CRM Resource Center

What is the Call Center?

A call center has the ability to handle large volumes of customer and other telephone calls. It screens the calls, routes them to a qualified person or automated response, and logs all interactions. The basic goal of a call center is improve efficiency, customer service, and oversight while lowering the overall costs associated with a customer contact center. Call Centers are used by organizations that sell or service products and use the telephone as one primary contact point.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
Automatic Call Distribution intelligently handles and routes incoming by using caller ID data to match an incoming call to the customer database. Calls then are routed according to a preset rules, such as previous call agent or next available agent, specific skill set, products needs, product group, geography, previous dollars spent, and many more.

Virtual Call Center
A virtual call center can be extremely beneficial if an organization's representatives are geographically dispersed, rather than being in a centralized building. A virtual call center can route calls directly to staff or agents at different sites, without any additional on-site equipment. It gives the caller the impression that calls are handled professionally and with the right agent. Businesses realize the cost savings by not having to add or house additional equipment and they don't have to make radical adjustments if business is seasonal (add or decrease call center staffing).

What can a Call Center do?

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What business problems can a Call Center solve?

Lowering Costs
A well conceived and well run call center can pay for itself in a very short time span by handling more calls without adding headcount. Even by reducing calls by just 15-30 seconds, companies that handle high volumes of calls can save enormous amounts of time and money. Frequently asked questions can be answered automatically (interactive voice response or IVRs). By employing scripts, agents save time and always are on message. With real time monitoring and reporting, logjams can be averted. Historical data can be viewed for training and workflow management. All this and more, from an efficiently run customer contact center, can provide significant savings to businesses.

Customer Service
Aside from being a boom to the bottom line, the primary goal of any call center is to make the customer feel as if they have been dealt with in an efficient and friendly way. Reducing hold times, connecting them to the proper person (even before agent answers), or just having correct information on hand (such as prior interactions, purchase history, etc.) will have a positive impact on callers.

Reporting
A vital component of any call center is in its reporting ability, both real time, at your fingertips information and overall call center performance metrics, for both customers and staff. The material gathered from customer interactions can be used collaboratively for marketing campaigns, geographical studies, product requests, etc. The metrics captured from the call center staff will indicate time spent per call, what information was the agent able to obtain, drop off rates, hold times, and call volumes among others. These business metrics help streamline the customer contact process, allowing staffing to be dictated by actual business needs (less over and under staffing). Granular reports and charts provide management with critical business insight, leading to a more efficiently run business.

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What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing Automation enables businesses to more effectively manage multi-channel campaigns. By collecting and integrating customer data, captured from multiple sources, companies can plan, manage, and execute focused marketing campaigns across multiple channels (email, direct mail, messaging, Web, etc.). And with Marketing Automation software, companies are able to obtain real time metrics on all aspects of a campaign, thereby enhancing results and providing a greater return on marketing investments.

What can Marketing Automation software do?

What business problems can Marketing Automation software solve?

Marketing Automation streamlines planning activities, helps set marketing campaign objectives, and defines campaign success measurements. By applying a comprehensive Marketing Automation solution, companies can create integrated, highly-targeted campaigns and track results across all channels. It allows organizations to plan, develop, implement, analyze, and measure all marketing activities while facilitating cross-departmental collaboration (sales, marketing, etc.).

Automate
The primary focal point in any Marketing Automation solution is the data warehouse, an informational resource center used to store all data gathered from customer interactions, regardless of channel. Companies that have an ability to fine-tune customer profiles are better able to target and personalize marketing messages.

As part of an overall CRM solution, a Web portal can be a primary source for data collection. With in-depth analysis and reporting capabilities, this information can be used as a basis for every aspect of a marketing initiative, from lead generation to post-campaign emails, reviews, and analysis. And by having a centralized data warehouse, used by many disparate departments, information need be entered only once, reducing workload and lessening data entry errors.

Manage
Renewal dates, assets already purchased, inbound and outbound email, standardized email responses, imported third-party target lists, or customer channel preferences are just some of the informational pieces at your disposal. There are thousands more. To effectively implement a marketing strategy, companies must be able to not only collect data, but must be able to use it for optimal advantage.

