Creating a better experience

What can IT directors and managers pondering UC implementation learn, if anything, from contact center communications? The answer may lie in understanding virtual queuing technology.

Defined broadly, virtual queuing allows callers to hang up instead of waiting on hold for an agent, and receive a callback without losing their place in the queue, in the time quoted. Take the experience of Southwest Airlines, with a contact center operation that fields an average of 110,000 calls per day. Southwest continually reviews its systems and processes to make sure its 2,400 customer service representatives are meeting the airline’s high standards for quality and efficiency.

Like any contact center operation, performance levels can be impacted by a multitude of unexpected or uncontrollable variables. A primary source of frustration – not only for Southwest customers, but for customers across all sectors of industry — is waiting on hold. So, Southwest Airlines implemented a virtual queuing solution from Virtual Hold Technology® (VHT®.) Southwest saw immediate results with a 47% reduction in queue times and numerous customer compliments on Twitter. In addition, Southwest saved 25 million toll minutes (and the costs associated with them) or the equivalent of 47 years of hold time over the first six months the system was deployed.

However, the opportunity to save time is not just reserved for contact centers. Individuals are also affected every time they wait to get in touch with a co-worker but can’t get through because he or she is currently busy. Not knowing where our request stands in their personal queue is frustrating. Waiting for others to get back with us wastes precious time and can be nerve-racking when deadlines loom or urgent situations arise.

In the physical world we queue work and messages up for each other all the time. We manage requests between departments and branch offices. We manage consecutive tasks or queues of work within projects. We also manage queues of work requests between suppliers, vendors and customers. So what does virtual queuing do that mimics what we do when organizing and prioritizing work requests?

A virtual queuing platform intelligently mimics our own ability to estimate task time to completion and to estimate how long a work request must stay in queue before it is its “turn” to be completed. Then trigger action accordingly. That’s why in unified communications, virtual queuing concepts would be extremely useful in managing a task list for individuals and departments.

Taking it a step further, imagine what personal virtual queues could mean for the people inside your organization. It could potentially free them from “stalking” colleagues, supervisors and others who use voice mail, e-mail, instant-messaging, text-messaging and more when attempting to reach others with an urgent request. But only one request is necessary when a personal virtual queue ensures that the first and only request is delivered at the first moment the desired recipient becomes available.

Of all the elements of the UC stack, the two that lend themselves best to virtual queuing are rich presence and personal assistants. Rich presence engines provide information about the current state of an individual, equipment or application. The best-known use of rich presence is with IM, where it is possible to see if others are available before engaging them with text dialog. Personal assistants perform tasks for individuals, such as forwarding calls or messages, accessing calendar information and providing reminders and alerts.

Perhaps you’ve been using these technologies and wondering why you are not getting the most out of them. If you are considering deploying these technologies, be aware that, as we know from contact center experience, they will not be fully useful unless they are integrated with a virtual queuing-like technology.

Why not? In the same way that virtual queuing is necessary when the customer service representative you are trying to access is busy, rich presence and personal assistants can only deliver maximum efficiency when people are always available. When they are not, the personal virtual queue is required to manage the requests. A personal virtual queuing assistant could triage requests based upon rules that you set.

For example, requests from your supervisor would go to the top of your personal virtual queue and be forwarded as an SMS message to your mobile phone as soon as your status indicator changed from busy to available. In this manner, virtual queuing can bridge the gap between your presence indicator and your personal assistant that forwards messages and creates alerts. As a result, your personal productivity is elevated and communications are truly unified. A personal virtual assistant could be used when unavoidable unproductive activities arise as well, such as waiting for responses, waiting for resources to free up, waiting to progress through a defined process, or waiting to locate resources. By managing the activity queue, the virtual queuing assistant could potentially bring about a new productivity paradigm.

For a best-practices approach to UC, look to the contact center equipped with virtual queuing, specifically at software aimed at rules-based decision-making to bridge the gap between UC elements. By examining contact centers that use virtual queuing solutions, you can gain insight and understanding into convergence and integration.

From Insurance & Technology: “I won’t leave my bank because I have to wait a few minutes, but I will leave if I can’t get the information I need.”

This is talking about physical wait times in a bank, but can it transfer to telephone customer service? I know I would rather wait on hold – virtually, of course! – and know that I will be talking with someone who can actually help me with my issue. Wait times are definitely a factor in customer loyalty and retention, but first call resolution is another major factor. Answering phones with warm bodies to improve ASA and decrease abandons isn’t helping customer satisfaction. Empowered, knowledgeable agents are key to improving customer satisfaction.

• Virtual Hold Technology Named to 2010 Inc. 500|5000 List http://bit.ly/cdueeT #

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• “called comcast today – instead of putting me on hold, they offered to call me back when my place came up” – My Nucleus http://bit.ly/ak3jm7 #
• Take Relationships Off Hold | Canadian Insurance http://bit.ly/du3JQe #

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• 83% of customers w/ “voice of the customer” programs report positive impact! « Customer Experience Matters http://bit.ly/cez0Bv #
• From Creating a better experience: “I applaud the concept, but Lucyphone could be hurting more than helping” http://bit.ly/9NXhka #

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