Transition of Call Center to Contact Center

Technology has brought lot of changes in our lives, and most of them are positive.

For example in the contact center space, advancements in technology have helped in bringing VoIP to our desktops and ultimately laptops. You must be wondering “How technology is related to a call center?” and “How call center is different from a contact center?” 

Now, a call center is just not limited to inbound & outbound calls, it has diversified into various other offerings like Multi Channel Support (voice, text chat, e-mail, SMS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and business applications. Hence, these new technologies enable the transition of call centers to contact centers.

A contact center promises bottom and top-line competitive advantage, driving organizations to take advantage of these innovations. Only few established service providers are able to compete in this new environment. The contact center architecture is restructured on the basis of technology innovation and multiple service offerings.

A Contact Center houses and implements myriad technologies; call routing engines, databases, dialers, phone systems, analytics and reporting tools – just to name a few. Usually, these tools are interconnected using various protocols that provide integration under the form of CTI (Computer/Telephone Integration).  This integration has enabled contact centers to provide services of transactional nature, by merging customer databases into outbound dialing campaigns; enabling “screen pops” for agents handling incoming customer calls; capturing sales trends and close ratios for agents while mapping this to customer detail. 

A multi-functional contact center is designed to offer advantages across key areas:

• Customer interactions

• Advanced routing

• Multi-channel services

• Agent productivity

• Scalability

• Extensibility

• Protection of traditional methods

To remain competitive, organizations should migrate effectively from traditional call center to the advanced, multi channel contact center.

Are your employees encouraged enough in these times of economic downturn?

vCustomer has just been ranked as one of the Top 25 Best Employers in Asia and India by Hewitt. Also, for the past two years, we have been ranked as the Best BPO Employer in India by Dataquest-IDC.

Lot of people question us, what do we do to keep our employees satisfied?
Our answer is simple. Make the employees feel wanted. There is nothing better you can do to ensure that your employees feel encouraged and motivated at all times. And it isn’t difficult to achieve this! Most companies these days are cutting headcount to reduce costs. This not only breeds insecurity among existing employees, but also impacts overall credibility of the brand in the market. During these times, the employees need to be told that their jobs are safe and their work is valued. That they need not worry and should continue striving for excellence. What could also motivate them is a work culture where they are encouraged to take up new roles, empowered to take decisions on their own and motivated to learn more and make others grow with them. At vCustomer, we have termed it as ‘Employee First’ culture. There is a dedicated Employee Relations cell which creates opportunities for employees to pursue their areas of interest, while at work.

Due to irregular and long working hours, the key concern for employees is their health. You can take responsibility of ensuring that your employees keep a healthy work-life balance. We have quarterly health check ups and yoga classes to keep a check on our employees’ health and stress levels. A 24×7 concierge service desk provides personal secretarial services to employees with their busy lifestyles.

These are just few of the many ideas that companies can implement to retain talent. It’s all about making sure that your employees feel more engaged and empowered than ever. Ways and means for every company might be different, but end objective remains the same.

To read what vCustomer is doing under the ‘Employee First’ initiative, Click here

From assembly lines to workflows – Automation makes a business grow

Margins and volumes play a key role in determining future of any business. The first organized attempt to achieve higher volumes through automation was done by none other than Henry Ford. He helped many consumers realize their dream of switching from raw horse power to brake horse power. As a visionary, he knew what mass production could do to consumerism & consumerism to the overall business. Ironically, it’s this same logic which BPOs have now embraced to significantly make a difference with their consumers – the buyers.

Assembly lines in the manufacturing industry have been converted to today’s workforce management tools in BPOs, which ensures maximum productivity translating into higher volumes at a reduced cost. The numbers geeks have given way to highly mature business intelligence tools. Hosted applications like On Demand Call Centers allow you to run your business without having to re-invent the wheel, while work from home applications take your business right to the employee’s door-step. Evolution of business seems to have no limits and those pushing the limits are the ones defining the new business landscape. Buyers no longer want to be associated with vendors having a non-existent rigor for innovation. Vendors who continue to stick their head in the sand will be reduced to non-entities in the long run.

Indian service providers fortunately have risen up to this challenge and are fast adopting and developing new tools and techniques to further automate their client’s processes. No wonder – many of their global counterparts are feeling the heat