OVERVIEW

When the Internet first arrived, promoters predicted the speedy demise of the call center. They also predicted the death of print media, as we know it. However, print and paper, which survived the telegraph, telephone, radio and television before the Internet, will also survive the Internet. The spontaneous aspect of human nature and the overwhelming desire for convenience ensures traditional media s survival, i.e., bed, bathroom and beach don t fit well with limited battery life, bandwidth and screen technologies.

The pundits were also wrong about the demise of the customer contact center industry. Customers are like water and gravity, in that they will find any path to the resources that they believe they need from your company.

Convenience, not displacement of call volume, is the reason an organization should add the Internet as a communications and customer service medium. The Internet channels offer extraordinary convenience and economy for both to the customer and to the owner of the customer contact center alike.

People do not call a call center for fun. Typically it is because something broke.

Think about it. Have you picked up the phone and called your retail bank or your own call center for the warm and rewarding experience of speaking to a live agent. No, normally this type of event is driven by the failure of some other process that requires the intervention of some other human who may, or more time than not, solve the problem.

With the Internet entering the picture, the goal in...