Best practices and considerations for implementing customer contact centers, including inbound and outbound phone, email and social media customer engagement.

1. © The Outsourcing Institute
Best Practices and Considerations for
Multichannel Contact Center
Implementation
DATAMARK, Inc. White Paper in association
with the Outsourcing Institute

2. © The Outsourcing Institute 2
SUMMARY
Tech-savvy Generation Y and Millennials and a growing number of
technologically adept baby boomers are leading the charge toward
multichannel customer communication. These and other customers
expect companies to offer service and support – and to respond to praise
and complaints – through multiple contact channels, including voice,
email, social media and more. To succeed in this new era of customer
contact and reputation management, companies must assess customer
channel preferences, embrace and select the right bundle of services to
deliver on those needs, and plan an implementation strategy. Companies
must continually train agents to provide leading-edge service and ensure
the organization maintains the highest levels of customer response and
support.

3. © The Outsourcing Institute 3
Many Customers, Many Contact
Solutions
In today’s customer service
marketplace, contact channels are
as varied as the consumers who
use them. From tech-savvy
Generation Y and Millennials
(those born from 1983 to 2000), to
the Generation X population
(1965-1982), to a growing number
of technologically adept baby
boomers (1946-1964), they’re
seeking service support,
searching for answers to product
questions, and reading or writing
reviews, via a variety of contact
channels. These include phone
calls with live agents, interactive
voice response (IVR), email, web
chat and social media.
Today, a company’s reputation
can depend on how easily and
seamlessly these contact
channels are blended into the
overall customer experience.
Increasingly, the evolution of
channel preference is forcing
companies to diversify their
contact delivery options. To do
this, companies must internally –
or seek out a vendor who can –
capitalize on the expertise, ability
and knowledge needed to provide
the best solution amid this
multichannel customer contact
environment.
According to a survey of 487
contact center executives by the
Aberdeen Group, six customer
contact channels are most widely
used. Among those, businesses
rely on the following channels
most often: phone (98%), email
(96%), web (90%), IVR (76%),
mail/fax (76%), and social media
(55%). More than half of all
companies surveyed use all six of
these channels, Aberdeen noted.
Pursuit of a multichannel model
delivers real dividends, the
analysts reported.
"[B]usinesses following a
multichannel customer care
strategy achieve more than twice
greater (9.7% vs. 3.9%) year-over-
year improvement in customer
satisfaction, compared to peers
using only a single channel,"
Aberdeen wrote in its Multichannel
Contact Center Analyst Insight
report (November 2012).
Multichannel Challenges
Organizations often face a
multitude of misunderstandings or
roadblocks related to multichannel
contact solutions.
These can range from:
1. Poor talent recruitment and
ongoing training regarding
customer interaction and even
the client’s brand and
messaging;
2.Not investing in required
technology and infrastructure
needs;
3.Underestimating total cost of
ownership, which can range
from thousands to millions of
dollars.
This lack of inherent knowledge
about contact centers and the
implementation process also can
delay – or even threaten the
viability – of any project.
Among the questions to ask when
designing a center and its offerings
are:
1.Has the organization selected
the right channels based on
research into customer
demographics and preferences?
2.Has the organization hired the
right team, both for domestic and
international or multi-lingual
customer needs?
3.Has the organization created an
ongoing training program to keep

4. © The Outsourcing Institute 4
agents versed in company
strategy, corporate tone and
channel management?
4.Has the organization budgeted
for the endeavor’s short-term
launch and long-term survival?
Assessing Customer Channel
Preferences
Program development begins with
an assessment of customer
channel preferences. This can be
done by analyzing the use of
existing resources to gather data
on current traffic and use patterns.
Obtaining data and other useful
information can be done through
surveys, focus groups and
employee input. Data collected
through every available channel –
live voice, IVR, web self-service,
email, SMS text, IM/web chat,
social media and blogs – can be
incorporated into an overall
strategic analysis.
By analyzing available data, the
organization can determine which
channels customers currently use
– and how often they use them.
It’s a dangerous proposition to
assume that because certain
channels are not popular that
customers prefer not to use them.
This could mean that the channels
are poorly implemented or in the
midst of a customer adoption
period.
Engaging a Consultant for
Planning a Multichannel
Approach
After gathering and analyzing
available data, the next step is to
start forming an understanding of
the current state of your customer
service/contact center processes
and developing a vision for where
the organization would like them to
be. As the organization transforms
data into intelligence to be
activated in its implementation
plan, it might be wise to engage a
consultant or multichannel contact
service provider to help draft a
strategic plan. A business
consultant can conduct a business
process analysis to map out the
organization's current workflow
and processes, and then sketch
new workflows to eliminate
duplicate processes, improve
efficiency and improve the ability to
serve customers in each channel.
The consultant also can help the
organization explore whether to
maintain or create a contact center
on-premises, or if an off-site or off-
shore solution offering 24-hour
service will allow the organization
to better focus on core
competencies. Other
considerations: Can an onshore
destination serve multiple
languages? Does the organization
understand the training needs
required to infuse agents with
product, brand and company
messaging?
The consultant also can help
consider and identify
contingencies that may arise
during the implementation of a
center, as well as the needs of a
growing organization or customer
base.

