The Role of Automation in Telecom Contact Centers: Solving High Volume Challenges and Reducing Costs
Uber-connected. Well-informed. Highly-coordinated. That’s the world we live in today, all thanks to the telecom sector! It’s one of the most important industries in today’s time. Telecom companies connect individuals and businesses.
To quote noted business tycoon Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, “An efficient telecommunications network is the foundation upon which an information society is built.” The irony, however, is that the contact centers of telecom companies can do better when it comes to responding to customers’ queries and resolving their issues. Be it the huge volume of contact requests or keeping up with the rising customer expectations, telecom contact centers face a wide array of issues in the present times. But the good news is, they can address the challenges with automation. As well-known author, speaker, podcaster, and entrepreneur Michael Hyatt said, “Automation is solving a problem once, then putting the solution on autopilot.”
At HoduSoft, our HoduCC omnichannel CX suite and contact center solutions automated the contact centers of many telecom companies. We have not only empowered telecom contact centers to handle routine inquiries but also focus on continuous improvement. If you are in the telecom sector, this blog post is just for you! In this, we will discuss the major challenges telecom contact centers face, the benefits of contact center automation, and best practices to automate telecom contact centers.
So, without further ado, let’s dive straight into the in-depth article about automating telecom contact centers and how to do that effectively. Read on and thank us later!
Challenges Telecom Contact Centers Face
Telecom contact centers face a wide range of challenges in today’s dynamic environment that are compounded by the growing complexity of customer interactions, rising operational costs, and the demand for high-quality service. Here are some of those:
1. Dealing with High Volumes of Contact Requests
It’s no secret that telecom companies receive a huge volume of contact requests. The calls and messages could be for billing queries, technical support, or general customer service. Whatever the issue is, the call volume is just overwhelming!
Just a quick visit to a telecom contact center will make you realize the sheer volume of contact requests the customer service representatives handle everyday. The phones ring constantly. The notifications of text messages, instant messages, live chats, and social media chimes incessantly.
2. Long Wait Times
Just trying to connect with a telecom contact center is going to, as the youthful lingo says, “take like forever.” There are instances where customers wait for a really long time and still fail to connect with contact center agents.
Due to high demand and limited resources, telecom contact centers struggle to provide timely support to customers. As a result, many customers have to wait for a long time. It leads to frustration and dissatisfaction.
3. Technical Issues
To paraphrase the iconic quote of World Mobile CEO Mickey Watkins, the technical issues are not about the telecom operators overlooking it. It’s more about the telecom operators being stuck in a box they can’t get out of!
Telecom contact centers often deal with customers who experience network outages or technical issues. The support agents need to diagnose problems accurately and efficiently, which can be difficult when dealing with complex systems.
4. Customer Expectations
In today’s time, a majority of customers expect quick resolution and personalized service. With the rise of instant messaging and AI-driven support, many customers aren’t willing to wait longer than a few seconds. A little longer wait time can cause them to switch from one telecom service provider to another!
Telecom companies and their contact centers must strive hard to keep up with the rising customer expectations. They must leverage sophisticated automated tools to not only deliver lightning fast service but also a wide array of self-service options.
5. Dealing with Angry or Frustrated Customers
Can you guess how often telecom contact centers get calls from irate and frustrated customers? Quite frequently than you think! When customers reach out to telecom companies for billing errors, service disruptions, or technical failures, it’s a harrowing experience for customer support representatives.
They have to face the heat of frustrated and angry customers. It can leave an indelible impact on some agents’ morale, productivity, and mental well-being. By automating customer service processes, telecom companies can mitigate the impact of irate calls and resolve issues swiftly.
6. Ensuring Consistent Service Quality
Telecom contact centers often face the challenge of maintaining consistent service quality across multiple channels. The variation in customer interactions, whether via phone, chat, or email, requires careful coordination to ensure that the quality of service remains high.
Center operations need to be well-integrated and equipped with the right tools to provide consistent, high-quality service, regardless of the channel or customer query.
7. Customer Experience and Satisfaction
Delivering an exceptional customer experience is a top priority, but it’s also a challenge for telecom contact centers. Providing fast and efficient responses to customer queries is essential, but achieving this while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction is difficult.
Personalized customer interactions are key to improving satisfaction, but this requires deep insights into customer behavior and preferences. Automation tools and call routing strategies can help streamline processes and ensure a positive customer experience.
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Key Benefits of Call Center Automation
Telecom companies can benefit immensely from call center automation. Some of the key benefits are:
1. Cost Reduction
Can contact center automation reduce costs for telecom companies? You bet! By automating routine tasks, telecom firms can reduce the need for a large number of agents in their contact centers.
