.

De toon waarop callcentra mensen benaderen wordt steeds onbeschofter. Dat stelt de stichting Consumentenlijn Telemarketing na onderzoek. “Mensen die ongevraagd gestoord worden door een telefonische verkoper worden uitgescholden en ziektes toegewenst”, aldus directeur Nieuwenhuis in De Telegraaf (Terreur als klant wil ophangen).

Meer info: De Pers   |  Herman Nieuwenhuis

Software: Making call centres run smoothly involves an ever-greater dependency on technological trickery behind the scenes

IT IS a familiar litany. Your call is important to us. An operator will be with you as soon as possible. Your call may be recorded for quality-control and training purposes. These phrases are familiar because the use of call centres has become so commonplace: in 2007 companies worldwide spent some $280 billion on outsourced call-centre services, according to NASSCOM, a call-centre trade group in Delhi. Costs are rising (they jumped 30% last year in India), customers are becoming more demanding, and competition is increasing. So the companies that operate call centres are adopting new software to monitor and improve performance.

Illustration by Robin Chavalier

One trick, which can shave seconds off each call, is to take into account “context data”—such as the caller’s location, the local weather, the time of day and records of their recent transactions—when routing a call. Cisco, an American communications-equipment provider, recently upgraded its call-centre software to provide this feature, which is popular with financial institutions. The caller can then be put through to an agent who is experienced at handling a particular sort of transaction. 

Aneesh Nair, head of the Academia, a call-centre training school in Bangalore, says context data may also include information gleaned from news reports. Storms, sporting events and transport strikes, for example, can affect callers’ moods and purchasing dispositions, he says, and can be used to provide tips to agents. “Demographic mapping” features provide additional information about the products callers are most likely to buy based upon their location, time of call, and whether they are calling from a land-line or a mobile phone.

The next step, beyond analysing the context around a call, is to examine the call itself, using “word spotting” software to evaluate the performance of the agent and the reaction of the caller. There is strong demand for quality-control software, says Donna Fluss of DMG Consulting, a specialist consultancy based in West Orange, New Jersey, because call-centre managers are only able to listen to a few calls per agent each month. Word-spotting software allows managers to monitor agents much more closely.

As word-spotting systems spread, call-centre training schools have started coaching students in gaming the system so they look good under the additional scrutiny. JTS Institute, a cramped school in a bustling Bangalore neighbourhood, now shows students how to “prompt” callers with questions and statements that elicit the replies that word-spotting software, and call-centre managers, are looking for, such as “I understand” and “that’s great”. In addition, says Basheer Shaik, the head trainer, a good accent is even more important now that employers can see tallies of how many times a particular agent is asked to “repeat that”. Students are encouraged to practise English even “with their parents who hardly understand English”, he says.

The market for word-spotting systems is “gaining a lot of momentum,” says Barak Eilam, general manager of NICE, a provider of word-spotting software based in Ra’anana, Israel. Its latest systems are designed to foil prompting by taking into account the context of high-scoring phrases. A caller who says “wonderful” shortly after the agent has said it, for example, may have been prompted.

As well as being used to evaluate the performance of agents, Mr Eilam says, word-spotting systems can also provide valuable insights about what callers think about a particular product, and how their vocabulary changes in response to advertising campaigns, recalls and publicity stunts. In one case word-spotting technology quickly alerted a refrigerator-maker to a design flaw after the words “tipped”, “top-heavy” and “fell” were uttered to call-centre agents in different countries just half a dozen times.

Much of India’s call-centre industry, which employs roughly 300,000 agents, is located outside the ring road that encircles Bangalore, in a string of smart new business parks with tidy lawns and private security. Were it not for the stray dogs, a visitor could be forgiven for mistaking the area for Silicon Valley. Costs, of course, are much lower, but business leaders are aware of a growing threat from call centres in other countries such as the Philippines. Vasudevan Bharathwaj of 24/7 Customer, a call centre in Bangalore where 5,000 agents handle calls for 30 companies, explains that firms like his must innovate and develop intellectual property for sale to other firms.

