Telemarketing & Call Center Solutions ,  Sep 1997   by Didonna, Nila 

In our industry the primary stock in trade is often service rather than product. This is particularly true for tour operators who base their entire revenue stream on selling travel packages through third-party travel agencies. Successful operators understand that these agencies can - if the support and service they receive does not meet expectations - make their own arrangements or take their business to another operator.

This is why Certified Vacations, a wholesale tour operator specializing in leisure vacation packages, has expended so much effort training our reservation agents. With all reservations being made through these agents. Certified Vacations could simply not be successful unless agents provided the highest possible level of service to callers.

While technology can certainly facilitate the ability of agents to answer calls faster. only training and hands-on experience can empower them with the knowledge necessary to completely fulfill the general information requests travel agents - and their customers - may have regarding destinations.

As a result, all of our reservation agents are required to visit the destinations for which they take reservations. Then. to ensure that travel agent calls are always handled by an appropriately trained reservationist, all callers are first greeted by an automated attendant that prompts them to enter a numher associated with a specific area. Pressing "1." for example, routes callers to a reservation agent destination expert -- familiar with Florida destinations. Other groups have been established for Hawaii, the Caribbean, western Europe. eastern Europe, Ski/Canada. Alaska, and Las Vegas/California.

The first skill grouping for all agents is Florida; other destinations are considered to require higher skill levels. As reservation agents gain experience with Certified Vacations, they are sent to additional geographic areas to experience firsthand the travel and leisure opportunities at these destinations. These new destinations are then added to their skill profiles.

Using a feature of our call center platform (a Definity G3r from Lucent Technologies) called Expert Agent Skills (EAS), these profiles serve as the basis for routing calls. With the resultant skills-based routing, an agent skilled in Hawaii. for example, can receive inquiries relating to Hawaii when these calls are in queue, but at other times the agent can receive Florida-related calls instead.

To optimize response time to callers, calls are also routed on the basis of a number of preprogrammed instructions, or vectors. With call vectoring, we can route calls on the basis of a wide range of factors -- including time of day. day of week, number of calls in queue or time in queue-and then treat the calls so routed in different ways. For example, when more than a certain number of calls are in queue, or when wait time has exceeded a certain pre-specified limit, callers can be given the option of leaving a voice mail rather than waiting on hold. Vectoring also lets us tailor the treatment of calls based upon the number dialed.

To ensure that we are always adequately staffed in each skill level. we rely on a Lucent package called the Call Management System (CMS) to track call statistics in both half-hour and daily increments. As a result, we have been able to determine when peak call volumes are likely to occur for each skill group. Reports generated hy the system also help track agent performance by talk time, off time and numerous other parameters. Agents are also empowered to monitor their own performance through displays on their telephones that indicate information such as the number of calls in queue. With this capability, if an agent is not logged into the system, but sees that queues are too long, he or she can log on and help shorten the queue.

With 20,000 daily calls to process, and just 300 reservation agents. optimizing call handling processes with skills-based routing and call vectoring is critical. By monitoring the performance of these systems. as well as agent performance. we are able to ensure that our customers always receive the services they deserve.

Nila DiDonna, senior manager, telecommunications, is responsible for all voice applications and wide area network solutions for Certified Vacations. She has been working with the company for 13 years.

Copyright Technology Marketing Corporation Sep 1997
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