Hi All , My manager has recently assigned me the task of finding out what call centers will look like in ten years time . I understand that this may be impossible to predict and the question is also very open ended . In saying this however I would appreciate any comments from anyone on this subject . I would like different viewpoints from people involved in different aspects of the call center such as Technology , training , management etc etc .

Regards

Garry

Great topic my friend and something to really think about.

My thought is that the centers of the future will not be centers but instead business untits that will not be able to distinguish between different types of interactions as the barriers between voice, data , time and space are broken everyday. Interactions will be only this of any form and video will be the form of the day with customers being abe to be virtually transported to companies for services......


Give me more time and I will add more.

The bottom line is the future will largely be defined by the community that is here and the players that define it.

Mike Jackson
Traction Call Center Management
http://www.tccm.ca
mike@tccm.ca

I dream of a callcenter world where only one company will exist and all the companys in the world will outsource their jobs to this one company. This company will be spread across the globe and will break all te time and cultural barriers.

In order for smoother transactions all the company will share a same platform for maintaiing thers records.

This is what I think of callcenters in the times to come.

In my ideal world (padded cell permitting) IF we have to have CCs (after all everything else has gone (or is rapidly going) back to what we collectively instinctively know is right) then they will be places in which people positively choose to work - unlike the, "oh bu**er I need a job quick" brigade that seem to make up the silent majority of CC staff today.

The principal reason for the career choice would be because staff get a real buzz out of solving people's problems. They go home each evening (cos they only work 5 days a week 9-5) 'fulfilled'; each person's problem is different and every customer grateful for their efforts.

Stats would be a single measure, "Number of people left feeling happy at the end of the call" (Celebrate the positives)

There ends another wierd dream... CLUNK... time for my medication...

David

>>>then they will be places in which people positively choose to work - unlike the, "oh bu**er I need a job quick" brigade that seem to make up the silent majority of CC staff today.

Having interviewed well over 2000 call centre agents I havent found this generalisation refelcted in agent motivation. Most i/b agents are motivated to 'help people' and gain satisfaction from this (think nurses/carers). Most tech support agents are motivated 'to solve problems' and it is noticeable that they enjoy solving problems first rather than helping customers which ought to be equal(think analysts). Most o/b sales staff are motivated by 'money' and 'deal making'.
As regards "I need job quick" that reason has always existed thoughout the centuries and low skilled jobs will undoubted lend themselves to this group.
Just because people need a job it doesnt follow that they will be unmotivated to complete it successfully, probably the reverse - ie. the more necessary the job is to their survival the more they ensure they perform above standard.

As for people 'feeling happy at the end of the call' Some problems/issues that call centre agents are not resolved and often co policies are unable to help the customer - the customer feels let down and unhappy - the tax office dont give me a rebate even if I believe I should have one.

Like you say dreams are nice to have, reality bites.

Oops please forgive my reply, have just re-read the topic under discussion and I am not in keeping with the subject matter at all. I do apologise and withdraw it.

The future of call centres, possibley within the next 3-5 years will be video phone technology. I'm not talking about the terrible quality mobile phone video calling, I mean scaled down versions of video conferencing suites used in offices. I have been researching the market for office technologies and video conferencing equipment is constantly becoming more affordable and of better quality.

I believe that once this technology has been refined to a decent degree and the costs are not excessive, it should be adopted by Call Centres. What would be required would be an individual interface for call centre staff. Customers can contact the video-line through the internet (in 3 years time everyone is expected to have high level broadband connections) or through home video phones (It is expected that adoption of currently underdeveloped and expensive techology by the general public will start to rise in 3-5 years time).

It may be expensive to overhaul an entire communications and IT system in a Call Centre but it would be worth it. Imagine by say 2012 you could talk face to face with people at a call centre. As an employee it would be easier to calm down irrate customer (who would be less likely to shout when they can see your face) and for sales people eye contact is a priceless bonus! There are many more benefits that will arise from advances in such technology, i'll let you think about them yourselves.

So there you have it, it might be a little way off yet but it is an entirely realistic progression along the evolutionary existence of Call Centres.

Lots of interesting posts so far, I hope can add something to these discssions...here goes;

I think the call centre of the future will look alot like the centre of today. Having watched the telemarketing-call centre-contact centre eveolution as an active player over 28 years, during the most rapid period of change the world has ever seen and the centres are fundamentally the same.

The most interesting evolutionary trend has been the application of technology and technology of ever increasing complexity. People and paper and phones has become people and computers and phones ... with a lot of paper still.

VRU' have made a tremendous impact on center aqnd eliminated thousands of jobs, though these loses were invisable as centres grew such an incredible rate. But imaginge iif all VRU/IVR functions had to now be completed by live agenets.

Technology will continue to march on; we will see greater integration of products for switches, IVR, CTI, WFM,Call Logging, etc. In fact this trend is almost here. We will also see more joibs gobbled up by technology. Those who fear job loss to India and the Philippines would be better to watch their IT departments. Speech recognition is now making virtual agents a reality with the ability to handle thousands of realtively low complexity calls without a problem, a sick day or a washroom break. More and more traffic in centres will migrate to other channels; email, web chat, SMS etc. but this will not kill the phone, just as telemarketing did not supplant direct mail and television nor videos supplanted the cinema.

Perhaps in 5 or 10 years management will finally realize that the centre is their best ally to protect their brand image and build customer loyalty and improve life-time value...but I have been saying that last part for the past 28 years...

