A true VoIP system distributes itself transparently across multiple locations, enabling virtual contact centres that draw skills from anywhere in the enterprise.

In today''s competitive business environment, companies need to expand their traditional channels of customer interaction to cement customer loyalty and maintain a competitive edge. The internet provides heightened business opportunities by enabling a whole new realm of interaction channels above and beyond traditional telephone calls and face-to-face interactions, because today''s customers demand the freedom and flexibility to interact with businesses using the communications medium of their choice.

Customers in this internet age are generally characterised as sceptic and impatient, with escalating expectations. They want to be recognised automatically when they call in, and get quickly connected to someone who can actually answer their questions. They don''t want to punch in endless account numbers and cryptic codes, or repeat history that is already on file, and they''d better not end up with voicemail too often. In short, they expect the functionality that a high-end contact centaur provides, and reckon that the internet technology explosion of the past decade should have put such capabilities within the reach of most companies by now. And, the much-maligned customer is right.

Your competition may be only a mouse click away but studies show that many customers prefer to be loyal. They like comfortable, seamless experiences — and change is disruptive and uncomfortable. Add this loyalty proclivity to the fact that it costs a lot more to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing ones, and you''ve just made the case for an IP contact centre. A new generation of products now puts a rich set of contact centre features and functions within the reach of virtually any company, and offers an enormous amount of flexibility.

Almost any company can now implement a converged contact centre that optimises interactions and gives customers the kind of experience they want. Such capability provides you with a key competitive advantage in a global economy that does give your customers instant access to the competition, and has pushed their expectations to giddy heights. Acutely aware of this, CEOs in a recent Ernst & Young survey made customer satisfaction their top priority — literally dwarfing other key concerns.

Unfortunately, too many of today''s contact centres simply add fuel to the fire, providing customers with bad experiences. In sharp contrast, a contact centre that leverages the capabilities of convergence, can match your callers to the most appropriate agents, resolve problems quickly, enable effective cross-selling of products and services, and strengthen relationships with customers. And only IP enables you to deliver such benefits efficiently while reducing contact centre costs.

The Legacy Problem
Traditional call centres began evolving decades ago, when call volumes were low and questions were simple and static. Separate call centres were dedicated to specific divisions or product lines, resulting in a proliferation of operational silos. This legacy has resulted in call centres that are centralised, inflexible, and tied to specific locations; impose a lot of fixed overhead; and are very difficult to manage or expand and contract operations as needed.

When voice and data networks are separate, call centres must be built by integrating a traditional PBX with a CRM application — a mammoth undertaking. Consolidating all the silos is also quite a challenge. According to a recent Gartner study, while 64 per cent of all contact centres have more than one location, only about half (52per cent) of these "multi-site" operations have actually been fully networked into one virtual centre. Similarly, the lack of full voice / data convergence has prevented most contact centres from implementing screen pops for the agents, because the cost is prohibitive. And last but far from least, full-featured contact centres based on traditional telephony don''t scale down very well, so they are out of reach for many mid-size companies.

The IP Solution
A true VoIP system distributes itself transparently across multiple locations, enabling virtual contact centres that draw skills from anywhere in the enterprise. Both the underlying IP voice network and the contact centre application are seen by users and callers as one seamless system, and they can be managed remotely from anywhere via a management console that provides a single-system view. However, while presenting a unified front to the world, agents can actually be located anywhere. This enables businesses to take advantage of lower-cost labour pools, and to add hourly employees as needed to accommodate peak-demand periods.

Once the VoIP network is in place, the call centre software is simply installed as a server-based application. Any local or remote user logged into the network can be designated an agent and assigned to a particular contact group.

Adding a new call centre site is just as easy. A technician plugs an IP voice switch into the enterprise WAN and installs the trunk interface to the PSTN. IP phones are then connected to the network, and can be configured from back at the home office — or from anywhere via a web-based management interface. Individual agents can even work from home. All they need is their PC or laptop, a soft phone, and a broadband connection to their corporate network.

The IP-based contact centre scales down as well as up, enabling companies to start small and apply the technology to problems incrementally. Informal support groups can be formalised into specialised contact centres as companies grow, and advanced contact centre features can be delivered cost-effectively even to small operations. This is in stark contrast to more traditional contact centre solutions, which involve high overheads that they are unable to function with fewer than 100 agents.

Pulling It All Together
With the right VoIP system providing the infrastructure, it is easy to consolidate geographically separated contact centres. They function as a seamless virtual contact centre, with automatic load balancing across sites. Companies don''t find themselves paying agents in one location overtime while the staff at another site is sitting idle. Agent resources are maximised, and managers get a single-system view of the multi-site operation. Customer-service reports are easier to prepare, because managers aren''t dealing with distinct sets of data for each site. Multi-site consolidation can be done with legacy contact centre solutions, but it is a complex and expensive undertaking that requires special software and interfaces and "in-the-cloud" routing.

From ''the cloud'' to the desktop: Effective network routing solutions must make call routing decisions while the call is still in the carrier''s network or "the cloud" — all on a call-by-call basis and based on information collected with the call or gathered via an instant database look-up. The software solution may be installed at the customer premise where it interacts with the carrier''s network to provide call routing instructions. Customers are routed to an agent with the skill sets best suited to meet their specific needs, and to the contact centre site which can best handle the additional call volume.

A good IP-based contact centre comes with a set of sophisticated tool managers that can be used to ensure service objectives are met and to supervise agents in real time. The converged VoIP environment makes it very easy to integrate the contact centre workflow with enterprise data sources and applications. This data integration can save up to a minute per call, which accumulates into big savings for the business and ensures better service for the customer.

Differentiated Services
One of the most powerful components of an enterprise-class IP contact centre is a routing engine that can match inbound calls to agents with the appropriate skills. Instead of being assigned to generic queues, agents are allocated to groups based on various skill sets. Similarly, priority customers can be routed to the most productive agents. The inherently flexible IP environment makes it easy to create or dissolve groups, and to change agent assignments.

The skills-based routing capability enables an almost unlimited level of differentiated services, and can have a huge impact on contact centre efficiency and efficacy. A contact centre that converges both voice and data worlds can increase the number and quality of calls, boost agent productivity, and improve customer satisfaction. The rich, multimedia environment increases the value of interactions in both directions, providing customers with a better experience, improving information flow, and increasing the amount and application of business intelligence. Callers can be automatically routed to agents with the right skill sets, and receive priority treatment if their status warrants it.

Such a converged contact centre can be built using traditional telephony, but it will cost more and result in a platform that is far less flexible to use, expand, and manage. IP contact centres can be spread across multiple sites at will, letting you tap cheap labour pools and add temporary agents during peak periods while still having one virtual, seamless operation that can be managed from anywhere. You get a quick return on your investment, and can start small without sacrificing on service.

In our global economy, customer experiences and satisfaction is increasing in value as products and services become mere commodities. With a distributed IP contact centre, you can deliver a much better customer experience and gain key competitive advantage. Make no mistake about it: While customers may want to be loyal, their expectations are rising, and you have to stay a step ahead of them if you want to survive. A distributed IP contact centre is an agile vehicle that can keep you ahead of the pack and ready to navigate any curves the future tosses at you.

*The author is senior vice president, Cisco Systems India & SAARC