Make Your Call Center Smarter with Business Intelligence Technology
There’s a lot of talk these days about business intelligence (BI) and how you can harness it. But how does BI directly empower call centers? Having more detailed, organized information at your fingertips can never hurt, and when it comes to customer contact, there’s almost no resource more valuable.
Let’s look at what business intelligence really means and how it can work for your call center.
The Basics of Business Intelligence
Simply put, “BI” is a broad term that covers any process or tool you use to analyze your organization’s raw data and draw meaningful conclusions and actionable leads out from it. If you have good inbound marketing systems in place, you’re already gathering vast amounts of data every day during every customer interaction.
This data is like crude oil – loaded with potential, but messy and not ready to pump into your engine. Business analytics are the processes that turn the crude oil of your data into fuel. These processes include data mining, analytics platforms, querying and reporting – sifting and refining all of your information to retrieve what you need to know, when you need to know it.
Serving Up Hot Leads
Your customer database is always growing with every new contact, but not every number you can dial is of equal value. Whether you’re calling for sales, collections or a survey, some calls are going to fulfill your goals, and others are going to fall short. Bad leads slow down operations, tie up staff and eat up resources that could be better spent connecting with the right client.
BI can provide outbound call operations with the right set of customers to connect with by searching your database for key markers of suitability. You can determine what to look for and let BI do the rest. In fact, BI is an amazing tool for helping to shape your vision of a qualified lead.
Seeing the Forest AND the Trees
It can be challenging to see broad trends emerge in your customer data while you work in the trenches making sure your day-to-day operation runs smoothly and grows healthily. Technology-based solutions can be especially powerful for helping identify statistically relevant but counterintuitive trends as they develop. In fact, BI tools are replacing the old, time-consuming practice of poring over spreadsheets trying to find the Rosetta stone that will unlock your understanding of what makes an ideal lead.
With a BI interface like the one TCN integrates into its call center software, you have access to robust reporting that can help you tailor your profile for an ideal lead. Combine this process with an outbound strategy that relies on data-based lead generation, and you’ve got a feedback loop that continuously improves the quality of your leads.
The Ultimate Crib Sheet
BI supercharges more than just outbound calling – it can help you be prepared to field any call. Any modern call center using a software-based solution gives your agents access to a dashboard or customer information screen. But the kind of information that tool offers to your employees varies widely depending on how effectively you deploy BI.
A recent Forrester study found that 64% of business and technology decision makers have difficulty getting answers from their dashboard metrics. Just because you’ve got information in front of you doesn’t mean it’s the right information.
Good BI implementation in the call center means that when you’re on the line, you’re looking at the most relevant, up-to-date intel on your client, so you know how to handle any situation. Just like lead generation, BI can help you determine what’s most valuable to have access to in any given situation by analyzing your own teams’ work.
Looking Ahead
Companies that employ BI are twice as likely to be in the top quartile of financial performance within their industries and five times as likely to make decisions much faster than market peers. Call centers are especially well suited to using the kind of information good BI provides, and the newest generation of contact center software solutions are incorporating BI directly into their programs. Don’t be left behind, give your team the BI edge.