Thoughts from the Cliff Dweller

What is a Call Center?

Call Centers go by different names such as Service Desk, Contact Center, Help Desk, Outbound Call Center, Sales Desk, Customer Service, Collections Department, etc, etc. 

Call it what whatever you or your customers want to call it. There is no hard and fast rule to the name. 

A Call Center (the name we will use here) is typically a physical location where companies group their employees together to answer telephone calls or e-mails or chat inquiries from customers regarding the product or services they purchased. Think catalogue orders, billing inquiry, sales calls, technical support and the like.

The key word is “group”. In the old days, companies used to serve their customers locally, so a company would have a “Service Desk” in various cities. This became expensive to staff and it usually resulted in inconsistent service to the customer and it was not efficient for the business. 

So when the cost of telephone calls started to go down in the 1970‘s & 80’s and toll free services such 1-800 lines came into being, companies could afford to answer customer calls from any part of the country in one single common location.

That meant the 10 calls Sally handled Toledo, and the 12 Johnny answered in Toronto and 11 Customers Martha spoke to in Tonawanda could now be handled by one person who was dedicated and trained specifically for this job. 

As products grow in complexity so does the need to support customers who use the product or service (think mobile phones - both product and service) and hence more customers need to call the company for assistance and information.  Call Centers now support customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to in every major country around the world. 

Technology plays a big part in today’s Call Centers. Telephone and computer systems are used to process and track calls as efficiently as possible. The goal is to keep the Customer Service Agent working as productively as he or she can during their scheduled work hours and provide the Agents with accurate up to date information for Customers. Now customer not only telephone, but they can also e-mail and electronically chat with Customer Service Agents which has only been around (in a big way) for the last 7 years.   

Because a Call Center is so dependent on people in every facet of the organization there are many different roles, responsibilities, processes and procedures in place to help the center run effectively. Think about it, someone has to manage and supervise the agents, someone has to monitor the quality of the customer interactions, a person has to forecast the number of calls the center will take, another person has to write the call handling procedures, someone else has to look after the telephones and computers, and so on and so on. If the Call Center is relatively small, then it is not unusual for people to assume multiple roles. 

Call Centers are complex, dynamic and expensive organizations to run because of the heavy reliance on people, process and technology.     

Ultimately, the main goals of a modern Call Center is to provide a consistent, company prescribed, level of service and quality to their customers and do it in the most effective and efficient way as possible. 

 Hope this helps.

Clive…