Positioning the Contact Center (Part 5 of 5)
By Jeremy Lee

Many of today’s Contact Centers are multi-channel; allowing customers and organizations to interact with one another through the telephony system, web and written communication. Such interaction can be initiated by either party. There upon rises the opportunity for the integrated sales, marketing and customer service opportunity.

The Contact Center as a sales tool can be either inbound or outbound. Inbound sales usually involve advertisements or commercials to attract customers to a product (can be a good or a service). Interested customers are then encouraged to contact the organization via one of their communication channels. For outbound sales, usually telemarketing, SMS blast or email blasting is used to get customers to response. In both the above cases the contact center is providing a sales service to customers.

On the other hand, the contact center can be providing a solution or information to the customer in the form of customer service. That is when the customer initiates first contact to an organization through one of the channels, thus beginning the customer service experience

The other beauty of contact centers is that it provides opportunities for organizations to consistently be in contact with their customers. This allows them to understand how quickly the requirements of a customer, segment, or marketplace changes. Giving them real time data on how their customers perceive the organization, the products and services. Without real-time communication, a company quickly loses critical intelligence and customer loyalty. Some organizations even use contact center agents to survey chat rooms to gather up-to-date information from unsuspecting customers.

In today’s environment, an organizations success lies in its ability to create a branded customer experience. To create such experience the product that the organization sells and the service that comes with it is a total package. There should not be any distinctions between the two as customers do not perceive them (goods and service) as separate, they are an integrated whole. This implies that the company must also reinvent itself in terms of its hierarchy structure, culture, process, technology and peoples mindset, working in harmony in a seamlessly linked environment where customer information is constantly updated.

The beauty of such change is that it can start here in the contact center. Sales, marketing and customer service can all be under one roof, managed by one individual with appropriately linked strategies and performance measures. For the first time, front line departments can have a holistic view of their customers and customers can experience an organization speaking in unison. No more multiple calls to several people within an organization; only one voice. That implies that all the above can be handle by the same person. A person trained to handle sales, customer service and information gathering, a multi-skilled knowledge worker.

Ultimately the contact center will be the main point of contact with customers. It will be the “face” of the organization with the ability to handle all customer interactions. It will encompass the whole cycle of customer interaction and companies must make full use of this interaction to constantly add value to customers and ultimately for their own competitive advantage.

Last updated - 31 January 2005