Thursday, June 21, 2007

Poor IVR and Untrained Human Operators Both Frustrate Customers

Tim Searcy of the American Teleservices Association comments that Call center problems go global. Around the world, similar problems are very evident.

First, offshoring is a concern in each local market. Representatives from Australia, Europe, Asia and the Middle East voiced the same complaints about “foreigners” answering toll-free phone calls on behalf of products and services companies. Universally, there appears to be a distrust of someone outside of a person’s own country handling a service or sales issue.

Second, technology without training has decreased customer satisfaction. Call center software Aspect has expanded its customer satisfaction index to include Europe but the results are similar to the United States. Consumers desperately want to experience first call resolution from trained individuals that are pleasant. The interactive voice response has replaced good satisfaction design in many cases and worldwide there is an epidemic of frustration about IVR jungles and lengthy queues.

Interactive Voice Response systems, as supplied by Crimsonet, can avoid these types of problems.

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