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Global View of the Contact Center
Here are some interesting observations:
+ Agent satisfaction is one of the top concerns of contact center managers in Shanghai.
+ The growth of the outsourcing industry in the Philippines is spurring a boom of new 24-hour retail outlets.
+ The lack of toll-free telephone service in Japan has dictated the development of call centers there.
These views aren't from a voluminous research report. They're from a road trip of sorts.
The tripsters are Oscar Alban and Bill Durr, principal global market consultants for Witness Systems. Alban and Durr are on their fifth annual tour of the Asia Pacific region, visiting such destinations as Auckland, Bangalore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Melbourne, Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo. Along the way they're meeting and talking with contact center managers about what customer service-related issues they're facing and trends they're seeing. And then they're reporting on their findings in their travel blog, www.improveeverything.com. Their tour started on September 11 and continues through the 29th.
Witness spokesperson Shana Keith tells me the blog is so popular that Alban and Durr will continue to pontificate from their U.S. tour, as well, scheduled to begin on October 6. I'm not surprised. I checked out the blog and (mixed in with the expected product references) there are some very interesting observations, like:
+ Often improvements in contact center performance are a result of fixing such back office issues as confusing billing statements.
+ It's imperative to train supervisors to better coach service agents who are being asked to sell.
+ Contact center executives are just as focused as ever on resolving the challenge of balancing efficiency and effectiveness.
In the Post Soviet countries, fast growing market for Fashion retail.