Call Centre

All of us use call and contact centres - often on a daily basis. Phoning a bank, insurance company or major retailer, even a credit card statement probably involves a centre. They can operate 24/7, and handle anything from a request for an account statement to a highly complex financial software problem.

either case, the staff are the first point of contact between the organisation and the public,with the latter either making general enquiries or specific ones relating to some product or service provided by the organisation.

There are few call centres nowadays because it is imperative for organisations to use contact centres to handle all forms of communication and to deal with clients through whatever medium they have selected. There are currently 6,000 call and contact centres in the UK, and this number is set to rise to 8,000 by 2005. The industry employs 500,000 people (nearly 2 per cent of the working population) and this figure is expected to reach one million by 2005. Over 3 million calls are made daily to centres during office hours.

Clearly, the technology running these centres is complex and sophisticated. All relevant records from all sources must be available to the agent dealing with a customer. The agent has to be aware of previous phone calls, faxes, e-mails and the like, and to be able to refer to them as well as details of the problem or enquiry. In addition, these details must be displayed accurately, and in a form that is easy to understand. Thankfully, there is now a range of affordable applications that provide greater connectivity and interaction between telephone and computer networks and deliver comprehensive management reports for SME businesses.