agents are working from one system that shows all information, thus lowering the risk of repetition and mistakes.
  • Reduced service desk staff and efficient reallocation of resources, as 40% of customer requests are repeats of the original sent through multiple communication channels.
  • Smoother customer journey for consumers, as they are dealt with by one agent who can see all information. Customers don’t have to repeat themselves, which is frustrating for them, as all interactions/activities are grouped together by the software.

For more information, visit mplsystems.co.uk

Author: Rachael Trickey

Published On: 22nd Sep 2017 - Last modified: 5th Mar 2020
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