The Contact Center Hub

Contact VS Call Center

It is Christmas season once again and we are all gearing up to send and receive gifts. My gift to our esteemed readers is a simple analysis of the difference between a Call Center and a Contact Center.



For the uninitiated, every customer service center is a call center! But in reality there is a very big difference between a Contact Center and a Call Center.



We begin by defining a call center, which according to Wikipedia, is a centralized office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone.



A contact center on the other hand involves receiving and transmitting these requests over several media like sms, fax, telephone, web callback, e-mail, web chat, IVR (Interactive Voice Response also known as Voice Portal) and video. The common denominator is that both are operated by companies in order to manage product support or information requests from their customers.



Contact center activities can be categorized under three main headings; collections (this involves outbound dialing, e-mail, fax, chat and etc in the form of predictive or manual to remind customers of outstanding debts and get confirmation on payment dates), customer service (this involves mainly receiving inbound where customer call in for product support or information and also to give feedback on the quality of service they receive) and sales and telemarketing (this involves outbound dialing, e-mailing etc to prospective and existing customers either to cross sell or to offer new products and services).



A contact center has numerous advantages over a call center and these can be summed up with one word, CHOICE! You give the customer the ability to choose which medium to use for his/her contact with your organization. They can either e-mail, call, sms, chat and fax their requests to your company and can also be transferred from one media to another.



Other advantages include the ability to automate routine tasks using the IVR which will reduce staffing costs as customers are able to perform basic operations like account balance status without speaking to a live agent (customer service representative), the ability to do e-mail campaigns (send e-mails simultaneously to all the customers in your database to inform them about upcoming service updates or sending them Christmas greetings), the ability to do real time online support using chat capabilities and the ability to send and receive sms.



In the developed world and depending on the industry, several companies utilize the IVR as their only contact center medium. But this cannot apply to our situation in Nigeria where majority of consumers still prefer to make contact via telephone and would rather speak with a live agent than conduct their business through the IVR.



Increasingly though Nigerians are becoming aware of the advantages of using the IVR (which actually reduces the time you have to wait on the queue to speak to a live agent and also minimizes errors that might be made by humans) and e-mail as an alternative to making voice calls where capacity constraints are making it increasingly difficult for companies to service their customers efficiently.



So how will a company determine which set of contact media to use? Ask the customers! Give them the opportunity to decide what works best for them and then make it possible for them to reach you using their preferred medium.



The good news is that there are a good number of world class contact center solutions that combine all the above media in one unified solution to enable the type of customer interaction we are talking about. Some of theses unified solutions come complete with quality management tools, enterprise and voice capabilities. For more on top contact center solutions by ranking and features please visit www.gartner.com for information and research.



As the number of customer service agents increase and traffic to and from the contact center increases, the company can then start shopping for performance enhancement software like workforce management software to enable them do better forecasting, scheduling and tracking of the agents. There are also tools for campaign management (for automatic outbound dialing) which can make the sales, telemarketing and collections process more efficient and effective.



With the foregoing, it is evident that companies have the necessary tools that will enable them offer a platform for continuous and effective interaction with their customers. Personally I prefer to do my transactions with an IVR, it is faster, more accurate and most times you do not have a voice telling you "All our agents are busy at the moment your call is blah blah………"



It is clear from above that these centers offer companies a unique platform to prove to their customers that they mean what they say and say what they mean when it comes to customer service.



Having said this, there is no substitute to having the right crop of customer service tools and agents! With the right mix of resources, a contact center can act as the engine room of a company's drive for achieving excellence in the area of customer service.



Finally, I wish all our readers and the staff and management of IT edge a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!





For commentaries or suggestions please write to Ikenna@ccsnl.com 

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