Four Steps Leading to the Intelligent Customer Front Door

Four Steps Leading to the
intelligent Customer Front DoorT
Customer loyalty is a two-way street. Businesses around the world are finding greater success at winning, serving and retaining customers when they are able to respond quickly and effectively whenever they call. intelligent Customer Front DoorT (iCFD) is a metaphor that describes a set of applications and technological resources that enable businesses to identify callers and quickly aggregate information about them to assist in successfully resolving their needs. Implementing the iCFD is an incremental process that involves integrating self-service and intelligent routing with contact center applications. Many firms are farther along than their managers might think in terms of implementing iCFD. This document illustrates a simple set of "steps toward iCFD" to help you locate your progress and readiness for full-blown implementation.

January 2009
Dan Miller Sr. Analyst
Opus Research, Inc. 300 Brannan St., Suite 305 San Francisco, CA 94107 For sales inquires please e-mail info@opusresearch.net or call +1(415)904-7666 This report shall be used solely for internal information purposes. Reproduction of this report without prior written permission is forbidden. Access to this report is limited to the license terms agreed to originally and any changes must be agreed upon in writing. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believe to be reliable. However, Opus Research, Inc. accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the content or legality of the report. Opus Research, Inc. disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Further, Opus Research, Inc. shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein may not necessarily coincide with the opinions and viewpoints of Opus Research, Inc. and are subject to change without notice. Published January 2009 © Opus Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Four Steps to the Intelligent Customer Front Door Page 1

iCFDT: A Concept Whose Time Has Come Rapid recognition of and response to your customers' needs, wishes and requirements are key to providing excellent customer service. Installing and maintaining the applications, routing infrastructure, databases and business rules that support timely and appropriate response to phone calls has been packaged by Genesys Telecommunications Labs and its partners as the "intelligent Customer Front Door" (iCFD). It is a powerful metaphor that enables companies to provide unprecedented power to their customers by immediately understanding the context and purpose of their calls in order to route them to the resources that can fulfill their demands. As Figure 1 illustrates, customers reveal much about themselves every time they call or visit an e-commerce Web site. Back-office systems, starting with customer relationship management (CRM) software, can capture and store a customers' status so that it can be put to use to provide better service in a future call. But this only works to the customers' advantage when access to the metadata is made as soon as a new call lands at the companies' interactive voice response (IVR) system. That's the threshold of the iCFD.
Figure 1 - iCFD Putting Customer Knowledge to Work
Source: Opus Research (2009)
© 2009 Opus Research, Inc. Four Steps to the Intelligent Customer Front Door Page 2
The iCFD is the mechanism that enables companies to identify incoming callers as soon as a call is answered and to treat each caller properly, based on information (or "metadata") from a number of sources, including the originating number, location, past interactions, preferences and other status indicators. The iCFD makes enterprises more responsive to their customers and callers. This has become especially important as a growing number of calls now originate from mobile phones. Mobile callers have less patience than ever before to be placed on hold, and they exhibit no tolerance for "self-service" or triage applications that fail to complete their request or deliver them to the right person. The integration of voice processing and call routing resources with back-office systems for customer care and contact center managemen... [download for more]