Face Off: Web-Enabled Call Centers vs. Traditional Call Centers

摘要

Call center managers today are flooded with information regarding customer relationship management (CRM) strategies. They are bombarded with statistics that demand they get on-board with the latest and greatest technology or else they are seriously missing the boat. They are faced with a growing concern that they are not meeting their customers' changing demands, but are stuck with restrictive budgets that do not allow for the high cost of implementing the applications to satisfy these demands. In particular, call center managers are being pressured to not only Web-enable their centers by providing an e-commerce environment that includes a secure online transaction process as well as other self-service applications, but to also provide text chat, online live customer assistance, and other multimedia to better serve and retain customers hitting their sites. Although no one disagrees that the days of having strictly a traditional call center are coming to an end, the real question is how quickly should these centers be moving to adopt all of this new technology. After all, many of the call centers already implementing at least some Web-enabled processes are still seeing the majority of their business handled through the fixed-line telephone. Is it that imperative that companies sink the thousands of dollars required to transform their centers now, or can it be a more gradual process? Furthermore, with all of this focus on adding Web-based applications, what happens to the traditional call center? This article provides an overview of the current state of call centers in the US. It will compare the advantages and disadvantages of Web-enabled vs. traditional call centers and analyze the consequences of either rushing to Web-enable or maintaining the traditional center. Finally, it will conclude with some recommendations for how to handle the demands of the current market using both Web and traditional technologies.