I have much more respect for the people working at call centers – it’s a hard work, you’re always under attack from customers, everything is quantified and you need to get permission to leave your station. After observing a rep for 15min I was done, needed a break, and some coffee.
Earlier this week I visited a call center at one of our customers, with almost a hundred representatives. We’re working with the IT and business folks to introduce a managed desktop approach, that can transform the work of the center. The local rep. we watched handled 10 calls in 35min, switching between 4-6 different applications per call: IBM mainframe, Oracle DB, FileNet ECM, CRM application, Messaging solution, corporate portal and the IVR of course. That’s a lot of information to process, with multiple systems to master – and the training period is long, 3-4 months for a new employee. That’s a lot.
The rep we observed had a screen that looked similar to the one below:
On the top there was the IVR, showing where the customer was calling from; most of the activity was done in a 3270 terminal (direct access to the mainframe) – which was at full screen, although the info needed for the call could have been resized to a 1/4 of the screen size; other information was handled via the DB; campaign and marketing info came from the corporate intranet; CRM was also present of course; between calls she went to her Inbox to check for new emails.
Here’s how a managed desktop looks like at European bank, one of the many examples we presented:
There’s a centralized view of a customer, starting from a summary of his contact information (maybe even a photo), recent transactions from the mainframe (using HATS), web service for maps, full customer history from CRM application, relevant e-forms, instant messaging contacts list, scans of invoices and more. All in one view, pre-wired behind the scenes.
IBM Lotus Expeditor is the solution that can transform your call center. With Lotus Expeditor (once called Workplace Client Technology) you can integrate multiple backend systems – 3270, .Net applications, Messaging, IVR, J2EE, DBs, IM and others – in one screen, inter-connected.
There are numerous customer references and best practices that we can share, specifically tailored to your industry. Give yourself a managed desktop experience, with IBM Lotus Expeditor.
Links:
IBM Lotus Expeditor
Whitepaper – Web 2.0 and rich internet applications (pdf)
IBM developerWorks – Lotus Expeditor for developers
IBM press release – Sprint uses Lotus Expeditor for Windows Mobile 6 smartphones
Podcast – Lotus Expeditor Podcast series
Wikipedia – IBM Lotus Expeditor
Steve Mills, IBM SVP, Software Group, is responsible for the 33,000 software professionals working around the globe, in sales, development and services, cashing in $18B in revenues (2007) and accountable for 40% of IBM’s profit. It’s no secret that IBM and Microsoft compete in the messaging and collaboration space for some time, with both companies in it for the long run.
