Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In every project, organizational aspects are
decisive and must be analyzed. Project manage-
ment literature refers the importance to understand
organizational culture and internal forces.
Taking into account strategy, objectives, or-
ganizational culture and internal forces, among
other organizational issues, choices must be done
regarding: the services to provide to users; the
appropriated interaction channels; the flows that
must exist in order to provide the best services for
users; the information/actions to obtain/provide/
generate from/to/into existent systems (integra-
tion); the best integration approaches; the number
of agents and supervisors needed and how must be
organized to support the services (dimensioning);
the skills they must have; the way to obtain the
service (in-house or outsourced; the suitable tech-
nology architecture; and the applicable legislation.
All the process must consider the relation
between user and agents. This relation is the key
link that enables a long-term relationship between
user and organization. Those long-term relation-
ships generate profits.
Another issue is the reengineering needed not
only at the process level but also at the hierarchy
and structure level. Finally, the project must have
the top management commitment.
The analysis of the results confirms, generally,
the factors and the characterization of the existent
framework. Still, there are some new and interest-
ing aspects that expand the framework.
Regarding flow, participants were unanimous
considering inbound projects different from out-
bound ones. They confirm that inbound services
usually need to provide more information for
the agents.
When a user calls (inbound interaction), the
agent only knows the reason why she/he is call-
ing when they start talking. There are some few
exceptions, namely when there is an IVR and
the user must choose one option indicating the
motif of the request. Even in this situation, most
users choose randomly an option just to talk to
an agent. With this uncertainty, agents must have
access to more information, provided by CCIS, in
real-time than in the outbound interaction. In the
outbound situation, the interaction is previously
prepared in detail so it is possible to determine,
for the majority of cases, the information needed
and the flow of the interaction.
Another conclusion is that inbound projects
usually are longer than outbound ones. Participants
stressed that inbound design is done more carefully
because inbound services, most of the times, will
work for several years. On the other hand, out-
bound services, most of the times, are prepared to
work for a few days or weeks. Examples of these
situations are a customer care inbound service in a
bank and a promotion outbound service. Customer
care is a service designed and implemented to work
for long-term because bank customers will use it
over years. Some main reasons can be typified,
but there is always a degree of uncertainty that
must be overcame with agents' experience and
capable CCIS. The outbound service, will work
for some days or weeks and the target public is
previously choose as well as all the details of the
interaction flow.
The conclusion is that inbound CCIS services
projects are longer than outbound CCIS service
projects and demand more experienced analyst
and careful design. Focus group confirms our
previous research in the way that the dichotomy
inbound/outbound represents a logically abstrac-
tion facilitating the comprehension and should
be used in a proper manner. Actually, the main
focus should be the user, her/his needs and the
relation between user and the agent (the face of
the organization). Inbound and outbound services
have relations among them that must be reflected
in the CCIS.
Another issue is the automatic blending be-
tween inbound and outbound. From the point
of view of the CCIS it is possible to implement
automatic blending, but from the operational point
of view this context switch doesn't work so well.
What centers usually do is to make some switch,
but manually.
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