电子商务重新定义呼叫中心

CTI论坛编译

    随着电子商务的发展及其重点快速转向为客户提供满意的服务，引得传统的呼叫中心正在演变为“下一代多媒体客户服务中心”。以使得它能成为适应众多的、各种不同类型的用户交流的中心。

    这是Frost和Sullivan在最新的、题为“美国基于WEB呼叫中心市场”的研究报告中得出的结论。此项报告指出，新技术使得厂商能够将呼叫中心和Internet结合起来，以便让通过WEB浏览的用户可以与客户服务代表进行在线交流。

    报告称，虽然基于WEB技术的呼叫中心随着Internet的发展迎来了重要的机遇，但这个市场目前还处于起步阶段。他们预测这一市场将会在1999年1亿美元的基础上快速攀升，到2006年，达到10亿美元的产值。

    Frost说，新的电子商务技术的运用和企业希望留住客户的要求，共同驱动着这一市场的发展。客户的满意度日益成为在相同的商业活动中取胜的关键因素，如果不能给用户提供有效、友好服务，那么客户就将跑到你的竞争对手那里去。基于WEB的呼叫中心将会提供一个客户所需要的高质量服务平台。

    商家应注意到，比那些通过传统的PSTN电话联系的用户来说，通过Internet进行交流的用户将会是更重要的。而且，基于WEB的呼叫中心正可以在这方面提高生产力，改善企业的基础水平。

    Frost说，商家可能因为担心要增加最初的运营成本，并且对是否能通过IP来实施客户关系管理（CRM）存有疑惑，而推迟采用基于WEB的呼叫中心。

    尽管如此，仍然已经有相当多传统工业部门的最终用户意识到采用新技术所带来的利益，并已开始加以运用。这主要集中在金融、通信、旅游、医疗和保健等行业。（郭晨东）

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.