Top Reasons To Utilize Consultative Services In The Contact Center Space
By Rick McFarland, CEO, Voice4Net
There is a longstanding joke in the telecommunication sector: A business owner will believe anything a technician says, as long as he is located 50 miles from the office. If you are in-house, no one listens.
Yet in practice, there is validity to this approach. Dealers and resellers need to make end users understand the importance of obtaining an objective, consultative assessment of their contact center environment before any deployment takes place. Consultation is how the dealer will identify the features and customizations that will best serve the customer’s business model. Simply put, it is how to deliver what customers want from your solution. This element of the installation needs to be treated as a strategic, well thought-out deliverable, not simply an assumed afterthought.
Preplanning is essential to a software update for more reasons than just designing the solution. The company’s entire staff will face marked changes. In order to make that transition manageable, management needs to understand not just the impact the upgrade will have on the network, but how it will affect that personnel who will interact with these innovations.
In conjunction with their technology vendors, solutions providers need to perform an examination of the company’s culture to predict how the staff will acclimate. This requires expertise beyond just contact center technology. It demands expertise in the company’s specific corporate procedures and the vertical markets it serves. Moreover, it requires familiarity with the impact that a major upgrade has on an organization as a whole. An examination of company culture and processes — before the cutover takes place — helps businesses avoid the pitfalls that typically accompany such a transition.
What pitfalls? As technology providers, we’ve seen our share of companies experience a drop in productivity after a new deployment—despite the enhancements inherent in the technology. Employees often see a new solution as an impediment to their routine. They blame the new solution, delaying the adoption of new features.
The solution is rarely the problem in these instances. Change in itself is the problem.
A diligent provider will establish a consultation program that anticipates potential problems, and then create processes that address them. A comprehensive plan will keep employees apprised of how to handle glitches and manage new procedures before the upgrade ever goes live. Agents will know what is expected of them from the outset. They will have less temptation to get frustrated and blame the upgrade. This consultation process must be treated as an intrinsic, independent component of the installation in support of its success.
Don’t hand agents a reason to resist improvements to the infrastructure solution. Readiness is a vital, valuable part of any migration. You, your technology partners, and your customers need to treat it that way.