A Practical Guide to Call Center Technology

• How to choose the best call center tools and systems
• How to get the most out of ACDs (automatic call distributors) and other complex systems in order to boost customer satisfaction and increase sales
• Includes three ready to use RFPs (request for proposals) for buying an ACD, computer telephony system, or recording and analysis solution

Phone calls and emails from customers are not just "events"; they are significant milestones in customer relationships. This book presents a roadmap showing you how to significantly improve customer relationships - whether via phone, mail, fax, email, or Web - by making the best use of call center technology.

You'll discover how to navigate the business, technical, and financial issues in building and managing a customer contact center. The book shows you how to foster enhanced customer satisfaction at a reasonable cost, and how to make the call center an engine of business growth by using technology to up-sell and generate new revenues from existing customers.

No other book provides such practical, in-depth information on managing a call center's technology and workflow. Key topics include staffing, network basics, ACDs; disaster recovery, data gathering and reporting, customer experience mapping and management, CRM, and much more.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 : The traditional Call Center
Chapter 2 : The role of the customer contact center
Chapter 3 : The Parts and principles of the typical customer contact center
Chapter 4 : Connection to the outside world
Chapter 5 : Staffing issues
Chapter 6 : The budget : building a business case
Chapter 7 : Managing telephony workflow
Chapter 8 : The typical switching system
Chapter 9 : The advantages of a purpose built ACD system
Chapter 10 : ACD Basics
Chapter 11 : The ACD as a customer workflow manager
Chapter 12 : Bullet-proofing the customer contact center
Chapter 13 : Telephone terminals and workstations
Chapter 14 : Data gathering and reporting
Chapter 15 : Customer Experience : mapping and management
Chapter 16 : CRM within the customer contact center environment
Chapter 17 : Integrating the internet into a traditional call center
Chapter 18 : The technology acquisition process
Chapter 19 : The trends

Epilogue

Appendix I
Appendix II
Appendix III

Glossary