The configuration of new competitive
environments where product differentiation is becoming more and more
complex has heightened the relevance of customer
care policies and the need to implement strategies that focus
on service differentiation. In this context many companies consider
creating or fortifying a telephone channel in the form of call
centres as partial or comprehensive support for relationships
with customers.
Traditionally, call centres were established to meet certain incidental
or isolated needs in connection with customer relationships: promotions,
information and inquiries, complaints, bill collection or incident
reporting, to name a few. The aim was the ability itself to provide
optimum quality customer service over the telephone.
In the new stage of development, call centres must assume the role
of customer contact centres,
which handle mass contacts not only over the phone, but on other
channels as well, such as the Internet, maintaining a comprehensive
view of customers throughout the company's dealings with them.
Thus conceived, the customer contact centre is a key tool for conducting
all a company's commercial activity
and presents important advantages with respect to other channels
for relating to customers, including:
  lower
cost and greater control,
standardised
action,
control
of commitments acquired in terms of deadlines and action to be taken,
agility
to adapt to changes in commercial relationships,
detection
of cross-selling and up-selling opportunities,
information
updating and control,
immediate
availabilty of results.
Greater control and immediate availability of results allows for
feedback to a company's marketing systems with information that
can be exploited in marketing policy decision-making.
The evolution of this new role
as a comprehensive customer contact centre should go hand-in-hand
with the attainment of objectives set in terms not only of the quality
of support offered and the ability to provide the service,
but also of productivity and efficiency
in execution times and costs, as well as systematic control
of the activity conducted, to be able to evaluate and improve centre
management.
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