Universal vs. specialized agents

[Philippa]

I'm a Team Manager in a 24x7x365 inbound call center. Currently we separate agents into sales, service and support queues. However, a support agent will "sell" the customer and then transfer the call to the sales queue for the sale to be processed. I am currently campaigning my senior managers to move from this single queue system to a universal agent system, as I do not feel this best serves the customer. We do not deal with email or web calls at this time. We have advanced IVR, CTI and CRM systems and can easily adapt to skills-based routing.

I would really appreciate anyone's data, statistics and experiences that will support this move, as well as areas of concern.

Thanks
Philippa

[csteven]

Sounds good to me as the second task doesn't sound too complicated.

I work in a call center for a cellco. Sometimes we expect our guys to know too much. e.g. promotions in multiple markets, call charges, types of mobile phone problems, etc. It's way too much. Your guys may have the same probs if they sell multiple products. If so, you may want to have them specialize in a few of the prods & the corresponding steps needed to process the order.

Good luck.

Steve

[akoch]

2 years ago we made in europe with HP the same changes.

implemented a "Welcomedesk" for all HP endusers.

Target:
the front agent is able to answer at least 80% of ALL cases (presales, sales, support, orders,...)
we also setup a back office with employees who are working in the frontoffice and the backoffice aswell.

Why should you try that:
- makes the job more interessting for the employees
--> more motivation --> you get the most back of your investmen----> hold fluctuation on a minimum (less training cots for new employees,...)
- customer has ONE representative for different kinds of cases
- no connects for customer (more satisfaction)
- chance for cross - selling
- supports direct sales

if you need more informations
please let me know

alex