ICMI's Customer Management Insight - January 2008 - (Page 32)

EXPERT’S ANGLE Contact Centers Face Today’s Realities: A Case for Consolidation 2.0 BY STEVE MORRELL As more U.S. organizations move toward globalized, The U.S. contact center industry comprises 57,000 operations, employing more than 5.2 million people. Although many contact centers still operate the same way they were originally designed — as single, centralized sites — there are increasing pressures within the industry to look at alternative ways of working, such as using virtual contact centers or encouraging working from home (homeworking). This growing industry trend is at the heart of a concept called Consolidation 2.0, which is designed to combine the many diverse contact center needs of the enterprise on a single platform that integrates quickly and easily with other VoIP network components, as well as the overall enterprise Information Technology environment. Consolidation 2.0 unites all communication channels and all major contact center functions for unified customer communications, revolutionizing the entire range of business and customer interactions, in formal call centers and beyond, for all information workers. In our recent research study of more than 200 contact center oper- multisite operations, the use of virtual contact centers is on the rise. ations, The U.S. Contact Center Operational Review, we explored some of the causes for the movement toward Consolidation 2.0. The chapters on Internet protocol and flexible working, sponsored by CosmoCom, highlight these findings: > The presence of multiple contact centers — possibly gained through mergers and acquisitions — that are not linked together. These also include domestic or offshore outsourced contact centers that could be run as part of a unified whole. > Increasing levels of staff attrition and difficulty in finding the right staff to replace them, a trend that also supports the use of homeworkers. > The requirement of many contact centers for better-qualified staff, rather than just “warm bodies” to answer phones. > The desire to increase the size of the contact center, which may not be possible in a particular location. The application of technological capabilities to commercial issues has created a new breed of contact center — the virtual contact center — that, although located in multiple sites, can still be run as a single entity. The virtual contact center consists of multiple physical sites (or even homeworkers) that are linked together so as to be viewed and managed as a single megasite, allowing significant economies of scale and improvements in performance to take place. (See the chart on the next page.) Linking contact centers together can be a complex task, especially in circumstances where the business has multiple types of switches and other infrastructure, perhaps as a result of merger and acquisition history. In such cases, businesses are advised to look closely at underpinning the contact centers with a single, open platform: Think of the platform on which your contact centers operate as a foundation upon which you build applications. Without a solid and scalable platform, separate applications, hardware and locations will remain isolated or will cost so much time and The U.S. Contact Center Operational Review is a free study of more than 200 contact centers. icmi’s insight The 250-page online report looks in-depth at salaries, attrition, training, multimedia, IP self-service, strategies, outsourcing, planning and many other ele, ments that are key to understanding how contact centers can best be run. Displayed in more than 200 data tables, the results have been segmented by industry sector and contact center size so that readers can compare their own operations with those that are most similar. The report, researched and authored by ContactBabel, can be downloaded from www.contactbabel.com. www.icmi.com | JANUARY 2008 32 http://www.contactbabel.com http://www.icmi.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ICMI's Customer Management Insight - January 2008

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - January 2008 Contents Customer Care Technologies Ad Index Editor's Page Contact Center Spotlight People: Prehire Tests In The Center Strategy: Video Contact Centers Show Preview Operations: Knowledge Management Industry Research Contact Centers Face Today's Realities: A Case for Consolidation 2.0 Is Your Agent Training Process Evolving with the Role? The Key to Innovation Is Maintaining Your Strengths Becoming Strategic: Using Customer Contact Analytics to Empower the Contact Center's Role

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - January 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.