The Issue: Defining Next Generation Contact Center Strategies

Contact centers are a mission-critical component of any organization's operations regardless of whether they serve customers, business partners or internal employees. Yet stakeholders often remain dissatisfied with contact center performance. This is partially due to unrealistic expectations, but more often the result of poor and costly service. Over the past 10 years, contact centers have benefited from advances in information and telecommunication technologies, particularly as enablers for customer self-service, and the growth of alternative service delivery models, such as domestic and offshore outsourcing. These advances offer great potential to improve service quality and reduce costs, yet many organizations have struggled to determine how best to take advantage of these developments.