What stages of development have call centers gone through?

Overview The call center is closely related to people's daily life, and people's understanding of the call center is also quite broad. Telecom operators set up the "114" special service phone, is considered to be a typical call center in the early days. Then, a large number of voice stations and paging stations commonly use automatic response systems to provide services, which is also known as call center services. Nowadays, telecommunication carriers have built several call centers, such as 1000/1001 and 1860/1861, etc., which have made the concept of call centers y rooted in people's hearts through their convenient and fast services. Call center has developed into an industry, which can not only create good social benefits for enterprises, but also bring great economic benefits for enterprises. With the continuous integration and development of communication technology and computer technology in recent years, the call center has been given a new connotation CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) so that the computer network and communication network into one. At present, the call center has developed to the fourth generation, the fourth generation of call centers in the access mode integrated Internet channels, so that users can be a variety of convenient and fast way to communicate with the call center customer agent for communication and exchange; it is designed to focus on the application of the level, rather than the hardware (such as PABX), so more adaptable to the requirements of the enterprise, and more effective with the enterprise CRM CRM process; the fourth generation of call center system adopts a new connotation CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) so that computer networks and communication networks are integrated. The fourth generation of call center system adopts the open design (Open System), which greatly improves the flexibility of the system and strengthens the integration with other systems. Let us look back at the development trajectory of the CTI industry, you will find that the development of today's call center industry has crossed into a new level and stage, the footsteps of the network technology revolution has come quietly. Second, the call center development history review 1) the first generation of call centers: artificial hotline telephone system Call center, early refers to a group of two or more people, in a specific place with special equipment to deal with telephone business. These people are commonly referred to as call center agents (people). A call center may provide only message receiving services, or only message sending services, or it may be a hybrid call center whose call center agents will be responsible for all of these two tasks. Characteristics of the first generation of call centers: the hardware equipment is an ordinary telephone or a small switchboard (queuing machine), simple, low cost, simple functions, low automation, generally only used to receive user complaints, inquiries; suitable for small businesses or small business volume, the user does not require a high degree of enterprise/unit use. At present, there is no formal establishment of call centers of enterprises, units generally use this approach. (2) The second generation of call centers: interactive automatic voice response system With the development of computer technology and communications technology, the first generation of call centers due to the basic manual operation, the operator's requirements are quite high, and labor-intensive, poor functionality, has been clearly not adapted to the needs of the times. Therefore, the second generation of call center system with perfect functions came into being. The second generation of call center features: extensive use of computer technology, such as through the local area network technology to achieve database data **** enjoy; voice automatic response technology is used to reduce the operator's labor intensity, reduce the error rate; the use of automatic call distributor to equalize the amount of seat calls, reduce call loss, improve customer satisfaction and so on. However, the second generation of call center also has certain shortcomings: it needs to use a dedicated hardware platform and application software, but also need to invest a lot of money for integration and customer personalization needs, poor flexibility, inconvenient upgrades, greater risk, and higher costs. (3) The third generation of call center: both automatic voice and human service customer service system Compared with the second generation of call center, the third generation of call center using CTI technology to achieve voice and data synchronization. It mainly uses software to replace the special hardware platform and personalized software, due to the use of standardized common software platform and common hardware platform, making the call center become a pure data network. Advantages of the third-generation call center: the use of common hardware and software platform, low cost; with the continuous downward adjustment of software prices, you can continue to add new features, especially the use of middleware, so that the system is more flexible, easy to expand and upgrade the system; whether it is an internal business system or a customer management system outside the enterprise, the interoperability between the different systems have been strengthened; while also supporting the virtual call center features (remote agent). Third, a new generation of call centers (the fourth generation of call centers: network multimedia customer service center) (1) a new generation of call centers feature access and outbound diversified telephone, VOIP phone, computer, fax machine, cell phone short message, WAP, pager, e-mail and so on. A variety of communication methods format interchangeable can be realized text to voice, voice to text, EMAIL to voice, EMAIL to short message, EMAIL to fax, fax to