Advent of call centers--a need or a USP

After much of dilemmas about call centers, whether its simply a helpdesk service or an interactive voice response or a customer care zone to handle customer queries and respond to customer complaints, people are getting to understand them better. Yet there remain many debatable issues to resolve about its need, its use as a unique selling or value added proposition by corporates, while an enticing opportunity awaits investors to join the league of successful entrepreneurs in

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Call centers no doubt, originated way back since the time Customer Relationship management (CRM) applications were being deployed. However, the buzz is now in India as the country has been found as the most ideal location to practice the most tangible tool of CRM. CRM has primarily shaped as a concept to retain customers and thus maximize business by those valued customers. It's not simply about retaining customers through special and individualized treatment but basically identifying the high value customers and deploy best practices to retain them. Due to fierce competition in the buyers market where customer is the King, sellers really have to strategize their sales culminating it into a relationship.

Market leaders opine that it is easier to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. Its been also found out that 60 percent customers abandon a service due to mixed reason revolving around improper customer care which includes unanswered queries, improper response, delayed response, dissatisfaction due to not giving desired value and attention. At the same time, we know that it's basically a key segment whom we refer as 'High Value' customers, based on their usage of a service, giving maximum returns to a business.

Attrition of customers from this segment is actually a big loss. Any customer captured by the competitor could be a loss forever even. Here, call centers play a significant role giving personalized treatment to every customer by accessing database integrated at the back end within no time. Sophisticated software's blended with telephony are carving a niche in the market by not just adding a value or unique sales proposition, but creating a need in the market.

From mere telephones, to switch integrated call centers, to server based and now Web enabled, call centers have come a long way evolving from a preliminary stage of mere call handling by sweet voices. Switch integration helped call routing and interactive voice responses or auto responses, call wait/hold etc. However the latest technology has given multi-modal access to customers, be it phone, fax, e-mail or Web chat. All of them are entertained within no time facilitating one to one interaction. Rapid advancements in IT and convergence of Web technology with telecom have revolutionized the concepts of interaction with customers.

Traditional call centers could best be described as labour intensive ones that answered customer queries; today they are vital cogs in the entire process of marketing and improving customer relation. Instead of having to be content with supplying data, there is now a whole tableau of information gathering options about the customers also. This is important as the more you know about the call (and the caller) the better able you are to respond with the most appropriate resources. Modern Web-enabled server based call centers are service centers that have adequate telecom facilities, trained manpower, access to a comprehensive database, Internet and other online information support infrastructure to provide all the information to support a customer. The focus is on customer support services round the clock. 

Also the convergence with Internet technology has opened up multiple choices of interaction for customers like Web chat, e-mails, collaborative browsing voice over IP (VoIP) etc. Today almost every business house has a website apart from their usual modes of publicity. Internet has been a boon to make global presence, however it becomes worse that a person reaches you but cannot interact with you, and thus tends to leave in disgust and dissatisfaction. There could be a possibility that the user never looks back as he might have found someone better. That someone better is no one else but who has armed his business to survive in the global arena. Outpacing the contemporaries and making his customers loyal can help you increase the width of the target market.

Also with convergence with Internet technology, there is multiple choice of interaction for the customer. 

Mahendra Saxena is CEO, Sapphire Callnet