Call centers and customer care teams are among the most critical customer-facing teams but are often under-staffed, under-resourced and challenged with constant change and complexity, according to the latest research from Demand Metric, a global marketing research and advisory firm serving marketing executives. The independent study identifies reasons legacy call centers cannot meet the needs of today's consumer, and also advises that marketing departments take advantage of its data.
"Marketers must understand the importance of contact centers to marketing and lead generation," said Jerry Rackley, chief analyst, Demand Metric, in a statement "The contact center agent is a company's frontline customer service representative; in many cases, the primary point of customer engagement. Demand generation, lead nurturing, up-sell and cross-sell opportunities are fundamental marketing and sales activities that the contact center can support and even initiate.
"The modern contact center is not a new name for the old call center. A fundamental shift in strategic thinking and implementation is at the core. The evolution from legacy call center involves staffing, resources, organizational alignment and deployment of technology."
Demand Metric has identified five characteristics that distinguish modern contact centers from legacy call centers:
- Intelligent information flow: Information presented to the agent is right-sized for the immediate need and in the right context for a multichannel environment.
- Context awareness: Relevant information is filtered and rapidly presented to agents based on corporate process and compliance rules and guidelines.
- Multichannel communication: Information flows freely between the customer and the company regardless of touch point or device. Customer information is shared by all internal points of contact.
- Cloud-based: software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications provide users with cost, flexibility and scalability benefits.
- Virtual support: Leveraging the power of the cloud to outsource or decentralize key business processes, eliminating geographic constraints.
"The modern contact center is not a new name for the old call center," Rackley said. "A fundamental shift in strategic thinking and implementation is at the core. The evolution from legacy call center involves staffing, resources, organizational alignment and deployment of technology."