If your business operates outside the call center industry, you may have trouble answering this question of “What is a call center?” But it’s an important one to ask and even more critical to give careful consideration to the answer.
While some businesses know they have a corporate call center, most others assume they don’t, but they might be wrong. You may have one (or more) corporate call centers hiding in your business and not even know it.
Why is this important? Quite simply, you must identify what you have before you can manage it properly.
By definition, a call center is a centralized location where calls are answered or made. The larger space and the more people involved in this role, the easier these call centers are to spot. However, many other forms of call center activity remain hidden from view.
While some people, both those inside your company and especially those outside, may balk at the concept of a call center, do not dismiss this label. Even if you embrace a descriptor other than call center, do not ignore all the decades of established knowledge about call center operation. This massive resource is invaluable. All you need to do is find it and then harness it.
This is because standard business practices often do not apply to call center work. At best employing conventional business thinking to call center activity can produce additional problems, and at worst these misguided principles render call centers ineffective.
Yet classic call center jargon and concepts are enough to make your head spin.
One solution is to dive deep into the call center industry. Immerse yourself and learn as much as possible that you can apply to your corporate call center. Another option is to hire call center experts who can apply proven call center principles to your corporate call center.
Either way the results are improved efficiency, greater results, reduced costs, and increased effectiveness.
So the first key is to identify your corporate call centers and then manage them as such. Look for future posts where we will dive into this more fully.
Janet Livingston is the president of Call Center Sales Pro, a premier consultancy for corporate call centers, whose team possesses decades of relevant business and call center experience. Contact Janet at contactus@callcenter-salespro.com or 800-901-7706.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is a freelance writer from Southwest Michigan.