Computer telephony integration
CTI allows data collected from the telephone system to query the customer database and populate screen fields with the caller’s details (“screen popping”). The benefits of using a CTI system are:
Improved customer satisfaction - Without a CTI application, a customer call frequently gets transferred to a series of different agents until an appropriate agent is found. To make matters worse, the customer typically has to re-state his or her identifying information and reason for calling to each new agent. These two phenomena are called re-routing and re-stating, and are the primary customer-service challenges facing businesses today. A CTI solution helps organisations overcome these obstacles to promote enhanced customer satisfaction.
In this model, when a call is routed to a particular department, the caller's identifying information is simultaneously passed to the answering agent's desktop PC. The desktop application "pops" the customer's database record onto the agent's screen before the call is received, allowing the agent to greet the customer as an informed source. If the answering agent later transfers the caller, all collected data, including any data entered by the first agent, is automatically transmitted with the call, eliminating the need to re-query the caller.
Cost savings - The two largest expenditures in a contact centre operation are personnel and telecommunications service. Through screen pops and simultaneous call and data transfer, CTI shortens talk time by eliminating the need for re-stating. The time that agents spend asking customers for identifying information lengthens every call. While this may seem insignificant from the perspective of a single call, the aggregate time spent across all calls becomes substantial.
The most common figure cited for time savings through screen pop is 12-25 seconds on average for the agent answering the call, and 25-60 seconds for each subsequent agent. The first agent queries the caller for their name, account number, and other relevant information, then waits while the desktop application retrieves the customer record from a corporate database.
This time increases when the call is transferred because, without CTI, the second agent must query the customer both for the initial information gathered and for details of the first leg of the transaction. With CTI, organisations realise additional savings on a transfer because the system captures and forwards real-time information about the first leg as part of voice and data transfer. The second agent then begins the call not only with the customer's database record on the screen, but also with real-time information about the caller received from the first agent.
Win-win scenario - It is unusual in business to encounter a true "win-win" situation. Typically, to improve customer service, a company must incur costs that they may not be able to recover directly. The company is willing to make this investment in customer satisfaction to capitalise on anticipated increases in revenues and profits, market share, and customer retention. With CTI, a business benefits from immediate, direct savings through reduced call length while simultaneously improving customer service—a true win-win scenario.
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