OVERVIEW

A typical comment following a discussion or presentation on the technologies and techniques of customer contact center management goes like this. I really enjoyed the presentation, but we are just beginning our customer contact center. Management wants to try the concept out before they spend any money.

The problem here is not the lack of budget, but the lack of management commitment to a unified customer contact strategy. What is more important than money is the belief in the customer contact center as a key part of a company s sales or service strategy. Management is not committed to a unified vision that the customer contact center can provide immense leverage to traditional sales, support distribution and market administration techniques. Despite all the remonstrations we could indulge in here, lack of budget and limited management commitment and vision are handicaps that are there to be overcome.

One of the finest contact center consulting practices in the world makes a point of not undertaking consulting appointments if they cannot influence the strategy upstream of the customer contact process. They deem the first step to be absolutely vital to the success of any project corporate management s understanding that the customer contact center is a part of the corporation s overall business strategy. Only then do they take the next step: identifying the processes and staff skill sets necessary to serve the business s strategic goals. The last step is identifying the technology, and then modifying existing and/or acquiring new technologies to...