New statistics on the $9.9 billion Australian call centre industry suggest the business front office could disappear in the near future.
Conducted by call centre research specialist, callcentres.net, the 2002 Australia & New Zealand Call Centre Industry Benchmark Study shows businesses are continuing to increase the amount of customer contact they channel via call centres. A major shift is also underway towards automated technologies such as speech recognition and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology for low-complexity functions such as call answering, simple requests and redirection.
According to callcentres.net, the moves are being, "driven by customers who want speed, efficiency and first call resolution when dealing with an enterprise, as well as businesses who want to heighten customer satisfaction and loyalty".
Martin Conboy, Managing Director at callcentres.net, said the figures - drawn from the annual survey of more than 170 Australian businesses, representing over 600 call centres containing over 35,000 seats - showed that more than 69 per cent of business contacts were now passed through a call centre.
"As we've predicted for years, businesses are clearly realising the strategic importance of the call centre to the enterprise. Combined with the fact that in 2002, call centres are handling 37 per cent more transaction traffic with plateauing employment, there is a clear trend to automate simple tasks and push good people up the line into more strategic customer service roles. As such, people growth is mainly reflected in the larger call centres and outsourcing companies," said Conboy.
"It's still a voice world. Eighty per cent of callers talk to a human being, but trends show the front office, as we know it, is on the way out," he added.
