As a call center, business is a lot different than it used to be. Once upon a time, you only had to worry about the competition down the street. These days, you not only have to worry about them, but you have to worry about being better than businesses in the next city, in the next state and, thanks to economic globalization, you also have to worry about competition on other continents. Competition is only part of the problem. Not only are they competing against you, but they are commoditizing your products and your brand.
Despite the explosion in the number of ways customers interact with a company, benchmark research carried out by Ventana Research shows that contact centers handle the majority of customer interactions. As the primary interface point for customers, the center thus is the de facto face of the company, and how an agent handles an interaction can have a significant impact on perception of the company and its brand, and as a result on its business performance.