In the age of constant communication, people are always connected. There has never been more ways for team members to interact with their colleagues, contractors, and customers. That means that the definition of the call centre is changing. Call centres are beginning to appear in areas where you might not have noticed them before.
The term “informal call centre” is one that many people will have trouble understanding. However, Tollring believes that if channel partners and resellers can discover the value of the informal call centre, they can differentiate themselves with today’s businesses. Informal call centres could enable businesses to align their communication strategy for more lucrative discussions both inside and outside of the organisation. When knowledge can flow seamlessly from one aspect of a business to another, the entire company evolves.
I spoke to Carl Boraman, Director of Strategic Alliances at Tollring, to learn more about what informal call centres are, and the opportunities that they can represent to the changing channel market.
What Is An Informal Call Centre?
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Carl Boraman[/caption]
Informal call centres, according to Tollring, refer to any situation in which a specific group of people is required to assist or support customers, whether internal or external customers. One example of an informal call centre could be an internal help desk that offers IT support to your employees. Another instance might be a team of specialist frontline workers that can offer technical information on a product.
In all businesses, large and small, there are always occasions where people may need to reach out to someone with specialist knowledge to help them accomplish a task or complete a project. For instance, Carl suggested, “You might have a trade counter with a customer in front of them. That trade counter representative might need to speak to an accounts department to see if the customer has any credit to make a purchase. That’s an example of one department acting as a call centre for another.”
Crucially, Carl told me that one defining factor of the informal call centre, is that it’s built around telephony. “People still use phones to share information and get quick answers to questions. In informal call centres, these phones need to be monitored to ensure that they’re answered in a timely fashion, and that problems are solved correctly.”
Where’s the Opportunity for the Channel?
Most people are familiar with formal call centres, complete with agents using headsets to answer hundreds of calls every day. However, informal contact centres aren’t nearly as well understood, even though they’re a component of virtually every business. According to Tollring, the concept of the informal contact centre is a challenge to the modern company, and therefore an opportunity for channel partners and resellers.
“Businesses are always looking for ways that they can invest in improving the efficiency of their workforce, improve customer service, and reduce operational waste. If resellers and partners can show that they have a solution that’s cost-effective and easy to use and help customers to understand where the gaps in their informal contact centres are, then there’s a real opportunity.”
When channel partners and resellers can highlight informal contact centres in the modern marketplace for their customers, they can also show them the benefits that come from making those environments more efficient. For instance, if your team members can quickly get information from a specialist when they need to fix an IT problem for a customer, then those workers can get more done, and your customers can benefit from faster, better experiences.
“Ease of use will be particularly important for resellers to take full advantage of this area, however. Formal contact centres generally require a lot of expertise and support. Creating a solution for the informal call centre will focus on delivering something that’s easy and cost-effective – so anyone can use it. If resellers can deliver this usability and help clients to see the benefits of improving connections, they’ll find amazing opportunities for sales.”
What Are Some of the Use Cases Available Today?
Carl believes that every business has informal call centres, although most companies aren’t aware of them. For instance, from an inbound call perspective, a sales team receiving calls from customers when a new product or pricing promotion is announced acts as an informal contact centre. Investor relations teams receive regular calls from existing and potential investors when they want information about how an acquisition or change might affect the stock price.
