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ICT 8 - Lesson 1

A contact center is a central hub for managing customer interactions across various channels, providing technical support, customer service, and sales assistance. Unlike call centers, contact centers offer omnichannel support, including email, chat, and social media, enhancing customer experiences and operational efficiency. The document outlines types of contact centers, key features, and emerging trends such as social media and mobile access that shape their future.

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MM Ayehsa Allian Schück
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35 views5 pages

ICT 8 - Lesson 1

A contact center is a central hub for managing customer interactions across various channels, providing technical support, customer service, and sales assistance. Unlike call centers, contact centers offer omnichannel support, including email, chat, and social media, enhancing customer experiences and operational efficiency. The document outlines types of contact centers, key features, and emerging trends such as social media and mobile access that shape their future.

Uploaded by

MM Ayehsa Allian Schück
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Prepared by:

M.M. Ayesha Allian-Schuck


ICT Teacher
1. Contact Center Services

A contact center -- also referred to as a customer interaction


center or e-contact
center – is a central point from which all customer interactions across
various channels are managed. Their primary purpose is to provide
customers with efficient and effective technical support, customer service
and sales assistance.
The contact center typically includes one or more call centers, but may
also include
other types of customer contact, including emails, webchats and social
media interactions. Contact centers are often integrated into an enterprise's
customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.
Contact centers are growing in importance as customers increasingly
expect
businesses to be consistently available on various channels, not just over
the phone. The multichannel approach that contact centers take allows
them to create better customer experiences by refining customer service,
increasing efficiency and improving their insights into their customers'
behaviors and needs.

Contact Center vs. Call Center


Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service,
and the two terms are often used interchangeably. However, the primary
difference between the two is that call centers only manage inbound or
outbound calls, while a contact center offers
omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP)
and website support.

Key features of a contact center include:


 Advanced call distribution, which allows contact center service
providers -- called agents -- to maximize the number of calls taken
while maintaining a positive
customer experience.
 Real-time reports, which enable contact centers to observe and
analyze agent performance and customer satisfaction in real time
across the various channels used.
 Scripts, which provide agents with a framework for providing callers
with effective support and generating sales; and
 Interchangeable assignments, since agents share contacts and
objectives, thus allowing them to work as a team even while
maintaining individual stations.

Contact centers possess several


advantages
over call centers:
For example:

Contact Centers allow customers to self-serve and solve their own


problems by
offering two-way, keyword-driven instant messaging and text messaging or
communication with a chatbot. This self-service decreases the amount of
time agents spend on the phone, which in turn reduces customers' wait
times and lowers overall costs.

Types of Contact Centers


 Hardware contact centers

are installed and hosted on physical servers within a business's


premises. Consequently, hardware contact centers depend on businesses
having sufficient space and capacity to house and maintain the servers,
effective disaster recovery procedures and competent hardware update
processes.

 Cloud-based contact centers

are hosted on a cloud provider's internet server and are the point from
which all
inbound and outbound communications filter. Cloud-based contact centers
are accessible anywhere via the internet and function the same as other
contact centers.

 Hosted contact centers

are centers where the contact center infrastructure is outsourced to


another
company that manages the systems externally. This often leads to a better
return on investment (ROI) for companies by minimizing upfront the
infrastructure's costs and maintenance.

 Virtual contact centers

enable a company's agents to work remotely from home. Virtual


contact
centers create flexibility and comfort for the agent, while simultaneously
lowering costs for the company.

The future of contact centers


As technology evolves and customers rely on more communication
channels, contact centers will have to continue to adapt and grow.
Contact center trends that have affected contact center communications
in recent years, and continue to do so, include:
 Social media
Social media platforms, such as Twitter, have become popular customer
communication platforms, making it important for companies to support
these channels.
 Mobile access
Customers demand support for mobile-friendly communication services,
such as application and text support.
 Video telephony
IP/video telephony services such as FaceTime and Skype enable
customers to interact with companies using video chat, allowing for more
personal, face-to-face interactions.
 Advanced analytics
Analytics play an increasingly important role in predicting customer
behavior. Speech analytics is also used to monitor, evaluate and train
contact center employees.

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