電子商務重新定義呼叫中心

CTI論壇編譯

    隨著電子商務的發(fā)展及其重點快速轉向為客戶提供滿意的服務，引得傳統(tǒng)的呼叫中心正在演變?yōu)椤跋乱淮�多媒體客戶服務中心”。以使得它能成為適應眾多的、各種不同類型的用戶交流的中心。

    這是Frost和Sullivan在最新的、題為“美國基于WEB呼叫中心市場”的研究報告中得出的結論。此項報告指出，新技術使得廠商能夠將呼叫中心和Internet結合起來，以便讓通過WEB瀏覽的用戶可以與客戶服務代表進行在線交流。

    報告稱，雖然基于WEB技術的呼叫中心隨著Internet的發(fā)展迎來了重要的機遇，但這個市場目前還處于起步階段。他們預測這一市場將會在1999年1億美元的基礎上快速攀升，到2006年，達到10億美元的產值。

    Frost說，新的電子商務技術的運用和企業(yè)希望留住客戶的要求，共同驅動著這一市場的發(fā)展�？蛻舻臐M意度日益成為在相同的商業(yè)活動中取勝的關鍵因素，如果不能給用戶提供有效、友好服務，那么客戶就將跑到你的競爭對手那里去。基于WEB的呼叫中心將會提供一個客戶所需要的高質量服務平臺。

    商家應注意到，比那些通過傳統(tǒng)的PSTN電話聯(lián)系的用戶來說，通過Internet進行交流的用戶將會是更重要的。而且，基于WEB的呼叫中心正可以在這方面提高生產力，改善企業(yè)的基礎水平。

    Frost說，商家可能因為擔心要增加最初的運營成本，并且對是否能通過IP來實施客戶關系管理（CRM）存有疑惑，而推遲采用基于WEB的呼叫中心。

    盡管如此，仍然已經(jīng)有相當多傳統(tǒng)工業(yè)部門的最終用戶意識到采用新技術所帶來的利益，并已開始加以運用。這主要集中在金融、通信、旅游、醫(yī)療和保健等行業(yè)。（郭晨東）

原文

E-Commerce Is Redefining Call Centers

You don抰 really need a research report to tell you this, but here it is anyway: current trends in the way e-commerce is developing, along with increased emphasis on customer satisfaction are causing traditional call centers to evolve into "next-generation multimedia contact centers"梩hat is, into amorphous all-in-one centers for lots of different kinds of customer interactions.

That's one of the conclusions that come out of Frost & Sullivan's latest research, in a report entitled U.S. Web-Enabled Call Center Markets. They report that new technologies allow companies to integrate their websites and their call centers, thus enabling a web-browsing consumer to interact in real time with a customer service representative.

According to the report, this market is still in its birth stage, though the rise of the Internet has provided significant opportunities for vendors of Web-enabling technologies. They predict that the market will bring in more than one billion dollars in revenues by 2006, a significant increase from the $111.8 million reached in 1999.

。New e-commerce technology and the need for firms to retain customer loyalty are driving market growth, Frost says. Customer satisfaction will become a critical differentiating factor among similar businesses, forcing the hand of those that do not offer efficient, friendly service. Those are the ones that will lose their clients to other firms who do. Web-enabled call centers offer a greater potential to deliver the quality that customers seek.

Businesses realize significant savings on initiating contact via the Internet as compared with interacting in real-time over the public switched telephone network. In addition, Web-enabled call centers can generate enhanced productivity that will positively affect the bottom line.

Frost says that companies are likely to delay their purchase of web/call center integrated combos, since they are afraid of significant initial increases in operation costs, and are unsure of whether they can rely on IP for customer relationship management apps.

There are several traditional end-user industry sectors that the report points to as indicators of markets that have already realized the benefits of new technologies and have begun to integrate these systems: they cite financial services, telecommunications, travel, hospitality and healthcare.