Listening to the customer

Accordingly, programmers at 24/7 Customer have developed “neurolinguistic” software that does not just spot which words callers use—it tries to provide agents with insights into their psychology. Callers’ words and cadences are analysed to create a profile that helps agents adjust their vocabulary and behaviour to improve their rapport. Agents receive on-screen tips on which phrases, sales pitches and conflict-resolution tricks are most likely to resonate. For example, callers who use “kinesthetic” terms such as “digging through the website” will be answered slowly with phrases suggesting body movement: “Please hold while I pull up more information.”

Similarly, Cisco’s voice-analysis system monitors parameters including volume, cadence, tone, pitch and inflection, and then sorts callers into six personality types to help agents fine-tune call handling. “It’s the bleeding edge,” says Laurent Philonenko, vice-president of Cisco’s call-centre business in San Jose, California. Ms Fluss says “tremendous innovation” is under way in this area, and sales of caller-profiling systems will increase by 70% this year compared with 2007.

CUMA Mutual Group, a credit-union insurer in Madison, Wisconsin, installed such a system last year. Rick Roy of CUMA says it provides agents, who receive tips and script changes automatically during calls, with “another set of ears”. The same software can also be used for quality control, says Mr Eilam, by scoring agents depending on the way the caller’s emotional state changes over the course of the call. Supervisors at many companies, he says, retain customers by phoning back those who exhibit “negative excitement” at the end of a call.

Some in the industry worry that voice analysis smacks of Big Brother, and prefer to keep quiet about it. Callers are usually told only that their call may be recorded for quality-control purposes. The JTS Institute does not mention the technology to its students. “Too much information”, says Mr Shaik, “is not good for them.”

http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/hBSnr0THiHE0Mo0Etfn0EB

Consumer Vigilantes: Fighting to speak to a manager

BusinessWeek’s Mary Kuntz and Jena McGregor talk about customer-service slip-ups that can drive today’s digitally empowered consumers to trample a brand’s name across the Internet

Uitgebreide serie artikelen, slideshows en podcast met interessante informatie over klantenservice en callcenters, bijvoorbeeld onderstaande grafiek:

There are big differences across regions in the average time spent per month by call centers on coaching—that is, worker assessment and feedback.

They later receive an analysis of the conversation delivered through text message that breaks down the amount of affection, surprise, concentration and honesty of the other speaker. [Reuters]

Relevantie Auditio: techniek inzetbaar voor quality monitoring? 

Volgens Kleian zijn de oortjes van levensbelang voor militairen die in gevecht zijn. De afgelopen maanden zijn er tientallen kapot gegaan en niet vervangen, zegt de ACOM-voorzitter.

Minister Van Middelkoop noemt Kleians uitspraken onethisch en voorbarig.  [NOS, 5 Januari 2008]

Deze vindt plaats op maandag 10 december vanaf een uur of 17. Net als vorig jaar hebben we gekozen voor café Wolthoorn & co. Het adres is Turftorenstraat 6 (in de Kromme Elleboog) te Groningen.

Vorig jaar stond de Wolthoorn op drie in de Nederlandse Café Top-100, dit jaar zijn ze zelfs eerste geworden.

Service moet je regelen vanuit de beleving van de klant, vindt hij. En daar schort het bij (vooral) grote bedrijven aan. ‘Een van de gedachten bij fusies is dat contacten met klanten op een efficiënte manier moeten worden afgehandeld. Dan worden methodes bedacht die handig zijn voor het bedrijf, maar niet voor de klant. Vooral nutsbedrijven kunnen er wat van.’ We mogen dus blij zijn dat de fusie van Essent met Nuon niet doorgaat. Maar ook andere grote jongens krijgen een tik op de vingers. KPN bijvoorbeeld, en KLM. ‘De persoonlijke aandacht is daar totaal verdwenen en van klantencommunicatie hebben ze nog nooit gehoord.’ Je moet onderzoeken hoe blij je klant is, vindt Wintzen. ‘Is de klant ontevreden, krijgt de medewerker van het callcenter dan wel voldoende opleiding en ondersteuning?’

