A contact center is a central point in a company from where all type of customer contacts are managed. In simple terms, a contact center is a technologically evolved call center that deals not only phone calls, but also e-mails, web inquiries, VoIP, faxes, web chats and even post letters. It is the front line of a business. One of the advantages of a contact center is the possibility it offers to its customers to decide on the medium they want to use to communicate with the company.
A contact center must be designed to maximize investments lower operating costs and grow with the business while ultimately achieving a competitive advantage. A good contact center is focused on three mutually dependent business objectives: revenue generation, efficiency and customer satisfaction. Improving service delivery and customer experience is the main objective of most contact centers.
An effective contact center
- quickly answers customers contacts
- has a high first contact resolution rate
- is a significant source of revenue for the company
- continually improves processes, strategies and technology to constantly gain in service, efficiency and revenue generation
- has a positive thinking staff
- performance data is collected and analyzed through a well established process.
The channels contact centers offer for communication are: telephone – agent assisted, e-mail, fax, telephone – IVR self-service, physical correspondence, online self-service, sms/text messaging, telephone – speech self-service, web chat, web call back and web co-browsing.