Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Regarding the channel factor, focus group
participants consider that the use of web col-
laboration to help users to change from assisted
to self channels has a moderate success. Video
call is a recent new channel. Results present it is
as a trend pushed by communications operators
in order to create the need for this kind of service.
Concerning technology, VoIP utilization is
growing. It allows just one infrastructure to
voice and data and more flexibility. It allows the
“anytime, anywhere” contact center. With VoIP
architecture, agents just need an Internet con-
nection and a headphone-microphone to work.
This powerful flexibility however demands an
elaborated communications design, considering
security, quality of service, liability and load
balancing.
Participants consider that service can be
grouped in several types like customer service,
technical support, debt collection or welcome calls.
Know-how re-utilization is extremely important
and can be used among service types of similar
businesses areas.
Another contribute to expand the framework
is related with a new factor that emerged from
the focus group: continuous improvement. All
participants refer it has an important issue in CCIS
design. Each second improved in each interaction
in a large contact center has a huge impact in the
human and material resources needed for the op-
erations. When a service starts its operation there
are always details to improve, new small situations
to consider and some flows to adapt. To improve
is necessary to measure. Different business sectors
have different measures and benchmarking indica-
tors. It is fundamental to identify which ones the
organization wants to consider and they must be
integrated in the CCIS design in an earlier stage
of the project development.
previous research the key factors in CCIS project
management are flow, channel, technology, ser-
vice type, integration, improvement, geography,
dimensioning, way to obtain the service, user and
agent focus and legislation.
A new factor emerged: the preparation for
continuous improvement. This idea expands the
existent framework a step ahead. In the present
research, participants indicate that the success of
CCIS depend on the continuous improvement of
operations after the end of the project. In order to
prepare the after-project phase it is necessary to
identify what to compare along the time. After the
identification of useful key performance indica-
tors, which vary from business sector to business
sector, it is necessary to include them in the design
of the contact center. The Global Contact Center
Benchmarking Report (Merchants, 2007) presents
key performance indicators for the contact centers.
All of these indicators depend on the existent
information system. Most of the conclusions of
the resulting framework are supported by other
research studies. If the flow is inbound, then the
need of integration with the existing systems is
usually greater with some exceptions like debt
collection. Aksin and Harker (2003) show that
in a system with a high level of integration, the
increase of the number of the agents has an impact
in the system performance.
Dimensioning is a major issue because of the
impact in costs (Gans et al., 2003). All identified
studies analyze inbound dimensioning. Almost
no academic outbound studies were identified
(Gans et al., 2003), the exception being Samuel-
son (1999). Actually, the present study confirms
that the division between inbound, outbound and
blended useful but, in order to provide a better
service to the user, the complete flow should be
analyzed. Inbound projects usually are longer and
demand a more careful design. Service quality,
capture and retention of users should also be used
when analyzing performance and dimensioning.
This study also confirms that voice is still
the most important channel followed by e-mail,
discussion of findings
The results of the study support many of the
findings of previous research. Consistent with
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