July 29, 2015
A contact center—also known as a customer interaction center—is a central hub within an organization from which all customer interactions can be managed. A contact center typically includes one or more online call centers; however, it may also include other types of customer interactions.
Additional methods of contact include email newsletters, catalogs sent by mail, website inquiries, and chats. Information is also gathered from customers during in-store purchases. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise’s overall customer relationship management (CRM) system.
A new study was recently released titled “Collapse of the Cost Center: Driving Contact Center Profitability,” the result of a collaboration between the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and Zendesk, a software development company that provides a cloud-based customer service platform.
The information for this report was drawn from a broader global survey titled “Moving from Cost to Profit Contact Center Research.” ICMI and Zendesk surveyed 416 respondents in the spring of 2015, seeking to identify the challenges that contact centers face as they strive to shift perceptions of themselves from cost centers to profit centers.
Although contact centers are sometimes viewed within the corporate world as a necessary evil, they are the department that interacts directly with customers to support the company. Whether they are sending emails to remind or inform customers about certain offers or handling customer calls, contact centers are integral to the customer experience.
The report finds that most companies view the contact center primarily as a cost center, without fully understanding the role it plays. This stems, in part, from the fact that about 73 percent of contact centers are not effectively measuring and reporting their service levels.
Essentially, the impact that the contact center has plays a major role in providing a positive customer experience. While, in most cases, this is what keeps customers loyal to a company, unfortunately for the contact centers, company management is not aware of this.
Justin Robbins, a senior analyst at ICMI, said, “Contact centers provide unmatched and essential services for organizations, yet their importance is undermined by the lack of visibility their contributions have on a broader scale. Organizations must uncover the opportunities hidden within their operations and take the necessary steps to demonstrate their value.”
One of the issues the report addresses is adherence to schedules. By pressuring a contact center representative to ensure that at least 90 percent of their time is fully utilized, such actions could quickly lead to that person becoming burned out. This is the type of employee who will not be able to deliver the best customer experience. We’ve all heard sayings like “A happy worker is a good worker.” This is what leads to providing a good customer experience, which in turn generates profit for the company.