CCA Research Call for Participants in Survey on the Smart Service Strategies of the Future Contact Centre

Sword Ciboodle and CCA, have announced an open invitation for participation in their joint research project that focuses on "Smart Service in the Contact Centre," a study that will help organizations understand what is driving customer contact strategies and initiatives that are making service smarter and more effective -- ranging from decision making, to investments, to future plans.

The research will help to reveal insights in five key areas:

*

How contact centres are coping with a shift from passive service to proactive engagement

*

What smart service strategies and new look business models are being adopted

*

What tools are being relied on to intervene in a customer relationship

*

Whether the role of the contact centre and its visibility to the board is changing as customers are becoming more vocal

*

Understanding what the evolved contact centre will look like and what other trends are influencing its continued change

In addition to the move from reactive customer service to proactive interactions, there is a significant amount of hype regarding social and self-service channels. Many companies are attempting to find a balance when it comes to continued investment in the "gray area" of self-serve channels.

"For many years, organisations have tried to reduce customer service interactions or avoid them completely. They've used a range of strategies including limiting accessibility, cheap sourcing, increasing self-service, deploying lean service principles and getting customers to help other customers," said Anne Marie Forsyth, CEO of CCA. "We now believe we are seeing the start of the Big Switch in customer service where organisations are beginning to change their strategy and culture by looking at 'Smart Service'. This means customer problems and issues are actively identified and resolved and the emphasis now is anticipating the inevitable problems and concerns that are part and parcel of the customer relationship and fixing them quickly. It also means companies need to think about joined up customer journeys that embrace assisted and unassisted channels. This study will help us understand how far down this journey businesses are."

"There are a number of factors driving a change in Customer Service strategies, from changing consumer lifestyles to increased competition in the marketplace against a backdrop of economic difficulty," said Paul White, Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Sword Ciboodle. "With this survey, we are looking to understand how today's customer service operations are responding to those changes, and we're excited to be a part of a study that will help the overall market do exactly that."

The survey will be open for participation from June 12th through July 6th, 2012. The high level results will be shared openly in September 2012.

12th June 2012