ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses onto how substitution of the telephone-based salesperson with a field sales force can successfully take place. Any contact centre should be integrated with the organization's sales activities, either directly or indirectly. It is very likely that the contact centre is 'making' (outbound) or 'taking' (inbound) contacts, whether they are calls, emails, faxes or post, from more customers than other perhaps more traditional or well-established parts of the organization The contact mix is changing, with field sales operations, for example, being reduced as organizations discover faster and less expensive ways of reaching more customers and making sales. It can be estimated that contact centres are responsible for around 70 per cent of an organization's customer contact. Realization of the potential strategic role of an integrated contact centre is driving the reconsideration of them as more than just a cost centre that is mentally, and more often than not, physically located on the periphery of the organization.