2. Improved CX
Would you be surprised to know that contact center automation can enhance customer experience (CX)? You definitely shouldn’t. That’s because automated tools such as interactive voice response (IVR) systems and chatbots, can quickly direct customers to the right resources or provide instant responses to common queries.
3. 24/7 Availability
Round-the-clock availability. That’s what automated contact centers offer telecom companies. Automation tools enable telecom contact centers to operate around the clock. With effective call center automation, telecom companies can provide customers with support outside of normal business hours.
4. Increased Efficiency
Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates rightly said, “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency.” Automated systems can handle high call volumes simultaneously. By doing that, they reduce wait times and ensure that more customer inquiries are resolved in less time.
5. Consistency in Service
Automation is synonymous with consistency. Human agents can be inconsistent. But not automated contact center solutions. That’s because the processes are standardized and free from human error. Contact center automation ensures that every customer receives the same quality of service.
6. Scalability
When it comes to flexibility and scalability, nothing can beat automated contact center solutions. As the volume of calls and contact requests rise, automated systems can scale quickly to handle increased traffic without the need for significant investment in additional human resources.
7. Faster and Personalized Responses
Customers expect quicker and tailored responses from their telecom service providers. Automated contact center solutions leverage AI-powered tools to analyze previous interactions to provide relevant recommendations and solutions.
8. High Accuracy
When telecom companies leverage the right automated contact center solutions, they can be assured of high accuracy in responses and data entry. Call center automation eliminates variations and mistakes in responding to customer queries and maintaining data records.
9. Reducing Employee Stress and Increasing Morale
Automated tools not only enhance employees productivity but also reduce their stress and enhance their morale by leaps and bounds. When agents get to deal with fewer irate customers, they don’t remain in the same ‘flight or fight’ mode as before. They can now focus on more complex and important things and dedicate quality time to come up with novel and innovative solutions.
Best Practices to Automate Telecom Contact Centers
When it comes to the best practices for automating telecom contact centers, here are some strategies that can help you immensely.
1. Define Your Objectives
If you are considering automating your telecom contact center, you must have a compelling reason to do so. The very first thing you need to do before doing anything is define your objectives.
What do you want from contact center automation? Do you want to enhance agents’ productivity? Are you looking to reduce your contact center costs? Or do you want to take customer experience to a new level?
Try to find out the prime reason behind your decision to automate customer service and everything will fall into place.
2. List Down the Must-Have Features
Now that you have defined your objective(s), compile a list of necessary features the contact center solution must have. Some of the features could be:
- Intelligent Call Routing
- Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
- Skills-based and AI-powered routing
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
- Speech Recognition and NLP
- Omnichannel support
- Unified customer view
- AI-powered chatbots & virtual assistants
- Call and interaction analytics
- Customer sentiment analysis
Listing the necessary features help you to keep a checklist. Once you know what features you need, you would make sure that the solution you select has all the listed features.
3. Set Aside a Reasonable Budget
To automate your telecom contact center, you will need to invest the right amount of money.
Setting the right budget would prevent you from under-investing and over-investing. That’s why you must set aside a reasonable budget.
To determine the right budget, make an estimate of what a solution with the listed features is likely to cost.
4. Look for the Right Contact Center Automation Solutions
In the competitive market, you will find a wide range of solutions and you must handpick the right contact center automation solutions.
Use the internet to type some high-intent search terms such as “best contact center automation solutions,” “robotic process automation solutions,” “natural language processing automated systems,” and more.
After getting the results, visit the top websites on the first search engine result page. Compare prices, features, pros and cons of the automated contact center solutions.
5. Shortlist Some Solution Providers and Ask for Free Demo
Comparing some key aspects of different solution providers will give you a fair idea about which one you must shortlist and which one you shouldn’t.
After shortlisting a handful of solution providers, contact each one of them and ask relevant questions about their solutions, pricing plans, and if they provide free demos.
If any of them refuses, end the call as politely as possible and move on to the next solutions provider. Repeat the process till you find one that provides a free demo for a reasonable time.
6. Introduce the Solution to Your Team and Seek Feedback
After getting the free demo, introduce the solution to your team. Ask your agents to give feedback.
Monitor call volumes, agent performance, and customer feedback. It’s essential for continuous improvement in telecom contact centers.
If the solution ticks all the right boxes, you can rest assured. The solution is going to deliver consistent service quality and enhance customer satisfaction.
Taking Everything Into Consideration,
In today’s time, the telecom sector is one of the most dynamic and fast-paced sectors. When customers contact telecom companies, they expect quick response and quality service. Anything less than that can cause frustration and dissatisfaction. That’s why it’s imperative for telecom companies to automate their contact centers. It’s the need of the hour!
At HoduSoft, we have helped many telecom service providers to automate their contact centers. Our HoduCC contact center software and omnichannel CX suite is replete with automation tools and engineered to enhance operational efficiency.
