The Contact Center Blog

"On Hold" Video

Here's a great video from RightNow Technologies...

Voice, Chat, Email… Video?

When I first started in this industry a few years ago, one of the first questions that came to mind was the plausibility of outsourced support that featured a live video feed between consumer and agent.

One service delivery model I envisioned at the time had to do with paid search. I thought it would be revolutionary if, as a consumer, you were to scroll over a paid search engine advertisement- and there to assist you was a live person via a video window pop up. This person could invite you into their ecommerce store and could help with placing an order or provide customer service.

I had not given this idea much thought recently until the beginning of the month when in the New York Times I discovered that Google was about to begin testing video ads on search results pages. Now this is not a live link to customer service agents, but I would argue it is definitely a step in that direction.

After reading the Times article, I decided to research ‘video support’ further and it turns out there is a formal term for this technology/service: ‘Interactive Voice and Video Response’. CosmoCom, a provider of contact center technology provides a video demonstration of this type of support here.

IVVR is apart of what industry experts are calling Call Center 2.0.

According to Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) President Rich Tehrani ‘video will play a huge part of call center 2.0. Call centers will video-enable themselves to increase the customer service of phone calls. In some cases conversations will be 2-way video enabled in other cases the benefits of having video calls will be so obvious that all call centers will scramble to show their agent’s faces.’

We have seen call centers become contact centers, and service offerings grow from simple phone support to email and live chat assistance options being available; I wonder if IVVR will be the next big step forward, and I look forward to hearing other people’s thoughts on the matter.

How Do You Maximize Existing Customer Revenue Potential?

One of the most valuable ways to increase your bottom line is by expanding the services of existing customers.  In the call center industry there are a number of ways to accomplish this via technology enhancements, quality assurance improvements, up sell marketing offers, chat, email utilization, fulfillment and IVR. 

At my company we utilize a wide network of partner experts to provide non-core call center services to enhance value, grow the customer and deepen the relationship.  On example is in the area of servicing  fulfillment.  Through strategic relationships we are able to service our customers enhanced needs with one contact person and one contract.  In addition we are able to offer preferred pricing that the customer would not be able to find on their own. 

What best practices has your company used to maintain an operational focus and still have a focus on program enhancements for customers once they are on service?

"Contact Center" versus "Call Center"

In my experience when talking to prospective clients and industry professionals, many use the word “call center” and “contact center” interchangeably. Despite semantics, these two are very different and can mean different things for a client.

So, what’s the big difference?

A call center is solely voice focused. Call center agents will answer phone calls from customers, partners, internal employees, or anyone else trying to reach the company. A contact center, on the other hand, answers voice calls but also has multi-channel capabilities. Agents have the training and technology support to answer phones, chats, web-based calls (VoIP) and emails. Contact centers are also referred to as “web-enabled call center” or a “customer interaction center”. In everyday conversation, call and contact are used synonymously. However, essentially, a call center is part of a contact center.

With today’s technologies, it is essential that call center become web enabled and evolve into contact center. We are in an industry that is so attached to the word “call center” even though clients may require more than just voice support.

Five years ago, 24-7 INtouch evolved into a contact center to meet the demands of our online focused clientele. Although voice still represents a large part of our business, there is much growth in answering chat and emails for our clients and will continue to grow as Internet adoption rates increase for these web based tools.

Even though many clients call still call us a call center, we are multi-channel and can do much more than just answer phone calls. Think of joining a fitness center and only using the weight machines “(i.e. the call center portion), but you have access to the swimming pool and squash court too!

MK

Welcome to the Contact Center Blog!

Well folks, here it is, finally, at long last, the contact center blog has arrived.  What is the contact center blog you ask?  The general idea was to create a blog where people who are stakeholders in contact center outsourcing companies, whether it be clients, suppliers, partners, or even outsourcers themselves can have open discussions on all things contact center.   Whether it be topics like operations, new technology, driving volumes, workforce, human resources or whatever, we want to encourage open and honest communication in our industry.

I'm sure your next question is "who the heck is this guy?"  Well, my name is Greg Fettes, and I am the President and CEO of 24-7 INtouch, a contact center outsourcer based in Canada.  You can check out my LinkedIN profile or visit the about us area on the 24-7 INtouch website.  At the risk of sounding too "salesy" (a big no-no on this blog from here on!), we have been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in Canada two years in a row and pride ourselves in being a true leader in innovation for technology, process, and management in contact centers.  In fact, that is the underlying reason this blog got started.  It was a way to create a community that will push the industry in a new direction.  In the coming months you will see guest authors from inside and outside the contact center world make posts on different issues concerning contact centers.  But here's the trick; we are depending on you, the readers, to make comments and push discussions forward.  Maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, or maybe you have experiences that you can share that will bring the conversation in a new direction.  We will not be censoring posts or comments for any reason (except vulgarity of course!) so you will be free to absolutely speak your mind.   Anyways, enough background already, lets get on to the blog!

My plan for posting comments on the contact center blog will be to follow a somewhat similar format each week.  I am hoping to post regularly once per week on Mondays and have a few random posts throughout the week.  Please feel free to give feedback on the blog in general as my goal is to make it as useful and informative as possible.

Thanks and happy blogging!

GF