Our industry is changing at a pace.  The future is approaching faster than we know.  Many organisations are motoring ahead with transformations we could never have envisaged before.  So why are these changes not changing customers’ views of call centres?  The media and general public perception is an out-of-date view dominated by off-shored call centres and outbound cold calling.  Such a misconception when only around 5-10% of activity is actually managed in this way.

Yesterday we held our Future Workforce conference at RBS Gogarburn where we were privileged to hear from a wide-range of brands about the transformational and inspirational work they are doing.

Tesco shared the success of their home working initiative where they now have around 300 home-workers successfully responding to customer enquiries. EE (formerly Everything Everywhere) has undergone an amazing transformation by reshaping its employee engagement strategy allowing advisors to bring their own personalities to conversations and steering away from a more scripted approach – and ultimately reaping the rewards.  Arrow XL has rebranded from Yodel and responded to the huge online purchasing explosion by revolutionising their service element with an enterprise-wide responsibility for customers – in particular with those actually delivering the products to customers.  Delivery personnel will soon have access to hand-held, real-time feedback from customers allowing staff to understand the impact they have on the overall success of the business. 

The technical adversity that RBS experienced last year quickly brought them into the world of social media as it was critical they responded to customer complaints through this channel.  They have also embraced web-chat, serving customers where they want to be.  They now no longer differentiate between their technical helpdesk and customer service (which is the approach they had in the past) – no small task for the faint hearted!

The changes in our sector are profound and interesting and it is time we were shouting more about it.  Yes the economy is gloomy, yes GDP growth figures are pessimistic but the service sector is bucking the trend being the only area of significant growth.  It’s progressive, innovative and should be recognised for doing great things.

CCA is working hard at driving this agenda forward and is currently in discussion about a number of media opportunities with national television to work with leading brands to show the real story of customer service delivered through contact centres.  The challenge we have is getting organisations to take the brave step to invite the media in as too much coverage in the past has been so negative.  However, for those pioneers out there really looking to make a difference, we would love to hear from you about profiling the fantastic work you and your teams carry out for customers each and every day.  Let’s work on this together and who knows where we might end up?