Marketing Automation enables companies to manage vast volumes of data, parse it, apply it to company strategy, and increase the accuracy of all types of marketing initiatives. This type of predictive technology is the key to better comprehending customer needs while optimizing customer relationships across all channels. It also allows companies to improve team collaboration and coordinate marketing activities company-wide, increasing the speed and effectiveness of any marketing campaign.

Measure
Marketing Automation analytics and reporting leverages all the data collected from all channels and campaigns and provides insight to all customer interactions, along with extensive campaign performance metrics. This campaign ROI lets you understand what works and what doesn't, thereby optimizing future campaigns.

With Marketing Automation, companies can leverage a wide range of analytics to identify business challenges and opportunities, leading to profitable decisions and increasing the value of each customer.

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What is Sales Force Automation?

Sales Force Automation enables businesses to more effectively manage the entire sales cycle, from lead generation to post-sales service and support. It enables Sales teams to capture and maintain up-to-date business data that will impact the entire sales process and your company's bottom line.

Sales Force Automation is a best practices process that uses software to automate the business tasks of sales while providing sales agents with access to contact details, appointments, sales opportunities, customer purchase history, order management, territory overview, and much more, all in real time.

Sales Force Automation provides all members of a sales organization (field sales, inside sales, telemarketing, call center, managers, and executives) with a detailed view of each customer relationship, ensuring better overall decision making, greater customer satisfaction, and increased revenues.

By having all critical customer information in one area, Sales Force Automation facilitates agent collaboration, thereby increasing productivity and revenues while reducing business costs.

Sales Force Automation provides agents with the tools necessary for success. And by improving and facilitating sales team communications, companies using Sales Force Automation can provide the best sales and support environment possible.

The end result of a successful Sales Force Automation implementation can dramatically shorten the overall sales cycle and increase revenues while increasing staff productivity and improving customer satisfaction levels.

What can Sales Force Automation software do?

Sales Force automation software can streamline processes while providing a complete view of client and agent information, including:

Account Management Activity Management Collaborative Environment Contact Management Contract Management Data Quality Management Global Forecasting

Lead Management Opportunity Management Pipeline/Forecast Management Sales Analytics/Reporting Sales Forecasting Territory Management

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What business problems can Sales Force Automation software solve?

A Start to Finish Solution
Streamlining processes, empowering employees, gaining business-specific insight, and giving management more business control become overriding factors that drive companies to implement a Sales Force Automation solution. And the fact that it can significantly impact a company's bottom line.

A functioning SFA solution can track sales activities through the entire pipeline, from lead opportunity to post sales service and support. This insight allows management to adjust the workforce, placing strategic personnel in critical positions as needed. It allows sales agents to respond to customer queries and issues in a timely manner across a variety of channels. SFA improves collaboration among sales divisions, enhances repeat sales opportunities, and provides management with a granular, real time view of ongoing sales activities, with a clear path to future opportunities. It allows a company to reduce the overall costs of acquiring, retaining, and growing its client base.

With an SFA solution, companies can optimize sales opportunities because leads are automatically routed to the most appropriate agent. (Companies can set up requirement fields, such as agent availability, experience, location, size of deal, etc.) Globally distributed sales teams work in collaboration, from one knowledge source, presenting one face to the client.

By implementing a Web portal as part of an overall business solution, companies have been able to greatly reduce response times and workloads, while adding volumes to their customer data repository. As with phone logs, all hits to the site are recorded and analyzed. Clients can access the company for information and product alerts at their convenience. Many time answers are found within the Web site. On many other occasions, the system either responds automatically (as with an email) or forwards the call to the appropriate agent. More costly and time-consuming human response is cut back significantly.

By consolidating response management across sales, service, and engineering, companies are able to generate guaranteed email responses, within a short time period. Customer satisfaction and retention rates go way up. Internal and external communications speak from one voice, helping with company messaging and branding. And productivity is improved without adding headcount.

Customer Oversight
A Sales Force Automation solution provides a central repository of data. Aside from helping the sales team sell, entering customer data one time into one place radically reduces workload and lessens the likelihood of data duplication and data errors. From this information, a SFA solution produces in-depth analytics and reports, allowing for constant oversight of the entire sales process.

In addition, SFA enables the tracking (logging) of all communications with each customer (calls, mail, Web, or e-mails) and automatically schedules dates for follow-up letters, renewals, phone calls, or client product updates. It also allows for better survey response rates and improved feedback management.

