A Multi-Channel Strategy Based on Real-Time Data

The call center has long been an obstacle for banks trying to design a truly integrated multi-channel customer experience. While the web-based mobile, online and social media channels overlap in many ways, the call center is by its nature more difficult to integrate with those web-based channels. NICE Systems, a customer transactions and interactions solutions provider, is now targeting the call center for integration into a multi-channel strategy by providing call center agents with decisioning tools based on analyzing structured and unstructured data in real time.

To that end NICE recently announced its acquisition of Causata, a provider of web-based analytics and machine learning technologies, which, when combined with NICE’s call center solutions, can help organizations to improve real-time decisioning, NICE said in a statement. “This will help banks take advantage of real-time data for personalized offers based on real-time and historical interactions,” Aviad Abiri, vice president of NICE Systems’ portfolio business development, explained.

This will help banks integrate their web-based and their customer-assisted channels like the call center, Abiri noted. By combining NICE’s real-time decisioning tools for call center agents with Causata’s ability to crunch large amounts of structured and unstructured data in real time, call center agents will be able to know why a customer is calling based on their previous interactions, typical transaction behavior and web traffic.

[See Related: 4 Predictions About the Future of the Call Center]

If a customer web searches show that they are a new parent, for example, the bank can send an online ad for a college savings plan to that customer, Abiri explained. The customer can then call about different credit options, and before being sent to the call center’s main menu will receive a prompt to forward them to an agent who can tell them about the college savings plan offer.

“We can match the right agent to the customer because we already know why they’re calling,” Abiri remarked.

This integration will allow call center agents to better cross sell to customers by providing them with personalized offers in real time, he added. It will reduce call times and help banks gain new efficiencies in their call centers, and can benefit banks in a number of use cases including CFPB compliance and security.

For instance, call center agents will be able to look at customer behavior, including recent transactions and web traffic, to help authenticate customers during calls. NICE is looking into adding this authentication capability to a voice biometrics solution to provide multi-layered security in the call center.

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio