Call Center On Demand Drives Productivity and Profitability

The look and feel of the call center within the organization has changed much over the years. What used to serve as an information portal and part gatekeeper for the organization is now serving as a key interaction point where customers receive information, make purchases and resolve issues.


With the change in the demand in the needs of the call center, organizations are now looking at alternative models when looking to make call center investments. One such model that is gaining in popularity is that of the on-demand call center. While it is not necessarily a perfect fit for everyone, the on-demand call center can help to drive productivity and profitability when integrated correctly.

Dennis Pombriant, Founder and Managing Principal of Beagle Research Group, LLC has been a long time advocate for the on-demand call center model. While he feels that there is still work in the field to be done, the platform opens up new markets and new operational business models.

With all the promise that the on-demand call center model offers, there are still some limits with such an approach. Pombriant noted that the biggest limitation at the moment is our own creativity in business. Many internal changes toward on-demand solutions are being driven by departments that are making due with cumbersome manual processes as application development and maintenance pose challenges of their own.

The call center presents an attractive push for on-demand, according to Pombriant, as it is extremely capital intensive from its onset. In fact, the call center is the most expensive element of CRM. For those call centers that lack significant capital, they can be quickly locked out of lucrative markets.

An on-demand call center model also allows the call center to be literally up and running within days. In addition, this type of call center has the option of hiring home-based agents all around the world to fit their specific language, skill set or educational needs.

By enabling the call center to hire right-fit agents, the cost of recruiting, training and retaining goes down significantly, allowing the call center to focus on every day processes.

Pombriant takes the view that the on-demand call center is not for everyone as there might always be situations where regulations or perceived security advantages keep a company away from the on-demand model. He points out that these situations are in the minority and the minority is shrinking. In the end, on-demand will likely to the option of choice for all call centers.

Click here to read Pombriant’s comments on on-demand call centers in their entirety.

For more, be sure to also check out the Call Center On Demand channel on TMCnet.