If I can be of further assistance please feel free to contact me at ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com

Colin

Not so much impacting on callcentres directly, but on despatch and fulfillment operations?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3576594.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3811785.stm

It could happen!

Z

Sooner than we think, our customer's won't need to verify "security information" when we speak with them, because facial recognition technology will be used with video phones.

Sooner than we think, our customer's won't need to verify "security information" when we speak with them, because facial recognition technology will be used with video phones.

That would depend on how "soon" we think!

I can't see this technology becoming commonplace as a security validation measure for at least 5/10 years. Whilst the technology does exist, and would be easy and relatively cheap for a call centre to implement, the real barrier is having enough consumers with the technology at their end to make it worthwhile.

It's taken us nearly 10 years in the UK to get people moving towards digital TV transmissions, and we've still got some way to go yet.

With regards to the original topic, would anyone like to add to the discussion? We're now two years down the line from when the original post was left, does anyone think they've seen any change?

Regards,
Darryl

Everything would be dependent on the technology then, we have come from the bullock cart to the concords etc., from telegram to email, instant messages. I would say that the process would remain but the way of approach would change drastically. The Principle would not change but the way things would be done would be different. TECHNOLOGY IN TODAYS WORLD has a drastic change in the way things are done, so would predict of a revolutionary change in Call centers. Hats off to Newton, Galalio etc., who have bought revolutionary changes which have become absolute now but that wa a start and will remain.
Engineers have to work forward to the changes.

Regards,
Quest

I can't see this technology becoming commonplace as a security validation measure for at least 5/10 years.

While it is quite possible I may end up eating my words I highly doubt this technology will ever become common place.

Videophones are already old and quant in many ways.

First of all...landlines themselves are dropped drastically. I haven't owned a landline in many years. I am moving into an apartment with 3 people tonight and we all have landlines. Truthfully..I can not think of one person in my immediate 10-15 people group of friends that doesn't have a cell phone.

Cell phone's need to be placed close to your ear or use a mic. (neither of which would be condusive to a videophone)

Videophone also do not really offer an advantage...I don't really see why I would want to see someone sitting in their house staring at a picture of me starting at a picture of them...This technology would have to be free or so cheap i wouldn't notice before I would consider it.

Thats assuming we all go backwards in progress and startup land lines again.

5-10...I'd say its more like 30-50 if EVER.

Considering that the North Americans were usually ahead of us in everything, it was suprising that we adopted mobile technology much faster than they did, and this still remains the same.

Cell phone's need to be placed close to your ear or use a mic. (neither of which would be condusive to a videophone)

In the UK video mobiles are easily available, as you will see here: http://www.three.co.uk.

All of the large mobile providers have purchases licences to run the technology required for high-bandwidth video calls, so these handsets will be available on other networks in the near future.

Videophone also do not really offer an advantage...I don't really see why I would want to see someone sitting in their house staring at a picture of me starting at a picture of them.

This point I strongly agree with. In some circumstances video calling is a great advantage, such as when you want to speak to your family on the otherside of the world. However, it's not something that you'd want to use when telling your water company that they've billed you too much.

You are correct in everything you say.

It was interesting that you brought up the point of seeing your family if you are far away. Consistently this seems to be the major point brought up when video conferencing is discussed. I have to say that while it is nice I don't think it will be the driving force between this markets saturation.

I think it would be hilarious to talk to your water company with a videophone :), they could see me throw things.

Consistently I use my cell phone in crowded area's with quite a bit of noise. From my perspective I just don't see video phones ever being practical until it becomes so easy and cheap to implement there is relatively no cost.

I dunno....time will tell...10 years from now if I don't have a videophone you are flying me over there for tea and crumpets or whatever you guys do.

The sucess of future call centers will be defined more and more by the skills of agents, who will face growing complexity in the types of transactions they handle due to increased automation of simple queries and increasing integration across different business units. For example, shared access to customer history, preferences and open issues, access to inter-departmental products and services for cross-sale opportunities, and access to historical data regarding corporate service availability are all likely.

Secondly, I agree with the poster above that multi-channel will be a trend, however it will be some time - if it ever happens - before a single commercial vendor can be trusted to provide an email, SMS, web, phone and fax solution that is affordable (or desirable as a migration path) for most call centers. Therefore I believe the flexibility of open source offerings, in particular asterisk, will cause this segment of the market to grow significantly as more mature commercial offerings based on the open source platform become available.

Also, as larger call centers for global operations, VOIP and more open presence systems (such as XMPP) develop, decisions about channel-selection for individual communications will become more complex. For example, no longer will a call center simply default to contacting a customer by phone. Rather, they will analyse a more vivid and complete picture of the real situation including customer or supplier preferences, language, issue priority, time of day in the customer's current location (as well as it may be known, for example, through GeoIP resolution from last corporate website access), agents available and probably other factors. This trend, or part of it, falls under the umbrellas of the 'real time contact center' and 'real time enterprise' (RTE), both of which are being taken increasingly seriously by the community.

Finally, closer coupling between individual agents and suppliers/customers will be made the norm, to facilitate closer and more personable relationships between organisations, their customers and suppliers.

Contact centers may or may not gain dominion over corporate B2B communications, for instance accounting and supply-line B2B communications, which are already well standardised and increasingly being adopted in more developed markets (eg: the EU) today.

Here in China, this vision may take some time, but some of us are here working at it RIGHT NOW.