Customer Satisfaction and Agent Productivity Top Call Center Challenges

The barometer of dissatisfaction for consumers when calling into a contact center has been rising steadily over the last few years despite all of the tools, checks and balances implemented by organizations. Jacada CEO Gideon "Giddy” Hollander weighs in on the radio show, Business Technology News Hour, to discuss why he believes CRM is impeding call center agents from interacting with their customers more fully due to overly automated processes and complex CRM systems.

"I believe that CRM systems were not originally built to help your call center agents talk to your customers, they were built to manage the customer. Traditional CRM solutions route and re-route customers through automated processes and wind up making seemingly simple tasks into very long and drawn out processes,” said Hollander. "You could say that ultimately CRM creates expensive customer conversations.”

This is not to say that Giddy believes that CRM systems are useless or do not drive value within an enterprise. CRM systems are critical to many departments including, sales, marketing, legal, and procurement. However, for the call center agent there are many tasks and features within a CRM system that are irrelevant to their functions, which actually slows down their call process.

Call center agents need to be able to move quickly through their user interface to get to the heart of the matter for the customer. As a result of internal research, Giddy states that they have found that most of Jacada’s customers are not as concerned with the length of the call, but rather that it gets resolved.

"It’s easier to measure average handle time versus first call resolution – whether they call again or not,” Hollander said. "The shortest route an agent has to take to increase their first call resolution is far and away the primary concern of our customers. When agents have to work through a cumbersome CRM system they are wasting precious time. We believe there is a better tool for agents to use than a CRM system.”

To listen to excerpts from the Business Technology News Hour interview, visit http://www.jacada.com/blog/business-technology-news-hour-interview.

About Jacada

Jacada provides solutions that optimize and improve the effectiveness of customer service interactions. Jacada agent desktop and process optimization solutions help companies reduce the cost of their operations, drive customer satisfaction and provide a complete return on investment within the first year after deployment.

Founded in 1990, Jacada operates globally with offices in Atlanta, USA; London, England; Munich, Germany; Herzliya, Israel; and Stockholm, Sweden. More information is available at www.Jacada.com.