Call centres need to implement new technologies which are more consumer friendly and move away from an obsession with voice, according to Graham S McLeod, head of the customer relations management (CRM) focus team for Nashua Communications.
Speaking at the Customer Experience Management (CEM) conference, in Cape Town, McLeod said four years ago “the next big thing” was meant to be web-based chat, but few organisations have taken it up.
McLeod said it was supposed to be “the next wave in which we were going to make it easier for your customers to engage [with you] and at the same time we were talking about integrating email and the processes around that”.
However, Mcleod said that four to five years later, the technology is fully accessible but not many call centres seem to be using it.
He said: “We’re just stuck in the same old rut of using what we used to use, which is the voice phone call.”
The reason voice calls are not completely appropriate any more, according to McLeod, is because: “Your customers probably don’t want to call you.”
This is especially true of the new generation sometimes called “generation Y” or “new money” as McLeod calls it.
The new money generation is adept at using chat and is usually a preferred method of communication amongst them.
“The vast majority of the people in South Africa use a cellphone with some sort of prepaid package… [Do] you really want me to use my prepaid money to sit and listen to your plinky-plonky music? I don’t think so.”
McLeod said it is important to look at implementing interactive web chat, outbound dialling, email routing and assisted web browsing, since the new generation is the future. Chat, McLeod said, is “totally underutilised”.
“We need to set up our businesses to start looking at tomorrow’s money and understanding how we can better address that market,” said McLeod.
Mcleod, a self-confessed “technology geek of note,” has 22 years experience in IT and has spent the last nine years in contact centres.
“I like technology, I always like getting to the latest thing, and there’s not much help from my wife, because she’s worse than I am. When there’s a new toy on the market we absolutely have to have it, and not when – today!” said McLeod.
“We have all these fancy technologies and all these things about social media integration… about 90 percent of people are still using voice as their primary means of communication with their customers,” he said, referring to this as a “scary fact”.