EMAIL, voice to EMAIL, etc. free conversion. Automatic voice recognition technology can automatically recognize voice, and realize the text and voice automatic two-way conversion, you can realize the automatic communication between people and the system. WEB-based call center WEB CALL, independent telephone, text conversation, non-real-time task request. Fourth, a new generation of call center applications In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet, and Internet applications related to technology has also been rapid development. The fourth generation of call centers is largely for Internet users, its functions are more powerful, the scope of application is also more extensive. Here are a few examples of this application to play the role of a brick to attract jade. 1, centralized processing of distributed (IP) call center After the use of IP technology, due to the ubiquity of the Internet, therefore, the IP call center system using a fully distributed structure, anytime, anywhere you can access the call center to provide services to customers to achieve the true meaning of the mobile office. It has a series of advantages: easy to transition to the next generation of network upgrades, strong system expansion capabilities, low cost, mobile office and so on. 2, WEB synchronization, also known as escort browsing. That is, in the remote user side of the computer by running the customer center agent computer interface software, so that the customer center agent gradually guide the remote user to use the customer service center of the various functions, and timely answers to difficult questions, like teachers to guide the students around the same as the students on the computer, so that the user feels the "personal" service, improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. This makes users feel "personal" service and improves customer satisfaction and loyalty. Escort browsing is very suitable for beginners. 3, expert seat service With the increasingly fierce competition in the market, the customer service center must be used by more and more enterprises, at the same time, the demand for experts familiar with a variety of business is also getting bigger and bigger. Operating companies in the pursuit of reducing operating costs at the same time, still need to ensure that the customer service center to provide quality service, so that the expert system in the application of customer service system is more and more important. Through the introduction of expert system, the user can put forward some "difficult problems" to the expert system seat to solve. On the other hand, it can also be in the seat of the real arrangement of high-level experts, through the ACD intelligent distribution, general questions by the ordinary customer service agent is responsible for answering, really tricky questions before transferring to the expert seat, thus reducing the number of high-level experts seat, optimize the use of resources to achieve the purpose of reducing operating costs. 4, remote seat Since the Internet, customer service center remote seat is no longer a distant dream. Through the Internet's VPN technology, the customer service center can be extended to remote seats, such as at home or in the office. Another situation is that the customer service center server room is located in other regions with lower construction costs, while customer service agents can still work in the region. For example, if the Hong Kong call center is located in a certain region in the Mainland, but the customer service agents are still located in Hong Kong, so as to make full use of the advantages of the Mainland in terms of low rent for venues, low labor costs, and so on, to greatly reduce operating costs. Another situation is that the customer service staff can be transferred to the home customer service phone calls to realize the business go, so that customer service staff to eliminate the pain of late-night shift, but also can be done around the clock without interrupting the business. 5, outsourcing call center For small and medium-sized enterprises or economic conditions do not allow enterprises to establish a complete call center is undoubtedly too costly, too expensive. But some of the strength of the enterprise should establish a comprehensive large-scale call center, in addition to meet their own needs, but also can take the seat outsourcing mode, to achieve the resource **** enjoyment and optimization, its economic benefits are obvious. For example, telecommunications companies, and even IDC server room construction can be considered in conjunction with unified planning, unified construction, will certainly achieve significant economic and social benefits. 6, data warehousing and data mining With the continuous development of the market economy and the continuous expansion of the scope of business, call centers are no longer in the traditional sense of the "Complaints Center" and "Service Hotline", its connotation is also more rich in foreign countries, customer service centers and even become a very important sales channel. A very important sales channel. Many astute enterprises have allowed integrators to carry out in-depth data analysis and mining, through the customer service center and the organic combination of enterprise CRM, from which business opportunities are found. V. Conclusion With China's accession to the WTO, market competition has further intensified, the competition of enterprises will certainly enter a white-hot stage. Call center as a mature technology, has been recognized by the majority of customers, and has been in telecommunications, banking, postal, mobile, civil aviation, railroads, insurance and other industries to achieve a wide range of applications, we have reason to believe that the call center will have a better tomorrow. The majority of enterprises, units will be based on their own needs to choose the applicable call center, in order to achieve the maximization of economic and social benefits.