Contact centres 'hidden' benefits revealed

Contact centre managers are being urged to consider the 'hidden' benefits of virtual contact centres, which, flexibility and cost savings aside, can include a more contented team, greater brand affinity and even increased sales, reveals Call Centre Helper.

As virtual contact centres allowing staff to work on-demand from home or remote locations using their personal phones, continue to grow in popularity, Opal, together with a contact centre psychologist, has investigated the holistic benefits of implementing the technology and how this matches what customers demand from their contact centre experience.

The study examined the contact centre preferences of more than 1 000 consumers from across the UK, and 48% of people surveyed said they, generally, dislike using contact centres, demonstrating that the scope to improve the customer experience is huge.

Callcredit Information Group has revealed that its UK call centre received authorisation and regulation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), reports Contact Centres.

This authorisation enables Callcredit's agents to carry out telephone-based non-advised, non-investment life assurance sales on behalf of its clients.

The 500-seat call centre based in Bristol has handling capacity of 3 500 lines and handles over 3 million inbound and 2 million outbound calls each year and has clients ranging from SMEs to major blue chip clients, including several insurance sector clients.

Worcestershire Council is deploying a new workforce optimisation system to improve operations and provide a better service to the public, says Computer World UK.

Worcestershire Hub, the council's shared service initiative, has brought in Sabio, a contact centre systems integrator, to implement the unified 'Impact 360' workforce optimisation system from Verint.

Under the contract, Sabio will deploy Impact 360 to provide workforce management, call recording and quality monitoring support for over 50 agents at the Worcestershire Hub shared service contact centre, based in Worcester.