Call Centers Will Remain Strategically Important To Business
Business Wire
April 21, 2025


Call centers will remain strategically important to business, and the call center market will continue to grow despite the 'Web hype', according to independent analyst group, Ovum, Inc. But Web-enabled call centers (1) will become more widespread because they can have a demonstrable positive impact on the bottom line. The findings come in a detailed new report from Ovum, Inc., Next Generation Call Centers: CTI, Voice and the Web.

Ovum cites two reasons for the continued importance of the call center. According to David Bradshaw, senior analyst in customer facing systems at Ovum, Inc., "Call centers are where corporations talk directly to their customers, discovering their requirements, persuading them to do business, and ensuring their demands are satisfied. Call centers also have a crucial advantage over self-service media - they allow corporations to be proactive in ways that would be rejected or ignored if self-service media were used."

But Ovum warns user organizations that they must be clear on strategy. "Users must decide whether they are Web enabling their call centers or call center enabling their Web sites. The end result may appear the same, but the two are different. The differences are in what rules the call center applies to initiating interactions, how the business case is constructed, and how 'success' is measured," says Bradshaw.

Ovum points out that when user organizations Web-enable their call centres, they are typically either using the Web as a 'front door' to the call center or are using the Web to improve the effectiveness of call center interactions. "Corporations that take this approach are usually committed to telebusiness," continues Bradshaw. "Their Web sites are not primarily used as a customer interaction point and they may choose to carry out interactions via the Web that are not cost effective in the call center."

When user organizations call-center enable the Web, they are typically either increasing the success rate of Web transactions or providing a back-up for problems that can not be resolved via the Web. "Corporations that take this approach are usually committed e-commerce players that want to supplement the effectiveness of their e-commerce operations," says Bradshaw. "If they have repeat customers doing low-value transactions, a common objective is to use the call center to 'train' the customer in self-service."

According to Next Generation Call Centers: CTI, Voice and the Web, the Web enabled call center is a strong catalyst for e-commerce strategy. Ovum finds that linking on-line strategy with the call center has two direct effects on e-commerce:

--a Web enabled call center makes the on-line process more effective, by augmenting the e-commerce process with live agent support

--a Web enabled call center makes e-commerce strategies more effective at tapping into the on-line revenue stream, by introducing a pro-active element.

"There is a disparity between the financial returns promised by e-commerce hype and the on-line profits that are currently being realized," concludes Bradshaw. "Web enabled call centers allow corporations to overcome this profit inertia and realize their latent e-commerce revenue, by acting as the catalyst that turns on-line spin into financial substance."

Next Generation Call Centers: CTI, Voice and the Web is a wide-ranging guide to maximizing the business benefits of the latest CTI and related technologies. Available from Ovum, Inc. in May, the report covers cost-benefit and implementation issues, profiles key suppliers and users, and forecasts the market. For more product information contact Ovum, Inc. on Tel: 1-800-642-OVUM or go to http://www.ovum.com