SFA allows for the creation of customized dashboards and personalized user interfaces. This leads to higher user adoption and utilization rates, requiring less change management, and once, again, positively impacts the bottom line.

By improving workflow automation, along with communications, both internal and external, companies can quantify overall efficiency increases. Significant overall cost savings are achieved by bringing in-house what was once was outsourced, including data management fees.

In general, with a Sales Force Automation solution, less time is spent on customer and administrative issues, thereby leaving more time for selling.

Benefits to any Business
By implementing a Sales Force Automation solution, companies move from an organizational focus to a customer-centric approach. By expanding sales access channels, such as phone, fax, email, chat rooms, message boards, and mobile communications, the staff performs more efficiently. With SFA, there is easier access to real time customer knowledge, such as purchasing behavior, buying patterns, and decision makers. Basic tasks, such as searching for information, performing rote and time-consuming administration details, like acknowledging receipt of email, require less time. With a better trained staff, fewer issues fall through cracks and this leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, while decreasing attrition.

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What is Service and Support?

The ultimate goal of Customer Service and Support is to increase customer value while reducing the cost of doing business. As an integral part of CRM, Customer Service and Support allows organizations to manage business relationships effectively so as to improve and sustain customer loyalty and retention while reducing overall business expenditures. It allows businesses to identify issues, understand customer needs, track all interactions, and gain performance metrics.

From Call Center to Help Desk to Web sites (self-service), a multi-channel Customer Service and Support solution provides tools, information, products, services, and support that optimize resources, leading to more streamlined processes, a more efficient staff, and higher customer satisfaction levels, all without adding headcount. From Call Center to Help Desk to Web sites (self-service), a multi-channel Customer Service and Support solution provides tools, information, products, services, and support that optimize resources, leading to more streamlined processes, a more efficient staff, and higher customer satisfaction levels, all without adding headcount.

What can a Service and Support do?

What business problems can Service and Support solve?

Automate Resources
As businesses grow, managing Customer Service and Support becomes a daunting task. Assigning, managing, and resolving service and support requests become business-critical issues. By automating case creation, routing, queuing, response, and tracking companies can dramatically increase productivity. With a centralized data base of customer information, collaboration is extended company-wide, providing better issue resolution in a shorter time frame. Providing customers with immediate response to their concerns and requests builds confidence and shows that the company acknowledges the importance of a customer.

By implementing a successful multi-channel Service and Support solution, companies can manage problems and requests centrally, whether received by phone, mail, email, chat, wireless, or the Web. And, with a Web-based self-service portal, customer access to product information, FAQs, request forms, etc. is increased while human interaction, the most expensive customer contact method, is reduced. Customer self-service helps companies maintain higher satisfaction levels and low service costs by eliminating the need for customers to wait until an agent is available. Automated workflow processes provide greater flexibility, resulting in faster response times, higher volume of call handling, reduction in data duplication, and a better spotlight on the customer.

Understand the Customer
By automating the customer contact process, companies can obtain volumes of information on customer interactions, including items such as dropped calls, customer needs, purchase history, or staff performance levels. This process can provide a complete view of client accounts, thereby identifying top-spending customers and prioritizing customer requirements.

By encouraging dialogue via multi-channel access, service and support personnel can resolve issues faster, decreasing hold times. And with improved agent productivity, satisfaction levels rise.

By integrating customer data from disparate business divisions and from an assortment of channels, businesses gain immediate access to comprehensive customer data and purchase records. With this data, companies can learn of the concerns and needs of its customers. By giving importance to customer requirements, service is improved. In many cases, support becomes proactive. Account maintenance is thoroughly managed. The customer feels as if they are listened to and cared for.

Results that Count
The bottom line for any organization is what can be gained from implementing a Customer Service and Support solution. Aside from the obvious cost savings, other benefits are derived from automating processes. These include a centralized data base of customer information that gives response agents the necessary tools and data to respond successfully to each contact.

Automating the processes enables greater and more focused marketing initiatives. By providing tracking, analysis, and reporting capabilities, companies have better and more in-depth account and opportunity management. Workflow management improves, leading to better staff distribution. Customer Service and Support tools help set business priorities and show management which areas or personnel are doing well or need help. With the proper staff in place (staff size, expertise, etc.), response times improve, leading to more satisfied customers who are more likely to buy or renew, and just as important, more likely to recommend your business to others.

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