The face of the Call Center business is changing!
Conservative consumers, shifting economic conditions and
increasingly competitive business conditions are making it
easier than ever to get new customers. These factors are also
making it harder than ever to keep your customers. Customer
loyalty isn't something easily given, it is something that is
earned.
The fight for customer loyalty is nothing new to contact center
professionals, but the changing face of the contact center
industry is. Database integration with predictive dialer systems
has been designed for the next generation of contact centers and
the new breed of contact center professional. Database
technologies and evolving team management strategies will lead
the industry into the next phase of contact center growth.
The driving force behind these changes is FTC Legislation also
an expansion/revision in basic call center objectives. Measures
of success in call center operations have changed dramatically
in the last decade. While once only call completions or number
of orders were the primary measure, depending on the call center
function, customer centric measures are now the focus
Predictive dialing is changing almost as fast as traditional
dialers bring screen pops to an agent's desktop. The US market,
which is the leader in terms of installed systems, is in a
period of transition. Predictive Dialing started off as a way to
attract new customers and to sell new ideas, but that model does
not fit well in today's marketplace. Instead, companies are
implementing database enabled predictive dialers in innovative
ways, calling airline consumers if their flights are late,
alerting utility customers to power shortages, reminding drivers
to get their annual checkup, and even notifying retail customers
when a package will be shipped late. Does that mean that
consumers can say goodbye to someone asking for "the man or
woman of the house," or having someone stumble with a long last
name? Probably not, but there will be a drastic change over the
next five years in which predictive dialers will migrate from
being used for primarily outbound sales activity to being used
for proactive outbound/inbound blending, IVR and more in the
customer service arena.
Companies without call centers, though, will be at a distinct
disadvantage if their competitors have them. Database call
center technology is made for dealing with a customer