Technology and acting local, key success factors among contact centers

The latest report of analyst firm Everest Group shows that call service providers are adopting advanced technology solutions for local services in response to the needs of modern business and in order to save costs by targeting improving customer satisfaction.

Why this trend toward local services? 

In fact, this shift towards local services should not be a surprise, as Carol Scovotti, professor of marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater says. The reason is simple: users prefer to talk to a person in solving any problem with their provider.

“When customers need to speak directly with someone in an organization, it is because there are issues that can not be solved on their own. Something as simple as a bad connection or a representative with a strong accent can enhance a situation that is already stressful” says Scovotti.

To Scovotti, the customer satisfaction is more important to the business cost savings, without being mutually incompatible: “While cost efficiency is always an important consideration is customer satisfaction that keeps the sound of the cash register.” The recovery of the importance of local services it is not incompatible with international services. However, the local model is able to respond to cost savings needed by companies that choose to use channels that are not voice channels such as chats and social networks.  

As the options in the marketplace evolve, the onshore model has regained some value and appeal” (Katrina Menzigian, VP of Everest Group)

What are the benefits of local services?  This approach leads to the need to consider the benefits that provide local services. Some of the most important are:

• Improve the quality of service while responding to the desire of customers to communicate with closer agents.
• Provide more knowledge and innovation, to the extent that expectations are no longer so focused on containing costs or encourage proactivity.
• The increase in non-voice services reduces local costs, while providing the advantage of proximity that we mentioned before.

All this, together with more investment in scanning technologies, tools or multi-channel automation, drives improved customer services by offering an integrated digital experience, while interactions are more effective and intelligent. At the same time, technology in general, and safety in particular, improvements promote a new model of agents working from home allowing proximity that characterizes local services. The key is, according to Katrina Menzigian, vice president of Everest Group, in not seeing the customer interaction as an opportunity to reduce costs. If not to identify “how I link my business goals with ways to interact with my customers.”