Since summer, SunTrust doubled the number of customer care representatives answering e-mail to 20. If it can't find something soon, SunTrust will probably have to double the e-mail management staff again. But without it, we'll be at 40. Although e-mail has gained a reputation as being a cheaper form of communication than the phone, Booker said this is not the case at SunTrust. SunTrust also wants to add Web-based chat.
Many companies attending the conference face similar problems.
You know you have a problem when the agent picks up the mouse and puts it on the screen, and it happens. The Auto Club decided to handpick specialists to work at an Internet contact center. That's not unlike Merrill Lynch's experience. Because Genesys has e-mail management software, Merrill Lynch gets a single view of customer contact information. The hard part in Web-based CRM for Merrill Lynch wasn't the technology so much as training.