Is the "Call Center" Dead?

Every year, Call Center Week enjoys marked growth in size and relevance for customer service professionals.

Every year, more and more of the authoritative event’s attendees engage in debate about the relevance of the term "call center."

Believing "call center" refers specifically to those who answer customer support inquiries, some professionals believe it inadequately describes what they do. They are not scripted robots who simply answer phones – they are drivers of meaningful—and multi-dimensional—engagement with customers.

To them, a term like "customer engagement center" or "interaction center" represents a far more accurate depiction of their business unit.

Believing "call center" refers specifically to live or automated communication via the telephone, others believe it inadequately describes the multi-channel nature of today’s marketplace. Customers seek to do more than just "call" brands, so why should the term describing the customer engagement function be so limiting?

To them, a term like "contact center" represents a far more accurate depiction of their business unit.

Neither point is refutable. Today’s businesses are expected to do more than simply respond to customer support inquiries. They are expected to address customers outside of the telephone channel.

But it is precisely because of those realities that I contend the "call center" term can—and should--remain the standard one for describing the multi-channel customer engagement function.

In today’s marketplace, the power lies completely with the customers. They choose where and when engagement takes place. They choose whether or not the business is delivering an unsatisfying, satisfying or dazzling experience. They choose where, when and how to voice their frustration or admiration for a brand.

Most importantly, they do so without concern for a business’ self-imposed limitations. It is not the customer’s duty to accommodate a business’ shortcomings. If he wants to engage via social at 3AM, it is thebusiness’ job to make that happen. The business has the right to say no, but in doing so, it is categorically failing to deliver for the customer base. It is categorically failing to deliver for the business. It is categorically failing to do its job.

Unless the entirety of a business’ existing and future customer base intends to only communicate about customer support inquiries via the telephone, the most literal concept of the "call center" is therefore an obsolete one. If it is being designed and executed properly, the business function must accommodate multiple forms of engagement across multiple communication channels.

That means that in 2014, the division of the business historically known as the call center is a contact center. It is a customer engagement center. The term, therefore, remains appropriate.

Given that reality, the introduction of a term like "contact center" or "engagement center" is actually hazardous. It suggests that businesses have a choice to either maintain a traditional, exclusively-phone-based "call center" or develop a modern, multi-channel, customer-centric "contact center" or "engagement center."

They do not have that choice.

Offering customer service exclusively through the telephone is not a reconcilable option in today’s marketplace, and that means the idea of "contact center spectrum" is similarly untenable. If a business is in the process of interacting with customers, its "call center" must account for the reality of how today’s customers desire to interact.

A customer service professional would, therefore, be flawed in the assertion that he does "more" than what is communicated by the term "call center." If his center feels it is going beyond the call of duty by offering multiple contact channels and multiple dimensions of engagements, it is not because it is doing more than a call center should do. It is because the "call centers" he has in mind are not doing what they should be doing.

Changing the name as a means of escaping the call center stigma is understandable, but transforming the logic behind the call center is essential. To work in today’s environment, the call center must be both a "contact center" and an "engagement center."

And that is true no matter what label a particular organization gives its customer-facing business unit.