5. © The Outsourcing Institute 5
Select Multichannel Technology
Based on intelligence of customer
needs, should the contact center
solution encompass several
stand-alone services that will
require some software
development to make them
interoperable in an overall end-to-
end solution, or should it engage a
suite of services from a single
vendor? The business consultant
can assist with determining which
approach to take, as well as the
technology services that would
best fit the existing business
model.
Among those technology solutions
to be considered are:
Self-service: IVR or web-based
forms allow customers to solve
problems themselves.
Universal queue and multi-
routing capabilities: This offers
customers the channel of their
choice: voice, email, web chat,
etc. No matter the channel used,
the customer is routed to agents
who can support multichannel
contact from their laptop or
workstation.
Performance reporting:
Real-time and historical data to
help supervisors effectively route
calls and manage workforce.
Cloud-based solutions: Avoid
high capital, infrastructure and
other start-up costs. Scale quickly
to meet seasonal volumes. Agents
can work from any location with
web access.
Third-party developer kits: Allow
developers to integrate and
customize applications.
Social Media Management:
Monitoring and prioritizing so
customer concerns, complaints
and praise can quickly receive
responses.
Video connection: Some
customers/business models may
require communication with agents
via video conference.
Implementation, Recruiting and
Training
Consultants can create highly
detailed, step-by-step
implementation or transition plans
for a multichannel contact center.
The transition plan assigns
responsibilities and deadlines for
each step. If moving an existing
contact center to a new
outsourced center, this Process
Migration Methodology assures no
loss of customer contact and
service.
Agents should be selected based
on skills and capabilities. Whether
choosing agents for centers
located domestically or abroad,
skills and capabilities may include
technology awareness, multi-
lingual capabilities and even
intangibles like personality and
“people skills.”
Agents then are trained to learn
the customer’s specific process,
internal culture and “point of view.”
Their training is bolstered by
incentives that reward first-contact
resolution, whether over IVR,
email, web chat or social media, or
by meeting sales quotas. By the
time agents take their first call,
they are “an extension of the
brand.”
The Hunt for Continuous
Improvement
Organizations should take
advantage of the reporting tools
available to them (real-time,
historical) and incorporate them
into a process strategy of
continuous improvement. A formal
continuous improvement strategy
can use scenario modeling to find
ways to make processes more
efficient; solicit feedback from
customers and agents to improve
customer interaction and

6. © The Outsourcing Institute 6
satisfaction; and apply continuous
monitoring of the market for
technological improvements and
proven contact-center best
practices.
Conclusion
Raising customer satisfaction and
quality interactions, while lowering
costs, all can be achieved with a
multichannel contact center. The
effort requires a skilled approach
that may incorporate a blended
solution of outsourced service
centers, cloud technology
solutions, a visionary team, and
consultants experienced in the
implementation of the ideal
solution.
Organizations hoping to explore a
multichannel customer contact
environment should assess their
internal capabilities and
weaknesses. Then, they should
seek out prospective partners who
can mentor the organization and/or
deliver on needed skillsets and
technology to improve on existing
solutions or to introduce new
options. The result can be a finely
honed network of services that
reaches customers, no matter
where – or who – they are.
About DATAMARK
DATAMARK is a leading
provider of multichannel
customer contact center
services, digital mailroom and
mail center management, data
entry, document processing
services and business process
re-engineering services for
Fortune 500 companies,
government agencies and
other large enterprises.
Founded in 1989, the company
is the strategic business
process outsourcing ( BPO )
partner for companies across
numerous industry sectors,
including healthcare,
insurance, banking and
financial services, and
transportation and logistics.
DATAMARK offers on-site,
onshore and offshore
processing facilities, delivering
enterprise content
management (ECM) and
process-automation
technologies and solutions to
help organizations improve
efficiency and profitability in all
business functions.

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