Customer Interaction Solutions likely make you think of longer term OPEX savings. Fortunately, reality is far more exciting. Our real-world cases have shown positive return on investment within five months.

End-users are increasingly looking for higher level and more personal customer service. In response, according to a Meta Group study, many operators are trying to improve customer care.

The resulting trend is toward investment in Customer Interaction Solutions (CIS), such as Computer Telephony Integration and Multi Channel Access for enhanced Contact Centres, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). This signals a new attitude where the focus is on the customer at all levels, replacing the old axiom of "manufacture and sell" with "understand and satisfy".

A mobile operator's CIS investment has become a strategic decision. To successfully implement a customer-oriented business, operators need to take a comprehensive approach. The staff, the organization and the supporting technology must work in harmony with and oriented towards customer satisfaction.

CIS and CRM applications may be implemented singly or jointly. So nothing stands in the way of integrating existing legacy systems, such as customer care applications.
Operators will know they are going in the right direction if they stay focused on three clear objectives: 

• Increasing revenue by providing easy access at all times, through any channel and via a single point of contact, by keeping in touch with your customer base and by selling to them new added value services. 
• Improving customer satisfaction through personal and skilled assistance, short waiting times, efficient call handling, continuous availability, multimedia access and more. 
• Controlling and reducing operational costs by automating manual activities, by delivering answers to customer requests faster, through quicker intervention, and by ensuring that calls are received by the right contact with the right skills. 

• Has the integrator successfully realized complex contact center projects in a multi vendor environment? 
• Beyond the standard service, are you offered an integrated solution customized at the front and proven in the field? 
• Does the integrator act as a prime contractor ensuring the planning, design, deployment, integration, operation and maintenance phase of the whole project? 
• Does the integrator have the resources, know how and a valid roadmap to ensure continuity in the future? 
• What is the business case? 
• Is the OPS built on a platform that allows in-sourcing and multisite use in one? 
• How does the system manage call handling, agent interfaces, operating, system assistance, routing strategies and statistics? 
• Can customers administer their Interactive Voice Response (IVR) strategies via a simple web interface and make changes to reflect the rapidly changing business environment? 
• Can enterprise customers with an operator hosted solution receive alarms via any media on such metrics as service level? Can they then react instantly regardless of location via a web portal or voice recognition platform to immediately change the parameters of their network routing?