A s banks move toward intelligent systems, which often give rise to some of the most creative and advanced bank technologies, computer telephony integration (CTI) and middleware distinguish the IT work environment. Cross-selling opportunities and maximizing CRM has become the province of year 2000 call centers.
For many banks seeking to strengthen all delivery channels, virtual call centers more and more represent the present generation of call center. Larger banks have been uncharacteristically willing to construct virtual centers in a relatively short time. Typically, when it comes to implementing new technology, banks suffer a reputation that hovers between slow and inefficient. But in the last year the entire industry has switched gears to accommodate opportunities in online banking.
Easier work, lower costs
Certainly, given the rapid implementation of call center technology, banks have had to develop methods heretofore not required. But for the most part there is free flow of customer information throughout branches. Industry-wide, banks and IT integrators have done a good job establishing links between customer service representatives (CSRs) and data warehouses, branches, and other terminals.
And although the underlying technology may be complex and sophisticated, the end user-such as a CSR-may be quite pleased to find that such interfaces are easily operated. This is a key selling point for software makers in this market, as up-to-date programs must deliver a wealth of demographic data and customer-use information. Tracking customer profitability has become a valuable, parallel method to measuring IT performance within call centers.
And another reason remote-access delivery channels are attractive to banks is low cost. Remarkably, virtual channels are not costly, certainly not from a cost-to-acquire a customer basis. Moreover, early adopters are easily persuaded to transition to the Internet channel as, realistically, there is little reason to bank any other way.
The ideal customer model is shaping up as someone who banks online (including bill presentment and payment) and withdraws cash from ATMs. Call-center developers are thus mandated to skew their programs toward reducing high-cost transactions-that is, through human tellers.
What's ahead
So what is on the horizon in the call center domain, this year and over the three years to come? Updates to Internet banking are sure to come, along with video banking, voice-activated telephone banking, screen phones, kiosk banking, and merchant coin/currency dispensers. Savvy software developers in the call-center domain have much to consider as they look forward to streamlining and coordinating data from so many disparate channels.
Damon Pointer is a manager at systems integrator Broadway & Seymour Group, with financial service offices in Charlotte, NC. Pointer sees the biggest change in the current call-center market as the emerging reality that "midsize call centers can compete in functionality with larger call centers."
Connectivity to mini data-marts adds to a flexibility that should promote rapid transitions of midsize call centers toward full channel integration just as the Internet channel is dovetailed into smaller operations.
For example, phone banking promises not only traditional banking information, but also bill-pay services via a direct connection to a 24-hour customer service center. This would allow people to bank through a service agent or an interactive voice response (IVR) system.
Comprehensive call-center capabilities must include provisions for remote access transactions such as those generated at freestanding kiosks with touch screens and voice prompts to help customers in financial planning. For instance, after customers enter some basic financial information, CSRs can estimate monthly payments for a new car or home and calculate a college or retirement savings plan.
With video banking, customers interact in real-time through a TV screen and a direct-line phone-opening new accounts, retrieving account data, and completing loan applications, among other functions. In some cases, customers scan in their driver's license and signature for ID and may use a credit card to make an initial deposit.
In e-commerce applications, Web site visitors browse retailer home pages. If a purchase is made, call centers generally are somewhere in the processing loop, either because the buyer or merchant is a customer. Customer service activity is sure to proliferate in support of the e-commerce boom, and many of these service calls will be routed either through banking call centers or through third-party inbound telemarketing service providers.
Matching caller and agent
Key to meeting the challenges presented by the avalanche of data spilling over these channels is the call-distribution platform. Prioritizing calls is the toughest job for call center managers, since there is often a big difference between the best available agent and the first available agent. Matching agent skills to customers is a vibrant area in banking right now, as banks try to all but eliminate transfers.
Typically, system that optimizes the customer/agent interface would first detect a call and then-between the time the call is detected and when it rings at a call center-the system searches the bank's database. The system calibrates a customer's relationship with the bank and simultaneously checks call volume and expertise available at the different centers, sends a message to the telephone carrier about where to route the call, and the best available agent picks up the ringing line.
Previously, if a loan query line took a call from someone asking about their checking account, transfers were made at the loan agent terminal and calls would be lost or misrouted.
In most models for virtual call centers, the software will switch an 800 number call over a checking account line, but if the customer punches in a credit card number, the system will route the call to the credit card support center. Needs-based routing makes the most sense in nearly all call center circumstances, but a case can be made for profit-based routing, based on customer value to the bank. Call origins may be another area of concern, as the effectiveness of promotional campaigns may be determined by tabulating the source or prompt of a call.
Call center goals have not changed much, despite new generations of technology: accuracy, speed, and interpersonal skills must be supported by each generation of high-tech tools as they emerge. However, with the online banking channel headed toward dominance, interpersonal skills come into play less often. Real cost-savings to banks stem from herding customers toward and through online channels, where the expenses of a transaction to a bank may be next to nothing.
But for the foreseeable future, brick-and-mortar edifices will stay busy with traditional customers-many older, set in their ways, and wealthy. So training call center personnel to gain skill sets beyond roles as CSRs makes the most of human resources. Ideally, call center functionaries are cross-trained to handle inquiries about a number of products, thus increasing the appeal of such employment. Attrition rates for low-level banks employees are notoriously high, and incorporating more and varies skills into such positions bodes well for longevity and good ROI in personnel.
At the core of Web-enabled banking, high-tech call centers face a host of challenges, many of them stemming from the unlimited nature of the online environment. Pulling together all of the calling threads within a large organization is a big job that banks must analyze fully from both a profit and customer perspective.
Centralized reporting and accounting has eluded many banks that have set up parallel channels. The rush to get an online presence explains many of the problems attributable to parallel operation, but another roadblock includes connecting to geographically diverse sites. On a simple cost basis, there are moving targets in pricing long-distance carriers for bringing in signals from several cities to one core location.
Bankers still define the functions of call centers into four categories: distributed, centralized, intelligent, and virtual. As more banks operate without central hubs, ACDs (automatic call distribution centers) have handled core duties, while customer service is managed at the branch level. Virtual call-centers may have their own operations if channel integration has not yet been achieved.
The cost of change
Still, the cost of change can be daunting, no matter which path a bank takes when it reconfigures or adds call centers. Information technology managers must look at repository (warehouse) parameters, data discovery/quality tools, data bridging tools, RPC (remote procedure call) products, messaging products, replication servers, and other technical areas.
And that it may take upwards of 75% of a bank's IT budget to maintain existing systems does not help in acquiring and integrating new hardware and software. For banks that have grown by acquisition, the problems can be multiplied. If there are two centers performing essentially the same jobs, it may be difficult to determine which one to either shut down or to reprogram for other functions. Bank tech variables can quickly reach an unruly number, which explains the thriving atmosphere for consultants in this products and services sector.
Within the technical realm of call center technology, IT personnel often need to access batches of data for updating. It is essential here to easily locate and incorporate key logic into batch maintenance and updating. Efficient call center management is reflected in an IT team's ability to look simultaneously at both the big and small picture.
John Hallenborg is a Los Angeles-based financial writer.
