Contact Centre Performance Optimisation for Outbound Collections and Telemarketing: Aspect Software

Author: Aspect Software

Date: 26th February 2011

All contact centers face a common and continual challenge – how to best maximize staff performance without needing to add headcount when call and list volumes increase, unexpected spikes in delinquencies occur or new proactive calling campaigns are identified.

Contact Center Performance Optimization synchronizes people, processes and technology to help solve the problems associated with the management and allocation of staff resources, as well as those related to outbound contact optimization. Applying a closed-loop process to Contact Center Performance Optimization, a manager can increase right party contact rates so as to improve promise to pay rates and/or sales. This process protects existing technology investments by maximizing their use and helps balance account volumes against a given agent resource pool, ensuring that contact center goals are met and exceeded.

The goal of closed-loop Contact Center Performance Optimization is to help organizations “work smarter, not harder.” It means synchronizing processes and tools – including workforce management, quality management, interaction optimization and performance management – to better align contact center goals with business performance.

Business Challenge

Any manager running an outbound contact center is well aware of the daily tactical challenges such as: continually trying to improve agent performance and morale, agents calling in sick, the availability of new calling lists, system outages, implementation of new policies and procedures, agent and supervisory attrition, customer experience and more. Contact center managers have to assimilate hundreds of business intelligence data points and utilize this information, often in a semi-automated environment, to create contact strategies, provide premium customer service and try and meet stated performance targets to grow revenues and minimize losses. As a result, organizations continuously search for solutions that enable them to profitably manage outbound customer interactions.

Contact Center Performance Optimization helps resolve these staff resource issues from an allocation and efficiency perspective, and maximizes successful customer contact for collections, telemarketing and proactive outbound campaigns. It allows contact center management to focus on what they do best – managing and coaching their people to ensure that target goals are met and exceeded.

Maximising Right Party Contact Rates

Working smarter means maximizing contacts with customers and reaching them with a single connect, rather than multiple attempts, to close the deal – whether that means collecting a past due amount, solving a problem, or selling a product or a service.

One of the biggest challenges facing collections, telemarketing and proactive outbound contact centers today is effectively managing customer lists for optimized contact rates. Identifying which customers are more apt to make payments or be at home in order to be able to hear a sales pitch determines how successful list management truly is.

List management strategies that place a heavy emphasis on list penetration rates are less sophisticated in their contact approach. It is not uncommon to see 350 percent penetration rate goals for contact lists. This offers diminishing returns over time as there are only so many right party contacts, payment promises and/or sales to be made in any given list. It is a brute force mentality that states “If I try hard enough and long enough, something is bound to go my way.” Throwing infinite numbers at a given list to get all of the possible right party contacts is always a possibility, but such an approach is usually tempered by budget allocation. Creating a strategic list management approach that achieves the same result without requiring additional staff or increased effort is the better approach.

Aspect Software

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