Hi,

General views please.

Is there a place for SMS technology to be used in call centres? Be it outbound receipting / updates / internal uses.

What would you feel are the main benefits of this technology?

Is it a value add technology?

Many thanks for your views!

BT already use SMS to keep customers up to date on fault calls. I have found this useful in the past as I have not had to be answering my phone whilst up to my elbows in problems. Only problem is the SLA on SMS. It can take upto 72hrs for an SMS to arrive. And SMS has the lowest bandwith priority on the cells.

Just my thoughts.

RAC use it to give you an Estimated time of arrival when you ring for breakdown assistance. If you call from a mobile, this is captured automatically and they text you when the van is on its way from its last job.

(Or so I surmised from breaking down a few months ago!)

It depends on the call centre. I can't see a use for it in some environments (other than advertising) but excellent for others.

The above example was really good for me for the customer service aspect - the wow factor, as the text I received was unexpected. It also probably made the wait seem shorter! I knew they hadn't forgotten about me, and the end of the wait was in sight.

(However I've got to say that as my battery was low, having made the breakdown call, receiving the text nearly flattened the battery totally which wouldn't have pleased me had it prevented me from making another call - yes, down to my poor battery management than RAC, but a breakdown is the sort of situation where you need to make calls eg advising late to pick up children, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who is bad at remembering to charge! A small whingy point, but what pleases some will irritate others. Customers eh - never happy!!)

There are many applications for SMS technology within Call Centres, with regard to internal comms and managing / resourcing call centre staff. Many organisations are using SMS as part of a process formalising their crisis management procedures, providing a quick and effective method of communication.

With regard to business to customer SMS, I would welcome further discussion as the benefits are less clear. SMS confirmations for apointment ETA's seem one good method of delivering improved customer service.

A good general introduction to SMS can be found on

www.netsize.com

The following 2 companies also provide trial services and have a good range of free tools to allow you to test the water.

www.esendex.com
www.2sms.com

I would welcome any other comments

I work for a company which provides services to the contact centre industry and we have provided an SMS system to a number of companies for collections. They send an sms to customers who have fallen into debt asking them to call a number. This number is for the call centre and when on the phone they arrange repayments. It works very well.

As we are the Contact Centre for Volvo breakdowns, our coordinators also use SMS message to either pass addresses from workshops or passing ETA's to our customers and to be honest, this indeed has a very nice effect.

There is however one problem that might totally change the customer perception ... what about lag times from providers. Imagine your sms being submitted to a lag time of a couple of hours and only arriving when your customer has the mechanic in front of him or when he had ot ask for directions himself ...

I also use SMS within my operation.
We send an SMS message if we have been unable to contact a customer who we think has fraud on their account.

For us the system works brilliantly - SMS is our best way of leaving a message in terms of response rate - much better than letters or answering machine messages, and the operational cost is lower than sending a letter.

An interesting point is that we don't mention fraud in the message (which could be a reason why our response rate was so good) - we just ask the customer to call us. 70% of SMS messages are responded to within an hour.
Bandwidth/lag hasn't been a problem for us either - the company we use find the quickest route, and almost all messages are delivered straight away.

I too utilise SMS technology for contacting customers. I am looking at a new product with effectively multiple sim cards in a server that can check the network of the outgoing message prior to sending it on the same network, thus making further cost savings.

Also, it would not be a good idea to get too specific in the message in the UK due to the DPA - there is always the chance that the intended recipient does not pick up the call therefore you run the risk of personal data falling into the wrong hands. I only leave who we are, contact number and reference. This wont mean anything if someone else gets the message by accident therefore adhering to the DPA.

G.™

Gary. Be careful spending too much time checking what provider the 'customer' is on. As in the UK because of porting there is no guarantee that the number is with the original provider. For example with us some of our mobiles have gone from Vodafone to O2 and now to Orange.

PaulD-S

I agree - this is a very good point.

I had considered using premicell technology (with a sim card) to send SMS, but the only way we had of checking network was with the dialling code. This, as Kavan says, is very error prone. Someone once told me that about 40% of numbers are now ported although I don't know how much truth there is in that. The trouble is that it can end up quite expensive if you don't send the SMS via the correct SIM. The upside of having premicell style devices installed is that you can configure your switch to route call traffic to them as well.

In the end we decided to use a specialist SMS company as it removed the need for any capital outlay and the per-text charges were similar. The company we used were very good and gave us a COM object to integrate with our applications, which made software development very simple.

Regards,
Darryl
www.darrylbeckford.co.uk

SMS represents yet another channnel or communication between service provider and their customer...another touchpoint.

SMS can be integrated into the IB or OB queues so it then becomes another point of entry into the customer contact dialogue. The key in any analysis becomes the cost to particpate versus the adoption rate. The utilization of SMS or any other emerging technology must make financial sense.

If I can I be of further assistance please feel free to email me directly at ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com

Regards,


Colin

Has anyone else tried the new SMS service I've heard about?
Apparently you can send a text to a landline. The landline then rings & the message is read out. It sounds very interesting, although I'm not sure how comprehensible a robot voice would be, particularly with "sms language".

I'd be interested to hear anyone's experience with this.

Gareth

Gareth

I have only come accross this with BT call minder. Any phone that has call minder can recieve a text message and translates this into a voice message. This is done without prompt at either end. I only found out about it by accident, when I stupidly sent a text to the wrong number option in my address book, and completely freaked out my friend who assumed I had joined some government agency!

Not done any objective testing to see how good the translation is, but would be easy enough to do - get BT call mider (1571) and text yourself a few variants to see the result.

I don't have call minder and received an automated call the other telling me I had an sms to my landline and to press whatever if I wanted to hear it.

But didn't try it out, was still trying to decide if it was a call us at £1m per min type scam when thetext was resent to my mobile anyway.

(so not that good a story, or adding anything of substance to this thread then really, except may be avail without callminder!)

Hi Zoe,

Automated call...that *might* be illegal.

Don't s'pose you know what company was operating the service?

Regards,
Darryl
www.darrylbeckford.co.uk

Bt has intriduced the ability to receive SMS on your landline. And you cant turn it off. I get plagged with SMS messages badly spoken to me from people dialling the wrong number.

Also what is it with BT using your 1571 for direct marketing.

Do BT have the right to introduce an obviously intrusive service and not provide some opt-out mechanism? Surely the TPS would have something to say about this? Or Oftel (that often toothless organisation)...?

John

Often toothless?...try always.
Though to be fair, OFTEL have the teeth but they can't be bothered to use them.

According to the EC Priv. & E-comm directive then:
* SMS has to be opt-in. OFTEL don't seem to police that.
* Telephone can remain opt-out, although completely automated calls are illegal. OFTEL don't seem to police that.

If someone sends an Marketing SMS to your landline then it's breaking both of these, surely?

Also what is it with BT using your 1571 for direct marketing

How does that work? I haven't been unfortunate enough to be hit by that one yet.

Regards,
Darryl
Glossary now online at www.darrylbeckford.co.uk

register article

Have fun :-)

DaveA

Saw this which does it the otherway round - enables texting from a landline, to mobile or landline... don't know why ;o)

magic messanger



this is the BT one...
text to landline