A contact center is a location for centralized handling of individual communications in any business that includes voice and video communication, faxes, live support, text chat, SMS, and e-mail. A contact center can handle both inbound and outbound communication. Inbound communication is usually operated to administer support or information queries from customers. Where outbound communication is operated for telemarketing, political campaigns, and market surveys/research.

During the last two decades, contact center was considered a burden for an average company. But now companies of all sizes are seeing contact centers as a source of opportunities and future planning. Customer care and targeted marketing through contact centers are providing revenue streams for companies and also building customer relationships. Apart from that, different models of operations are being applied to optimize operational cost and revenue generation on contact centers. For example, home-based agents, offshore call center facilities, and distributed call center approaches are allowing companies to keep costs down and maximize profits.

In this post, we have highlighted some of the techniques that companies around the world are applying to turn their contact/call centers from a liability into an asset:

Home-based agents

Home-based agents are getting an increasingly popular model for call centers. Agents need only a computer, a headset, and a high-speed Internet connection to become part of the contact center. It allows companies to hire workers located anywhere in the world by paying local salaries which costs less and keeping call quality high. However, home-based agents can only be possible if a company is using hosted call center solutions.

Hosted call center solutions

Hosted call center solutions allow companies to scale up and down depending upon their volume of customers by using only the resources and extensions they need. During slow times of the year such as Christmas and Easter vacations, fewer queries are encountered by agents that's where hosted call center solutions can be handy. A company can release extensions that can reduce the overall cost of operating a contact center.

Better work environments

Better work environments can result in better employee engagement which results in overall performance improvement of a contact center. Usually, contact centers hire agents that have no experience and untrained. By paying attention to their agents, focusing on their extensive training, and making them happy through different monetary and social benefits can pay off in the long run.

Working hour flexibility

Employees from any field, not just the contact center, feel relaxed when they have flexible working hours. Different people have different needs and priorities and allowing them to work in their own comfort make employee believe that company cares for them. In return, the employee or agent performs better.

These are some of the suggestions as well as approaches that different companies are already applying to maximize their performance and increase productivity.