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Implementing Opinion-8 in your call centre

There are a number of different ways of implementing Opinion-8 IVR surveys in a call centre, centred on how customers are transferred to the IVR survey.  Options include manual transfer, enhanced agent selection, stealth mode, and call-back.With all these modes of implementation it is possible to attach call centre information such as agent ID to the survey feedback.

(a) Manual call transfer

The simplest way of transferring calls to the automated survey system is to get agents to invite callers to take part, and then transferring any caller who wishes to take part to the telephone number of the Opinion-8 survey at the end of the call.  This is call ‘manual transfer’.  One of the problems with manual transfer, is how to avoid the potential problem of agent ‘cherry-picking’ only happy customers to transfer to the survey in order to ensure they get good feedback ratings.  If agents do not transfer a proportion of callers you will miss important feedback.  Opinion-8 offers three possible solutions to this problem, as follows:

(b)  Enhanced Agent Selection

With ‘enhanced agent selection’ transfer of callers to the survey system is still done manually by the agent, but the Opinion-8 system selects callers to whom the agent should offer a survey, either randomly or by certain criteria.  You can then run reports on the transfer rate of callers who should have been invited to take part, allowing you to spot any agents who are transferring fewer callers than others. 

(c)  Stealth Mode

For those who want to avoid agents controlling the transfer of the call to the survey system, we have developed ‘stealth mode’. With stealth mode, the caller is asked by recorded message prior to speaking to an agent whether they would like to participate in a survey at the end of their call. If they elect to do so, they are asked to hold the line at the end of their call.  The call is then automatically routed to the survey line at the end of their interaction with the live agent.

(d)  Call-back

The fourth and final option is for customers who agree to participate to be called back later.  As in stealth mode, the caller is asked by recorded message prior to speaking to an agent whether they would like to participate in a survey at the end of their call. Those who agree are then called back immediately after the end of their call.  The call-back can either be automated or carried out by the agent. With automated call-back, the Opinion-8 server immediately calls the customer back with the automated survey.  With agent assisted call-back, another agent calls the customer back immediately after the end of their call.

How should we implement Opinion-8 surveys in our call centre?

Which mode of implementation will best suit your call centre best depends on a number of factors:

• The proportion of callers you would like to survey
• Whether you want the agent to introduce the survey to the caller
• Whether you want the agent to know whether the caller has (or will) be asked to participate in a survey
• Whether you would like Opinion-8 to record the call as well as record the comments the caller had about the call
• Whether your call centre has a desktop application that helps the agent handle calls and whether that application is configurable
• Whether your call centre has IVR (Interactive Voice Response) capability
• Whether you would prefer that customers participated in a survey at the end of the same call as the interaction with the call centre, or that they be called back by Opinion-8 after the call with the call centre has terminated

Implementation methods are not mutually exclusive and can be used in combination. For example, all callers to the call centre may be invited by automated messaging to participate in a survey and told to ask the agent to transfer them to a the survey system at the end of the call if they wish to participate.  Additionally, a proportion of callers are explicitly asked by recorded message to participate in a survey, if they elect to participate by pressing the appropriate key on their telephone, they are asked to provide a telephone number they do not mind being called back on. Once the caller has provided a telephone number to be contacted on, the caller is told that they should hold the line at the end of the call and they will be automatically connected to a questionnaire. Should they forget, they will immediately be called back by the survey system.