A Checklist for Customer Satisfaction

• Track customer satisfaction with real-time surveys at the end of a call.
• Use voice recognition, but do it right. Let callers reach an agent if they want to with easy prompts or through voice analysis software that can detect a caller's frustration.
• Consider "home-shoring", the practice of employing customer service representatives working from their homes.
• Investigate VoIP. Early adopters say that despite concerns over security and voice quality, the technology has improved to the point where it can help route calls more quickly and efficiently. Say goodbye to "hold".

Information, Please

A critical glossary of call centre technologies

Automatic call distributor: ACD telephone systems register incoming calls and handle them according to a database of instructions. Companies can use ACDs to validate callers and route them to the right agent.

Computer telephony integration: CTI integrates disparate call centre systems and provides to agents' desktops useful customer information. A typical desktop CTI application may recognize a customer's phone number when the call comes into the PBX or IP line, access the customer's purchasing history from the host computer and display the information to the agent.

Interactive voice response: IVR systems allow touch-tone phones to interact with a database.

Speech recognition: Software that allows companies to automate calls that don't require a human agent. Early speech recognition applications didn't always work well, but newer versions are proving more accurate.

Voice over IP: VoIP sends voice signals over data lines instead of phone lines. Call centres and outsourcers are adopting the technology to better handle routing and call volume; it can send calls to an agent anywhere in the world. VoIP does pose some security risks and quality of service concerns.

Workforce management: Also known as job scheduling, workforce management software uses projected call levels to forecast the number of on-duty agents needed at a given time.