Historically, the call centers were born of the opportunity to give an immediate service to the client across the phone. At first it was Homely informative and it had a character of incidental service to the Home offer of the product. Nevertheless, his use expanded greatly, owed Homely to two factors:

• Strong competition, which turned a luxurious service into a habitual and necessary contact channel with the client.
• Strong demand of the particular client, who every time enjoys less free time time and therefore it gives him more value to his free time.

This joined a strong technological innovation, was making to presage to the sector a brilliant future, which in the reality has not covered yet the expectations that had put themselves in him. Now then, it is necessary to emphasize the effort that the companies of the sector realize for correcting and to promote the lacks that day by day are happening.

We are conscious of that the market of the contact centers is one of the most dynamic and advanced technologically, but motivated by his individuals characteristics it must be able to face to numerous challenges that it has raised in his activity, we are speaking about the absence of formation of the teams of work, about the high rotation of the personnel, the complex relation with the client and the offshoring or deslocalización.

But, the evolution continues, and such a competitive market in which they move has taught the users to claim extra cost services and to demand the form in which they want to be related to the company. This has forced the traditional call centers to turn in contact centers, where diverse interaction channels integrate with the company like phone, e-mail, sms..., with the same simplicity and efficacy that provides a solution of center of telephone attention and offering to the clients the only contact point to solve his needs.

To this fact one has joined that the Internet consolidation, and therefore of the electronic commerce, has caused the appearance of the virtual call centers, which allow to the Net users, across a clic, to begin a conversation face to face with the person who is in the center of telephone attention. With this call center two obstacles excel themselves: the fear of the Net users that is still distilled to buy across Internet and the dehumanization, that is to say, the absence of face, gestures and look.

At the moment, the virtual call center is implanted slowly, but there exists another most deep-rooted formula that is the voice on Internet Protocol (IP) that allows to the Net user, across a clic, to get in touch with the operator who is going to solve all his doubts, with the consequent telephone saving.

Thanks to all these technological advances, the call center has stopped being a mere calls agent to be able to turn into a strategic element of the system CRM (Customer Relationship Management) of the companies, which, nevertheless, I consider one is not able to extract his all the benefits that the system can facilitate.

If the technology is important, they it must be moreover the persons turned into the key piece and into the essential part of our efforts.

For it, it is necessary to prioritize the satisfaction of the clients opposite to the expenses reduction and, in this aspect, the human teams have a big responsibility to be covered. Let's not forget that the image of our company is in game. Clear example of a good knowledge to do we have it in American Express and Coca-Cola.

These companies have a culture faced towards the client in the whole organization, independently of the assignment to realize, and that transmits the user. His method continues exactly the skill RMG of the sale, since of the traditional one to contact to report, has passed to contactar-comunicar-informar-satisfacer-fidelizar and to expire.

Without the correct application of this skill, the companies of contact and the companies clients will give a damaged image of the service and, as a result, instead of making the clients faithful, will have them captive with the consequent one «I do not return» of the investment. For it, I cheer up the companies to which they do not center only his strategy on the costs reduction to be able to compete, but they invest in the human teams for profesionalizar his management and this way to be able to realize the cultural change that is demanding the market, and reaching this way the competitiveness that the client requests.

Technology and persons are two props on which it is necessary to sustain the present and future of the centers of contact to turn into a strategic opportunity to show before the market a content and a distinguishing efficacy with regard to the competition.

10.1. Measurements and plan of action to improve the attention to the clients

• To work to turn into a center of services.
• To establish a plan of attention to the client who has his origin in the direction of the company and implies all the workers.
• To be able to measure the quality of service of the company.
• To surrender from regular form to audits.
• To realize a market research on the attention to clients in our sector. In this study it is necessary to answer to three questions:

– What service are we giving to our clients?

– What service do our clients want to have? (both the current ones and the potentials).

– What service gives our competition?

• The personnel that treats with the clients must know all the products and services that the company offers.
• To happen from the concept "called" to that of «contact«.
• To examine if in the functioning of the company bottle necks take place and, in his case, to take measures to eliminate them.
• To update and to innovate in all the manuals and processes destined for the client.
• To organize a day of doors opened for the clients.
• To foresee a risks plan for emergency situations.
• To know the peculiarities of the clients.
• To realize a feedback of regular form with verbatims contributed by the users.
• To realize periodically specific courses for the formation of his maintenance staff of attention to the client.
• To organize a system that allows him to know and use the feedback that the client provides.
• To create an information channel between the clients and the different departments of the company.
• To insure itself of the flexibility in the execution of the system of attention the client.
• To measure qualitatively the economic result of the performance of the department of attention to the client.
• And, finally, we must not forget that the systems of control and aims making will help us to assure the constant efficacy of the department of attention to the client.

10.2. The attention to the client in the century xxi

Projected to be one of the Home props in the competitiveness of the companies of the new millenium, we have considered to be operative to reflect next a decalogue of what every contact center has to can communicate internally:

• The phone, the e-mail and the sms are the means most used by the clients in his communications with the companies.
• The attention services demand from the client a schedule superior to that of the company.
• It is very important to attend to the calls of the clients in the minor possible time.
• The clients value the first immediate answer on the part of the company, to the margin of future performances.
• The client has every time major tendency to make to cost his rights as consumer.
• The companies that increase his profitability are those who listen to the complaints and comments of his clients and try to solve them.
• The satisfaction of the client is not in hands of only one department but of the whole organization.
• The sensations that the client perceives on having presented his complaint are the most lasting and for that it grants the image of the company.
• What really differentiates a company of his direct competitors is the quality in the attention to the client.
• The claims are an information source and fidelización of the clients, let's make use of them.