By definition, a call center is a major concentration within a company or other location in which telephone activity takes place including technical and support calls and customer service support calls. Inbound and outbound calling are the major venues for communications and managing who is called, who should call them, and why calling them is a job that usually involves entire rooms full of computers, networking hardware, and telephone systems interfaces. Now, imagine if somebody came in and announced that a single voice technology running on less electricity than a household light bulb would replace this entire process. Well, this is the impact that Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has on enterprise-based call centers, in addition to the small to mid-sized call center operations.
In a major science fiction movie, an artificially intelligent computer named 'HAL 9000' addresses an astronaut by name. In call centers of the 21st century style, as many as 100 to 250 Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) can operate the center using only a single technology. Imagine having an outbound call script that includes the ability to instruct the CSR to offer to send an informational fax to their business headquarters for their boss to review. That is the current state of the art in unified information systems.
Unified communications are powerful as a standalone, but when you integrate features such as video conferencing, you create a true united information system. Any company that drags its feet investing in these communications technologies will lag behind those who do invest readily. 'Green is the new Green' and it is the hot new quote in the investment world. Wind power is growing by leaps and bounds and going green is how money is made in business these days. When a business combines unified information with green technology the door opens to making call centers act as profit centers, not customer service expenses.
In the future, an entire multi-billion dollar corporation will be operated out of the same office space as a modern dentist. That future is now. In the future, people will also have screens that they carry around with them to access anyone on the planet at any time, or even access any piece of information any time, and from anywhere. That future is available at your local technology retailer. There is no good reason for any communications and technology based company to not be adopting these amazing technologies.
