Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Word of the Day: contact center

 
Word of the Day WhatIs.com
Daily updates on the latest technology terms | February 11, 2020
contact center

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. Contact centers play an important role in customer relationship management and customer experience management strategies.

Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably. The primary difference is that a call center manages inbound and outbound phone calls, while a contact center offers additional customer support through other channels, including email, chat and voice over IP (VoIP).

In the early days of the internet, voice and non-voice communication systems were administered separately and hosted on separate platforms. The challenge at this time was for call centers to integrate voice with non-voice channels, while still maximizing the call center's investment in voice-based solutions, including expensive interactive voice response (IRV) systems. Because there was limited integration on the back-end, customers who moved from one channel to another had to share the same information multiple times.

Today, old-fashioned multichannel platforms have largely been superseded by omnichannel platforms that can integrate customer information from disparate channels into a centralized queue and provide customers with a seamless customer experience on any channel, at any time, from a variety of devices. This back-end convergence has improved customer self-service and reduced the need for customers who switch channels to request help from a live agent. Continue reading...

Today's Takeaway

 

"About 25% of organizations are still fully on premises for contact center services. Around 45% are using multi-tenant contact center as a service (CCaaS) offerings, and 12% are using single-server hosted services." - Robin Gareiss

Today's Buzzwords

 

Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)
Businesses are increasingly looking to buy UC and contact center technologies from a single vendor. Doing so simplifies billing and support.

Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS)
UCaaS customers typically have little or no applications or hardware on premises. Instead, customers pay a fixed, per-person license fee.

customer experience center
The goal of a CX center is to drive customer loyalty. Studies have shown that it can be 5 to 20 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain one you already have.

Tech Trivia

 
Which term describes the transportation of goods from their point of origin to their point of consumption?
a. logistics
b. telemetry
Answer

Stay in Touch

 

Thank you for reading! For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition (or learning resource) please contact us at: editor@whatIs.com

FOLLOW US

TwitterRSS
About This E-Newsletter
The Word of the Day is published by TechTarget, Inc., 275 Grove Street, Newton, Massachusetts, 02466 US.

Click to: Unsubscribe.

You are receiving this email because you are a member of TechTarget. When you access content from this email, your information may be shared with the sponsors or future sponsors of that content and with our Partners, see up-to-date Partners List, as described in our Privacy Policy. For additional information, please contact: webmaster@techtarget.com.

© 2019 TechTarget, Inc. all rights reserved. Designated trademarks, brands, logos, and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

Privacy Policy | Partners List
TechTarget