Call Center Operations Planning

ASAI Application Planning and Design

The persons responsible for call center or customer service operations should plan for the changes that occur in those operations when the VIS ASAI system is added to the call center. In particular, the use of automated voice response appli- cations reduces the volume of calls handled by live agents. In addition, the use of routing and data screen delivery applications can make the call center even more efficient by reducing the amount of time required to service those calls that are handled by live agents. This should reduce the amount of time that customer calls are in queue thereby increasing the productivity of agents and reducing the use of trunk facilities. You can take advantage of these benefits in one of two ways:

■You can improve customer service by keeping the same number of agents and reducing the average speed of answer (ASA). ASA is the average time, computed by Call Management System (CMS) or Basic Call Manage- ment System (BCMS), that callers wait in queue before connecting to an agent.

■You can save money by reducing the number of agents and keeping approximately the same ASA.

Efficient agent operation is the key to realizing the improvements the VIS ASAI system can provide. Specific agent tasks may change when a VIS ASAI applica- tion such as data screen delivery is added to the call center. You should deter- mine what agent training is needed before the new service begins. Agents should be trained on what new information will appear on their data-terminal screens and how to use that information to interact with calling customers. Before implement- ing a data screen delivery application with the entire agent population, conduct a trial to compare old call center operations with the new call center operations using a data screen delivery application. Benefits of the application should be explained so that agents can take advantage of them.

If data screen delivery is performed for agent-to-agent transfers, carefully read the information on planning for Agent-to-Agent Transfers in this chapter. Agents must be trained to perform transfers properly so that the desired call events are passed to the host application. More specifically, for blind transfers, agents must transfer calls as follows:

1.Place the original call on hold by hitting the Transfer button once. This also causes a new call appearance to become active (dial tone is heard on this call appearance).

2.Dial the desired extension while hearing dial tone on the new, active call appearance.

3.Immediately press the Transfer button again after dialing the desired exten- sion to complete the transfer.

In consult transfer scenarios, the agent may wait to talk to the second agent before completing the transfer. In consult transfer scenarios, however, the agent

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