Communication is one of the most important functions credit unions perform with their members. It is especially important for a credit union that uses a "virtual" banking model to provide high quality service to members. As part of the "virtual" banking model, my credit union provides services to our membership through call centers, audio response and interactive voice units, and online banking. The call center is the personal touch point of the organization. It is the first time members will draw an opinion of us based on their experience with the call center.
Our call center was established in the 1980s at a time when banks did not place as much of an emphasis on call centers. When Internet banking became popular, electronic mail became another channel for member communications. Unfortunately, the technology between our call center platform and the Internet banking systems were not integrated. In addition, our call center agents had to respond to voice calls through one system and answer member electronic mail through another system. Because the voice system was immediate or interactive and electronic mail was not, priority was given to our call center channel over the electronic mail channel. As a result, the service levels we provided to our members for electronic mail were not as high as the service levels for our voice channel.
The call center platform had been installed in 1991 at a time when the credit union had 215 employees and 160,000 members. The credit union has grown to 630 employees and 328,000 members. The total number of voice calls processed annually total 6.5 million. In addition, the credit union receives approximately 60,000 e-mails annually through online banking and our Internet Web site. Because of the tremendous growth of the credit union, the voice traffic had reached the capacity of the system.
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Two years ago, through our corporate strategic planning process, our senior management team decided the organization needed a unified communication process, blending voice, and data communications. In addition, business continuity planning was a continual credit union activity and our phone systems lacked sufficient redundancy.
Based on the direction from senior management, the Information Technology Services department contracted with a consulting firm to assist us. The consulting firm worked with our staff to create a request for proposal to replace our phone system and provide the credit union with a new contact center that would blend our voice calls and electronic mail, provide chat service, and allow for full redundancy.
With the assistance of the consulting firm, the team selected the current voice systems provider, Avaya, to replace our voice system. Within the credit union, our business continuity director managed the project. He had additional experience managing other large projects such as acquiring and refurbishing a building as part of our business continuity strategy. Leading the credit union team, the director worked closely with our network administrator and our manager of telecommunications. In addition, numerous other departments and units within the credit union such as information security, staff development, member services, credit services and card services assisted.
The project was divided into a system replacement phase and a call management system software replacement phase. After approximately six months of planning, the system was replaced and a redundant system was added at our backup facility over a weekend. The redundant systems including a private branch exchange (PBX), computer telephony server (CTI) and messaging server were setup in a "hot" or online and ready status. During the same weekend, we tested the redundancy of the systems, by powering down the PBX at our main facility. During the interruption, all voice calls coming in to the credit union automatically moved to the redundant facility PBX. Since successfully completing the systems replacement phase, our staff and Avaya have been developing a customized version of their call management system software for the past nine months.
We are a few weeks away from implementing the new call center management software, called Interaction Center across the entire credit union. We believe the software will change the way the credit union manages communications with our members and that our call center will be transformed into a contact center. When we complete the upgrade, our agents will see the following benefits:
A single interface for member contacts such as inbound voice calls routed through the IVR. Outbound voice calls from the dialer, online banking e-mails, non-secure Web site e-mails, SMTP e-mails and chat
-An integrated login process for the phone and the software
-A shared knowledgebase for answering secure and non-secure electronic mail and providing consistent communications with members
-Improved stability for screen pops into the core vendor and third party collection systems
-A database driven transfer department phone list
-Agents will be able to attach a comment to a transferred call.
-Cradle to grave call tracing
-The software is integrated with a third party provider for audio and video recording and monitoring of all voice calls and electronic mails. All voice calls and electronic mails can be searched by account number
-Agent call center settings reside on the computer network and therefore the settings move with the agent
-The software will display caller history up to the last 100 contacts with the member,
-Ability for the agent to retrieve past voice recorded calls selected from the caller history screen.
-Accurate integrated contact reporting for managers since voice and electronic mail are blended.
-Managers will use the Interaction Center Manager software to assign agents to email/chat workgroups as they choose.
-Encrypted voice and data communications through Internet protocol (VOIP) communications
-Position the credit union to use remote agents
The credit union is extremely excited about the completion of the project. With the new system in place, we believe our agents will have the tools to improve the quality of service we provide to our members. In addition, the changes will protect
our call center channel in the event of a business interruption.
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