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During our panel discussion session at Interop Spring 2007 on “Reality Check on Unified Communications,” Don Van Doren and I discussed how call centers fit into UC. One subject that caused a lot of interest was the idea of contact center reps interacting with “expert agents” elsewhere in the company to provide information to customers. Audience members questioned how both contact center agents and subject matter experts would react to this.

I’ve been talking about this topic going back to at least 1998, but that was before we had presence-awareness technology, IP, and some of the other tools we have today. The era of expert agents is finally here! Using presence-awareness technology, contact center agents can see the availability of subject matter experts elsewhere within the organization and contact them in real time to get the information they need via IM or the phone, or connect that person directly with the customer.

During the Q&A after the panel discussion, two questions were raised relating to this topic:

1. Are expert agents going to replace the expensive knowledge bases companies implemented a few years to provide the information contact center agents need, and
2. How do you deal with knowledge workers who don’t want to interact with customers (or are not good at it?

Regarding the first question, knowledge bases are certainly helpful for providing contact center agents with additional information, and making it easy to look up information to previously-asked questions. However, sometimes a customer really needs to speak with an expert to get information, or they are asking a question that isn’t addressed in the database. Today, the agent’s response is to promise a call-back and then start a research activity. There goes first-call resolution.

The alternative is for the rep to reach the expert while the customer is on the phone. And new presence capabilities will help make that possible. Also, for high-value customers, it may make more sense to have them speak directly with a subject matter expert who can provide an additional level of service.

As Don told the Interop audience, “The ‘expert agents’ aren’t going to replace the knowledge base. Each has a value in meeting customer service objectives.” Sometimes a contact center agent supplemented with a knowledge base is appropriate; other times it’s useful to go straight to the source, or the subject matter expert.

The second question is trickier, as the personnel issues are much more complex than the technology issues when discussing expert agents. Frequently, subject matter experts, whether engineers, insurance underwriters, financial professionals, etc., will not want to deal with customers, and want to be left alone to do their jobs. In some cases, they don’t have the “people skills” to interact with your high-value customers, or they’re so busy doing their regular jobs that they don’t have the time (or interest) in dealing with customers.

However, there are ways to overcome this. For example, FinecoBank, Italy’s top “online” bank, provides performance-based financial incentives to back-office workers (or expert agents). Using Genesys Labs’ Expert Contact solution, the company’s financial advisors can respond to customer inquiries when appropriate. FinecoBank provides this service for its top clients as a way to assure quality information to its customers.

Most companies that use expert agents do so in a structured way, so knowledge workers are only interrupted at certain times of the day or when they are not busy. Using presence-awareness technology, the contact center agent can see the availability status of the expert agents and determine if it’s appropriate to contact them. They would generally send the expert agent an instant message to determine if they’re available to answer a question or speak with a customer, rather than just blindly sending a customer request to them.

Expect to see more and more companies using expert agents to interact with their high-value customers in order to provide personalized service and first call resolution.

What are your thoughts? Drop me a line at bpleasant@commfusion.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly forum.

Blair Pleasant
COMMfusion LLC & UCStrategies.com

Posted in Blair Pleasant, Contact Centers/CRM, Implementation, Management, Unified Communications |

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