Has anybody heard of such service to top (platinum) private & SOHO customers (dedicated Agents, special IVR, etc.)
Should it be payable extra or free ?

not sure what you mean.

We have customers here who talk to the same agent everytime.

If a feature of business costs you more than you should pass it on. I have 3 basic levels of priority "shifting" currently with many other variables (time of day, area code, etc, etc)

Adam,

It is possible for call centres to prioritise their callers be they VIP's Angry Callers, Repeat Callers etc. A very simplistic way of doing this is assigning different access numbers for a group. They then can be delivered to specific agents etc.

Other ways are to use either identification upfront by using the callers inbound telephone number (if not barred) or through an IVR whereby the customer has entered their Account number etc.

Effective call routing is a must to maximise the available resources in any call centre. Even if the calls are delivered to the same group of agents. There are plenty of solutions available in the market place that can help you achieve this - it all depends on how much money and time you want to spend on this.

Out of curiousity, what is your definition of a VIP for your company?

Stuart Williams
i-call.co.uk

It should be free. If i understand correctly you are handling T-mobile, what do u mean by VIP? If you explain probably we could help in guiding.

It should be free.

I suppose it would depend if it was a) YOU initiating who a "VIP" is, ie: high spending/big client.

or b) the client wanting a higher level of service.

IME a dedicated tele number, IVR with password or simple identification by the agent at the front line can be used to identify and differentiate the service.

As with the comments below how you apply it depends largely upon why.

If you are offering a VIP service as a contract option that is chargeable and purchased knowingly by the customer then i would go with an dedicated tele number and use your telecoms system to priorotise and route these calls to a specific group of agents. (Or dedicated agents if you can.) Your call processes can take over from there. On any VIP type level service in my industry we'd also be inclusing pro-active activities and plenty of communication to demonstrate the value we are providing.

If you are offering a VIP service to try to retain certain customers or delay with unhappy customers and they will not have knowledge of it then I would try to go for an IVR solution or agent identification at first point of contact.

At a slight tangent as a customer if an agent told me i had suddendly become a VIP customer and i wasn't aware of it I'd be slightly suspicious that it was just a marketing term with little substance. Being clear internally about what you want this VIP term to mean should get you thinking about how it could be done. Managing the communication to your customers about the purpose of the VIP service is also key to it's success.

Good luck