Henk Verbooy

hoofdredacteur CCM

henk@fngpubli.com

NB: het bewuste artikel is helaas niet  terug te vinden op www.ad.nl

In deze slavenstad werken mensen als slaven in in- en outbound call centers.

Formerly known as the Call Centre, Slave City is an up-to-date concentration camp made out of the latest technology and with the newest management insights. The highly profitable Slave City (7 billion euro net profit per year) is provided with all necessary facilities to make sure that the inhabitants (called “participants”) are as efficient as possible. Values, ethics, esthetics, morals, food, energy, economics, organization, management and market are turned upside-down, reformulated and designed into a town of 200.000 inhabitants.

De uitzending van De wereld draait door kan hier teruggekeken worden. Andere links:

• http://www.timvanlaeregallery.com/past_slavecity.html
• http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/008626.php

Vanaf 2 november wordt de homepage Telecommerce.nl vernieuwd en aangevuld met een weblog, waaraan voorlopig zeven vakprofs en twee vaste redacteuren gaan meeschrijven. Nieuws en het log staan voortaan naast elkaar op één site.

Vanaf vandaag publiceren we hier op de auditio weblog de RSS-feed van Telecommerce.nl:

Abonneer op Telecommerce.nl RSS:
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Bezoekers aan de Telecommerce-website en klikkers op items in de elektronische nieuwsbrief kunnen er vanaf 2 november niet omheen: Telecommerce heeft er een hele batterij vaste schrijvers bij. Het blogteam bestaat bij de kick-off uit Hans Bach, Egbert Jan van Bel, Hans Kardol, Jasper Klootwijk, Ernst Kruize, Hanny Philipse, Frans Plat, aangevuld met twee vaste Telecommerce-redacteuren.

Telecommerce-uitgever Paul Petermeijer: ‘Je merkt het overal, op bijeenkomsten en congressen, in de branche, aan vergadertafels, zelfs in de Tweede Kamer: de markt rond customer service en customer interaction is enorm in ontwikkeling en er is behoefte aan debat, gesprek, inspraak, discussie, noem maar op. Die interactie willen we faciliteren, te beginnen rond deze club vaste schrijvers, die onze ogen en oren zullen zijn. Maar in zekere zin ook ons geweten.’ De nieuwslog is bestemd voor contactcentermanagers, marketeers die verantwoordelijk zijn voor klantcontact, de hele markt van toeleveranciers. ‘Maar zeker ook de stakeholders die wat verder van “de operatie” afstaan, zoals overheden, bestuurders, communicatie- en ICT-specialisten, studenten. In die zin sluit het prima aan op het magazine en de Telecommerce-events.’

Petermeijer: ‘Er zijn meer vakbladen die gaan bloggen, dus dat is nog niet zo vernieuwend. Telecommerce is wel het eerste medium in het brede werkveld van marketing en communicatie dat zijn hele homepage op de schop nam en koos voor een ‘split screen’-model: Links de posts van de webloggers, rechts het dagelijks nieuws. Geen aparte site voor nieuws en apart weblog: nieuws en opinie worden weliswaar duidelijk gescheiden, maar wel náást elkaar aangeboden.’

De vaste medewerkers zijn uitgekozen omdat ze allemaal een eigen deel van het vakgebied afdekken. Op termijn wil de redactie dat team nog uitbreiden. Eind 2007 wil Telecommerce 15 vaste bloggers die geregeld publiceren aangevuld met een aantal vaste online columnisten. Vanzelfsprekend worden lezers en vaste bezoekers van telecommerce.nl van harte uitgenodigd hun lovende woorden, suggesties of ongezouten commentaar te geven via redactie@telecommerce.nl Ook aspirant bloggers, gastbloggers of online columnisten mogen hun aspiraties laten doorschemeren.