Managing Customer Contact Information - Assignment Example

ADVANCED DIPLOMA OF BUSINESS Manage Customer Contact Information ASSESSMENT ONE 1. Why must you analyse the organisational ‘business plan and budget’ to identify business information needs? A business plan and budget play a significant role of keeping track of the process of the business entity. The fact that budgets and plans are tailored in a way that they determine the present and future success of an entity, they ought to put into consideration the information needs of the business. Information is vital in any business entity as it helps monitor the main drivers of the business. Therefore, analysing the business plan or budget helps in identification of the weak points of the management as well as getting feedback from customers hence improving the way a business operates. 2. What is the difference between a Call Centre and a Contact Centre? A call centre is a centralized location that is used for transmission of customer requests via telephone. In addition to telephone, call centres also use other communication channels such as letters, emails, faxes and social media among others. In a call centre, people call to make inquiries, which are responded to by call centre agents. On the other hand, a contact centre is a central place in a business entity where customer interaction takes place. Unlike in call centres, contact centres give room for customer relationship hence getting valuable information from them. No agents are involved in contact centres since the customer relationship is direct. 3. What are Call Centre pathways? Information in call centres is transmitted through these channels. Call centre pathways work by transporting data from one point to another in this case from the call centre agent to the customer and vice versa. Most often than not, the call centre pathways are normally linked together by a set of new technologies referred to as the computer telephony integration. As such, a call centre pathway can be simply defined as the channel through which information is transmitted between call centre agent and the customer. Examples include emails, web-based contacts, internal transfers, and automated call distribution (ACD) among others. 4. What are ‘measurement methods’ in call/contact pathways? Call or contact pathways can be measured using different methods such as determining the range of computer systems that are used in sending and receiving information in contact centres. This could include determination of the communication traffic and time spent in communication. In addition, measurement could take the form of data record of the components of specific pathway such as IVR systems, telephone, and ACD just to mention a few. Call/contact pathways can also be measured using the add-on systems that are used together with the pathways. 5. What is meant by the term ‘configure’ information systems to capture required measurements? Configuration can be simply defined as the mode in which information systems are organized and set up to capture data. To configure could entail organization of the hardware or software or rather a combination of both of them. The computer hardware could be set up using hard disk, floppy drive and modem among other components in such a way that it makes capture of measurements easy. The software on the other hand could involve the setup of a video adapter and graphics display monitor that will aide in the attainment of pathway measurements. 6. Why must data be segmented or sorted to ensure the correct levels of information is gathered? Segmentation of data entails the process of dividing data into small units while sorting involves the selection of data into groups or classes. This is important during data collection as it helps in actual classification of the specific data. In addition to this, sorting helps to ensure that only data relevant to the subject matter is gathered for analysis. Segmentation helps in avoiding bias, since there is equal distribution of collected information. Finally yet importantly, when data is well sorted and segmented, there is ease in transmission over various types of transmission networks. 7. What does a “social customer” mean? A social customer is a subject of the social customer service. As such, this is a customer who buys goods and services online. These customers engage with organisations and business entities through social media services. With the help of call centre agents, social customers are engaged in persuasive conversations that make them strike business deals with certain organizations. A social customer will do their window-shopping online and identify the prospective businesses that provide the service or good they want. Thereafter, they call to bargain and purchase the commodity or service without physically visiting the business premises. Payment and delivery are also done online. 8. What is the Customer Contact Management Association and what are the benefits for its members? This is an organization of companies in customer contact centre industry as well as individuals in the profession of customer service. In this association, members have a common goal of excellence service delivery to customers. In addition, the association has the objective updating its members on the modern technologies in the information technology sector hence enhancing continual improvement in the industry. The members also benefit by having an opportunity to relate and contact with their peers both locally and internationally. This not only equips them with additional knowledge on the sector but also makes it possible to express and share their challenges. 9. What is the benefit of having a customer and contact information system to organisations? Information is always key in any organization hence the need to have a customer or contact information system. The system plays a significant role of enabling the users perform any task efficiently and effectively. Information system of an organization also plays a great role of storing data since it keeps records and track of all organizational events. In addition to this, a contact information system can be retrieved to get archived data especially when dealing with customer cases. Contact information systems are also crucial in updating the management of the organization on the modern technologies as well as any modified information. 10. What are two ways of increasing customer communication with your customers? Customers are the reason why organizations are set up thus communication with them to know their expectations is important. One of the ways that communication with customers can be increased is by use of excellent interpersonal skills. This will motivate the customers and make them able to give feedback to the organization. Putting in place effective contact centres also helps increase customer communication as the needs of the customer can be easily identified and interpreted. Giving prompt feedback to the customers is also another way of increasing the rate of communication with customers. 