Call Center Technology Needs A Platform Appro

Call Center Technology Needs a Platform Approach
It feels like the more technology a company deploys in its call center, the more it results in the worst customer experience possible. What used to be a personal conversation with a specific person is now a proliferation of technology channels that create more complexity for the customer and the company. Whether companies recognize it or not, in making these investments, they have assembled a digital platform operations model where the technology and the people in call center operations have become more intertwined. The problem is they did not adopt platform thinking.
Companies decomposed the customer experience for each channel (voice, text, website, or email). They built processes around that and attempted to lean out those processes into standard operating procedures (SOPs). They then brought in the lowest-cost person possible to do each task, which often moved the work offshore. This then created proximity and language issues that further complicated and deteriorated the customer experience.
All of this resulted in a rat’s nest of technology and operations that are very expensive to operate and provide a low level of customer satisfaction.
Moreover, as they become more and more technology-driven in customer experiences, companies also become more and more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Each technology surface creates a new opportunity for the black hat cyber community to attack and exploit the enterprise tech stacks.
How an Operational Platform Makes a Difference for Customer Service
An operational platform automates a process. I blogged about this several times over the past couple of years – here, for instance. In call center communications, it enables agents to know who is calling, what their needs are, and what is the next best step for that individual. It then puts the callers in touch with either the right people or the right information that allows them to advance along their customer journey.
This is far more satisfactory than a customer calling and immediately having to listen to a long list of options, which may or may not be consistent with what the individual is trying to do. Then, having selected one of the options, the caller is typically put on hold and queued up in a line for an agent. Often, that agent then finds the caller needs to be transferred to someone else, and the caller must reestablish identity and repeat information they already told an agent.
This daisy chain often continues two, three, or four times without fully resolving the problem. It results in very poor customer experience and a very expensive cost to serve.
Companies must collapse that process so that they quickly recognize who is calling or what topic information is passed on so that a caller must deal with as few interactions as possible and that their information is transferred with them.
What is Platform Thinking?
By applying platform operations principles to the customer experience and moving away from process thinking to platform thinking, a company can begin building a vision to meet business objectives and key results (OKRs) rather than technology and goals of service levels (KPIs).
The first step is to build a clear set of OKRs, the business results the company wants to accomplish from the customer experience. The OKRs align the operations team and the technology to collaboratively achieve the same results. This starts to reconceive the technology, which is ever evolving, as well as the architecture of the people or the operations organizations which are using the technology to deliver these functions.
The teams then need to decide how they want to architect the technology and the operations. Rather than adding layers and layers of technology that do independent activities – which end up creating customer friction and more cost to operate – they need to start planning where their technology and their operations function together rather than independently.
Teams need to break the planning down into a continuous journey of ongoing planning. The company can achieve desired business results faster if joint technology teams and the operation teams work collaboratively together on road maps rather than independently. The tech stack will be more important as the company drives to its OKRs.
As I have explained in the past, platform operations accelerate the pace of change in both the tech stack and business operations, necessitating different architecture than in traditional technology products and process-oriented organization designs. The tech stack and business operations constantly change and evolve, so it is necessary to architect the tech stack differently. Platform architecture focuses on creating new value. It differs from process-oriented processes, which are built for stability rather than change, and the traditional product-centric technology.
Furthermore, the tech and business operations teams must be persistent. This is critical for success. Persistent teams stay together over several years and build on their knowledge of the technology, organization, industry and team dynamics. Persistent teams continue their learning curve when business goals or tech changes occur.
Another important factor in platform thinking is the need to change the current way companies fund technology investments as they move forward and evolve a platform. Historically, tech stack investments often were considered discretionary spend and went through a series of ROI-driven initiatives with assumptions that the return on investment would happen over time. But that is not well suited to operational platform thinking, where evolving the operational platform is continual.
As a call center platform succeeds in producing value by improving customer service, improving competitive positioning, and reducing the cost to serve, a company will reallocate these investments into essential spend.

