ABSTRACT
Several years ago, I tried out a new way of describing a call center. It’s not a physical place, went the argument. It’s a set of functions that can be carried out in any number of ways, in lots of configurations, many of them virtual. It’s customer contact, no matter how that contact is handled. (I was trying to get a grip on the way media blending and the Internet were changing the way call cen ters were managed.)
Now, we are at a transitional moment in the call center industry. Technology has leaped ahead, and all the tools that we could possibly want or expect (or assimilate) are available. A really motivated company with lots of money to spend could put together the kind of integrated call center/customer service/database system we dreamed about a few years ago.