11. What are two of the benefits of a customer loyalty scheme? A customer loyalty scheme is one of the many ways of improving customer retention levels. It has the advantage of retaining existing customers as well as attracting potential customers. This is because customers will be willing to buy more of the organization’s products in order to accumulate more points, which are later rewarded through point’s redemption. Secondly, a customer loyalty scheme works to help in the acquisition of new customers. Potential customers will be attracted to a business by the virtue of a loyalty programme. 12. Describe some of the data collection methods in information technology systems. Data collection in information systems is not any different from the routine methods of data collection. This is divided into two types that include qualitative data collection methods and quantitative data collection methods. Qualitative methods used in information technology systems data collection include interviews, observation, questionnaires and the reaction of the data collector/researcher. Quantitative methods include experiments, survey, computer modelling and econometrics among others. 13. How would you develop and implement testing procedures for transaction and call/contact pathway measurements to ensure accuracy and reliability? For a call centre pathway to be efficient and effective, it has to give accurate information hence able to be relied upon by both the customers and organization’s management. A procedure for testing the accuracy and reliability of the call centre pathway ought to incorporate the customer’s feedback, channel followed in communication, storage of information, duration taken to get respond to customer’s calls and content of the feedback. 14. What are some of the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) which reflect how well you are responding to your customers’ expectations? The rate of customer retention and attraction is one of the key performance indicators that could show the response to customer’s expectations. Satisfied customers will always come back for more and even refer their friends and acquaintances. Additionally, an organization that meets the customer’s expectations will also attract new customers who will have heard of the organization’s reputation. All the aforementioned performance indicators lead to increased sales hence cash inflow, which will be depicted in the organization’s financial statement. It therefore goes without the financial statements of an organization also act as a key performance indicator. 15. Name two of the techniques that you could use to increase customer sales through your contact centre. The contact centre can be used as a platform for advertising whereby the organization can set advertising tunes that a caller can listen to when calling the contact centre. These tunes are set in such a way that the advertisement goes on as the customer waits to be connected to the next available call centre agent. Another technique applicable through contact centres is that of interacting with the customers and telling them about the products or services offered by the organization hence making them willing buy. This will in turn increase the sales of the company. 16. Discuss how you would monitor quantitative and qualitative data collection to ensure accuracy of your data. In order to ensure data collection is accurate, one must avoid bias. This is by making sure that data collection is sequential and samples collected. The data collection procedure can be monitored through constant checks of the collected samples as well as verification of the samples to make sure that they are part of the information system content. 17. When prioritizing metrics, two of the most important performance indicators you will come across are your first call resolution rate (FCR) and average handle time (AHT). Describe what these metrics are measuring and their benefit to the organization? Average Handle Time (AHT) is used in call centers as a metric that is used to measure the average time taken per transaction. Every call center works to ensure that the average handle time is as minimal as possible. As such the managers of the call centers motivate and recognize call centers agents whose AHT is the lowest. First call resolution rate (FCR) is a metric that measures the number of customer calls that were resolved in the first instance without having to recall. When the rate is high, repeat callers are less than when the rate is low. This metric indicates customer satisfaction making them contended with the first response without having to call repeatedly to the call center. 18. “By tracking and analyzing your performance metrics, you can gain the insight into your call center that you need in order to effectively change your processes for the better.” Describe what changes could occur and what the benefits could be. Depending on the weight of the matter in question, managers could opt to use the first call resolution measure instead of the average handle time. This way, the call centre agents now focus on the service delivery to customers rather than time spent on call with the customer. This in turn leads to increased customer satisfaction, which is a benefit to the organization since the sales of the customer will definitely shoot up. 19. “Along with rapid change in user contact channel preferences, the contact centre must adapt to a holistic view of the customer service function across new channels – responding to each with new processes, metrics and integrated technologies.” What are the benefits of successfully responding to these trends? Technology keeps evolving every day with new trends being set up in almost all sectors. Fast response to these trends is of benefit to a contact centre for its able to be at par with other organizations in the same sector. This makes the contact centre gain competitive advantage over other organizations. Response to the new trends also improves the effectiveness and efficiency since the new trends are normally developed to improve the efficiency of contact centre processes. 20. Why must you ‘tailor’ contact centre information presentations to each stakeholder as appropriate? Is communicating accurate data effectively important? If so, Why? A contact centre will have various stakeholders who will have different issues of concern hence the need to tailor the information presentations to suit the needs of each stakeholder. This important as it makes it easy for the call centre agents respond to the stakeholders issues. Communication of accurate data is important. This is because the customers will rely on the information got from the contact centres in making decisions. Consequently, the data given in contact centres can be used in making references hence inaccurate data will affect the reports prepared using it. 21. Prepare a brief outline on the ‘content’ to be included for both short and long term contact centre information system reports required by key stakeholders. The number of callers per day, month and year Frequency of callers Non-responded callers Most frequently contacted issue Most preferred pathway Wrap time Read More