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Call Centeindia Call Centechina Call Centeusa Call Cente
Canada Call Centekuwait Call CenteAntigua and Barbuda
Call CenteArgentina Call CenteArmenia
Call Cente
Australia
Call CenteAustria
Call CenteAustrian Empire*
Azerbaijan
Call CenteBaden*
Bahamas, The
Call CenteBahrain
Call CenteBangladesh
Call CenteBarbados
Call CenteBavaria*
Call CenteBelarus
Call CenteBelgium
Call CenteBelize
Call CenteBenin (Dahomey)
Call CenteBolivia
Call CenteBosnia and Herzegovina
Call CenteBotswana
Call CenteBrazil
Call CenteBrunei
Call CenteBrunswick and Lüneburg*
Call CenteBulgaria
Call CenteBurkina Faso (Upper Volta)
Call CenteBurma
Call CenteBurundi
Call CenteCabo Verde
Call CenteCambodia
Call CenteCameroon
Call CenteCanada
Call CenteCayman Islands, The
Call CenteCentral African Republic
Call CenteCentral American Federation*
Call CenteChad
Call CenteChile
Call CenteChina
China
Call CenteColombia
Call CenteComoros
Call CenteCongo Free State, The*
Call CenteCosta Rica
Call CenteCote d’Ivoire
Call CenteCroatia
Call CenteCuba
Call CenteCyprus
Call CenteCzechia
Call CenteCzechoslovakia*
Call CenteDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Call CenteDenmark
Call CenteDjibouti
Call CenteDominica
Call CenteDominican Republic
Call CenteDuchy of Parma, The*
Call CenteEast Germany
Call CenteEcuador
Call CenteEgypt
Call CenteEl Salvador
Call CenteEquatorial Guinea
Call CenteEritrea
Call CenteEstonia
Call CenteEswatini
Call CenteEthiopia
Call CenteFederal Government of Germany *
Call CenteFiji
Call CenteFinland
Call Center Technology Needs a Platform Approach
It feels like the more technology a company deploys in its call center, the more it results in the worst customer experience possible. What used to be a personal conversation with a specific person is now a proliferation of technology channels that create more complexity for the customer and the company. Whether companies recognize it or not, in making these investments, they have assembled a digital platform operations model where the technology and the people in call center operations have become more intertwined. The problem is they did not adopt platform thinking.
Companies decomposed the customer experience for each channel (voice, text, website, or email). They built processes around that and attempted to lean out those processes into standard operating procedures (SOPs). They then brought in the lowest-cost person possible to do each task, which often moved the work offshore. This then created proximity and language issues that further complicated and deteriorated the customer experience.
All of this resulted in a rat’s nest of technology and operations that are very expensive to operate and provide a low level of customer satisfaction.
Moreover, as they become more and more technology-driven in customer experiences, companies also become more and more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Each technology surface creates a new opportunity for the black hat cyber community to attack and exploit the enterprise tech stacks.
How an Operational Platform Makes a Difference for Customer Service
An operational platform automates a process. I blogged about this several times over the past couple of years – here, for instance. In call center communications, it enables agents to know who is calling, what their needs are, and what is the next best step for that individual. It then puts the callers in touch with either the right people or the right information that allows them to advance along their customer journey.
This is far more satisfactory than a customer calling and immediately having to listen to a long list of options, which may or may not be consistent with what the individual is trying to do. Then, having selected one of the options, the caller is typically put on hold and queued up in a line for an agent. Often, that agent then finds the caller needs to be transferred to someone else, and the caller must reestablish identity and repeat information they already told an agent.
This daisy chain often continues two, three, or four times without fully resolving the problem. It results in very poor customer experience and a very expensive cost to serve.
Companies must collapse that process so that they quickly recognize who is calling or what topic information is passed on so that a caller must deal with as few interactions as possible and that their information is transferred with them.
What is Platform Thinking?
By applying platform operations principles to the customer experience and moving away from process thinking to platform thinking, a company can begin building a vision to meet business objectives and key results (OKRs) rather than technology and goals of service levels (KPIs).
The first step is to build a clear set of OKRs, the business results the company wants to accomplish from the customer experience. The OKRs align the operations team and the technology to collaboratively achieve the same results. This starts to reconceive the technology, which is ever evolving, as well as the architecture of the people or the operations organizations which are using the technology to deliver these functions.
The teams then need to decide how they want to architect the technology and the operations. Rather than adding layers and layers of technology that do independent activities – which end up creating customer friction and more cost to operate – they need to start planning where their technology and their operations function together rather than independently.
Teams need to break the planning down into a continuous journey of ongoing planning. The company can achieve desired business results faster if joint technology teams and the operation teams work collaboratively together on road maps rather than independently. The tech stack will be more important as the company drives to its OKRs.
As I have explained in the past, platform operations accelerate the pace of change in both the tech stack and business operations, necessitating different architecture than in traditional technology products and process-oriented organization designs. The tech stack and business operations constantly change and evolve, so it is necessary to architect the tech stack differently. Platform architecture focuses on creating new value. It differs from process-oriented processes, which are built for stability rather than change, and the traditional product-centric technology.
Furthermore, the tech and business operations teams must be persistent. This is critical for success. Persistent teams stay together over several years and build on their knowledge of the technology, organization, industry and team dynamics. Persistent teams continue their learning curve when business goals or tech changes occur.
Another important factor in platform thinking is the need to change the current way companies fund technology investments as they move forward and evolve a platform. Historically, tech stack investments often were considered discretionary spend and went through a series of ROI-driven initiatives with assumptions that the return on investment would happen over time. But that is not well suited to operational platform thinking, where evolving the operational platform is continual.
As a call center platform succeeds in producing value by improving customer service, improving competitive positioning, and reducing the cost to serve, a company will reallocate these investments into essential spend.

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