Real-Time Resolution for the Modern Contact Center

Using Skype for Business for the Modern Contact Center

Join me on September 19 at 11 PT when I will host a discussion with Darryl Addington, Director of Product Marketing at Five9 and Corey Cross, Key Systems Engineer with Amsurg about how to implement a real-time customer engagement center using Skype for Business and Five9. 

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If you’re like many organizations, you’ve deployed Microsoft Skype for Business to improve worker productivity and efficiency. Skype for Business has come a long way in the past few years, with features and capabilities being added or enhanced, including UCC capabilities such as call control, IM, presence, conferencing, meetings, and PSTN voice. While Skype for Business provides a wealth of benefits to most workers, it lacks full-featured contact center capabilities.

Organizations that have deployed or will be deploying Skype for Business need to work with a third-party contact center provider that has integrated its solution to leverage Skype for Business’ PBX and PSTN calling capabilities. Integrating a cloud contact center service with Skype for Business offers several key benefits. Businesses can leverage Skype for Business’ basic call control, and combine it with the queueing, routing, and reporting capabilities of a cloud contact center service to provide a more complete customer engagement solution.

But wait, there’s more! For years I’ve been talking and writing about expanding beyond the walls of the formal contact center to enable subject matter experts to assist contact center agents in order to provide first contact resolution (FCR). Thanks to UC and cloud-based contact center solutions, this is finally becoming a reality. By leveraging a company’s UC capabilities, contact center agents can view the presence status and availability of subject matter experts throughout the organization, regardless of location or device being used, and send an IM to ask an available expert for information while on the call with the customer. As over 10% of all telephone inquiries handled by contact center agents require some sort of assistance from subject matter experts in various parts of the organization, it’s important be able to reach out to a product specialist who can answer a technical question about a product, or someone in marketing who knows the details of a new promotion, etc. These subject matter experts can help the contact center agent quickly resolve the customer’s problem or inquiry, resulting in greater customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty. By streamlining the interaction between contact center agents and an extended team of experts, organizations can tap into expertise across their organization simply and quickly. I call this “Real-time resolution.”

The list of contact center vendors that have integrated their products or services with Skype for Business is growing, as the need for a well-integrated solution is critical. I spoke recently with Corey Cross, Key Systems Engineer of AMSURG, one of the largest surgery center management companies in the U.S., who described how they use Five9’s cloud contact center with Skype for Business to better handle patient claims and run their in-house service desk. AMSURG moved to Skype for Business as its phone system several years ago and needed to replace their legacy call center product to one that has been integrated to work with Skype for Business and leverage its call control and PBX capabilities. After a failed attempt with one product, the company turned to Five9. According to Cross, “Skype for Business and Five9 provide a single pane of glass. All of our agents have Skype for Business licenses, and they can go to their Five9 enhanced address book and see all of the Skype contacts in the company, and easily send them an IM or conference them when needed.” In addition, everything is HIPAA compliant, as Cross notes, “Being able to securely establish a line of communication between Five9 and Skype for Business is key.” AMSURG gets added functionality from Five9, while improving the customer and agent experience.

On September 19 at 11 PT, I’ll be participating in a webinar with Five9 to discuss how they integrate their cloud contact center service with Skype for Business and provide real-time resolution. I’ll be discussing Real-Time Resolution, while Cross will talk about AMSURG’s experience replacing their legacy Contact Center solution with Five9 and how agents use it in conjunction with Skype for Business to better handle patient claims and run their in-house service desk.

I hope you’ll join us for this webinar to learn how you can help your agents be more effective while making your customers happier faster.