Carrie Tuck, Director of Business Development & Strategy, AGENT511 characterizes the organization as a multi- communications technology company with more than a decade of servicing contact centers of all sizes. Prominent among their clientele are some of the largest utility companies and municipalities, who use the platform for email, voice, text and social media, offering a preference management system that enables the customer to choose how they want to be reached.

Agent511 currently has many APIs in place that they leverage to integrate with existing CRM systems; in some industries they serve, these are referred to as CIS (customer information systems). In accordance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) the platform offers opt-in capabilities and is designed to block unwanted communication messages from reaching customers. The company has published case studies of successful outcomes in improving CSAT, offering proactive communications, reducing call volume and call time, and improving access to 911 emergency services. According to Tuck, the company is very ‘text-centric’, enabling their clients to use the channel to better communicate with customers. Agent511 also allows organizations to send out video clarications detailing the elements of bills that are often too complex to be easily interpreted by customers. Citizens of the city of Chicago can use ChiText, a 2-way SMS application built from Agent511’s CITYTEXT solution, to submit requests for city services –‘please x that big pothole near me’- as well as building and restaurant violations via text. Agent511 also enables real-time weather alerts. “The fun part of our job is trying to solve the problems that our customers bring us,” said Tuck. “We are all about improving the customer experience and customer engagement. How does an organization want to reach its customers? How do the customers want to reach the company or civic entity?”

The company’s established platform makes integration easier for its customers, who also automatically receive changes and upgrades. Tuck was intrigued by the many different conversations she had at the ICMI event with businesses that went beyond Agent511’s established customer base, exploring use cases for the solution in marketing or determining NPS by measuring the effectiveness of contact center agents. She offered additional insights in answer to our inquiries.

What do businesses need to do to meet the needs of a multi-generational audience that has multiple preferences of which communication channels they want to use to interact with them?

This is my favorite topic to discuss!

Currently, there are 5 generations paying bills, each with their own preference on how they wish to communicate. It is important for businesses to keep up with evolution by reaching customers in the way they want to be reached. Preferences such as email, voice, plain-picture-video text and social media are all simple expectations at this point. Each generation tends to lean towards a certain mode of communication – iGen wants to interact via automated assistants by paying its bills through Facebook Messenger; Millennials don’t even check electronic mail, mainly relying on text as their primary form of communication; Gen X’ers still use AOL and yahoo email addresses as their classic correspondence method; and Baby Boomers become annoyed if they have to speak to an electronic voice on the telephone because they expect to talk with a live person. No matter the industry, customer engagement is the key to customer satisfaction and positive outcomes.

The simple answer to your question… they must offer every mode of communication possible: email, voice, SMS/MMS text messaging, and social media.

In what ways does your platform enable you to offer products from conception to delivery, including integration services, hosting, support, and more?

AGENT511’s experienced team has built, deployed, maintained, and upgraded a solid omni-channel communications platform, one of the very rst messaging systems, that has been integrated with a wide variety of external information systems, CRM, and call handling platforms. Our clients include the largest utility companies and cities in the US, ensuring continual improvements to our solutions as well as a feature rich roadmap.

Clients work closely with a dedicated project manager for a smooth onboarding process, priority check-ins, and quarterly business reviews. Applications are typically delivered as a managed, hosted service from the AGENT511 cloud service. However, we can accommodate requests for on-premise hosting when necessary.

We offer a multitude of established API’s such as two-way messaging, multilingual preferences, outbound messaging templates, and rules processing to trigger messages based on changes in data and history.

Unlike many service providers, we know that we work for our clients, not the other way around. Providing timely, reliable service is our priority.

How does your Enforce solution allow companies to consistently remain in compliance with TCPA standards?

AGENT511’s ENFORCE compliance engine blocks unintended communication messages from reaching customers by aggregating do not call, opt-out, blocked number, and reassigned numbers for text and voice. The hosted, open software platform self-updates with major telephony databases, 3rd party applications, and preference tools. Authorized clients interact with ENFORCE through open API’s to receive a near-instant response on whether a communication may be attempted.

ENFORCE is designed to help protect companies by collecting, managing, and storing all customer contact information to easily comply with customer communication preferences.

Can you elaborate on how your messaging applications and chatbots enhance the self-service customer experience?

AGENT511 solves complex customer engagement challenges with proactive, interactive text, email, voice, and social media communications. Ultimately, call centers are able to prove the ROI with a reduction of inbound calls and higher NPS scores.

As the need grows for an alternative to live calls and complex web searches, we provide customers with an interactive, automated assistant or chat bot with natural language processing for self-service. The platform is accessible via mobile text messaging (SMS) and Facebook Messenger, and facilitates a rich automated conversation that includes pictures, web forms, and location information. A superb 24×7 customer experience delivers real-time access to ticket updates, informational queries, and billing. We continuously expanding our knowledgebase and programming to include maps, unique web pages, and multimedia galleries. Our goal is to provide more timely, accurate, and relevant responses.

This was originally featured on crmxchange.com here.