Smart New Year’s Resolutions for Your Call Center (First of Three)

1. Expect more from your dialer

For companies that place a premium on outbound calls, a predictive dialer makes agents more productive by auto-dialing, detecting answering machines, and connecting live agents to the right party. And while many call centers already have some type of system to accomplish these tasks, they must resolve to ensure they are using a system that cost-effectively meets their business requirements today and well into the future. 

Ask yourself, “Is my dialer…”

a. …all-inclusive, giving me all the needed features for a single price?”

b. …able to integrate easily with other business applications?”

c. …capable of providing true real-time access to data without IT involvement or downtime?

d. …open and flexible to accommodate frequent change and intensive customization without relying on costly and time-consuming professional services?”

e. …paying for itself in a reasonable timeframe?”

If, after taking a sober assessment of your current dialer investment, you answer “no” to any of these questions, then you should seriously consider other available options. This may seem draconian at first blush, but the crippled economy has given rise to numerous incentives and price reduction programs by hungry call center software vendors that, in many cases, can offer you a brand-new system for a lower price than you’re currently paying for your deficient one.

And for those contact centers who have hitched their wagon to “industry leaders,” make sure you are receiving a legitimate ROI, and not just the comfort of ‘being with a brand name.’ When you fairly assess multiple vendors, you are likely to find that some of the so-called leaders are offering products that are years behind in innovation, require additional hardware and software purchases, and all for a price much steeper than competing products.

Remember, it’s about expecting more from your dialer, not more from your wallet.

Right Party Contact Podcast

I hosted my first podcast for The Evolving Contact Center. This episode (about 5 minutes total) is all about right party contact for the collections industry. I interviewed Rick Novak, a long-time contact center consultant, and he offers some great info about how companies use RPC as a strategy to collect more debt. He also talks about integration with Avaya PDS (predictive dialer) systems.

Outbound IVR delivers automated collections and Right Party Contact during economic slow-downs

Times may be tough for many businesses in the current economic downturn, but collections agencies are thriving as delinquencies no doubt increase. And as debt collectors mobilize to collect from their delinquent accounts, the competition will be keen. Smart collections agencies can gain the competitive edge if they automate the collections process and adopt a Right Party Contact strategy.

Naturally, collections companies attempt to collect debt from all their delinquent accounts. But a priority is placed on collecting from accounts with high balances, as opposed to smaller balance accounts that are less cost-effective to pursue. By using an outbound IVR to automate their recovery process, collectors can deliver a self-service option to lower priority accounts so that live agents can focus on the big fish.

Outbound IVR can deliver personalized and pre-recorded messages to delinquent contacts and offer a variety of self-service options including payment or promise to pay or to connect with a live operator.

And because the outbound IVR allows the call recipient to verify their identity, when they request connection with a live agent, the right party has been contacted and lends to significantly increased efficiency.