1. Contact centers are customer service facilities that handle a company's communication channels like phone, email, mail, and websites. 2. Contact centers provide value by generating sales, offering technical support, promoting customer satisfaction and loyalty, and achieving business efficiency. 3. Career opportunities in contact centers include call center agents, team leaders, customer relationship managers, technical support staff, and telesales staff.

3. THE WORLD OF CONTACT
CENTER SERVICES

4. This unit is about Contact Center Services, the
central area that receives a company’s customer
communication modes. The contact center is a
customer services facility that takes care of a
company’s channels of communication,
including telephone, voice messaging, facsimile,
electronic mails, snail mails, and Web site
maintenance.

5. This topic is relevant and important for you so
that you can be trained in the areas of receiving
calls from customers, handling complaints and
difficult customers, preparing documents based
on conversations, and operating computers or
other contact services that are used by
customers in engaging in business with
companies.

6. As an introductory course, this unit lets you
explore how you can acquire the five common
competencies that you must possess in the
contact center services: using contact center
equipment, performing computer operations,
applying quality standards, interpreting
technical drawings and plans, and observing
occupational health and safety procedures.

7. LESSON 1
RELEVANCE OF CONTACT
CENTERS AND CAREER
OPPORTUNITIES

8. What is contact center?
A contact center is the channel through which
company agents provide customers or clients
data or information regarding the features of a
product or service.
A company’s contact center considers the
integration of telephone systems and
computer technologies.

9. RELEVANCE OF CONTACT CENTER
SERVICES
Companies across the globe desire to
maintain good relationships with their
customers, because without customers,
businesses will not exist in the first
place.

10. Customer relationship management requires that companies provide ways
of being reached by customers whenever they have questions or concerns.
1. Contact center services generate revenues when
telemarketer(professionals who contact prospective customers to
convince them to either buy products or avail of the company's services)
help in providing potential customers the information they for their
specific needs.
2. Contact center services provide technical support in case customers
need assistance regarding the use or installation of products they
purchased.

11. 3. Contact center services contribute to a company’s profits and
sales income since a positive customer experience leads to brand
loyalty.
4. Contact center services promote a higher level of customer
satisfaction because customer representatives are professionally
trained and technically skilled.
5. Contact center services achieve business efficiency since
customers can contact call centers to get the answers to their
questions immediately.

12. The company departments usually utilize
contact centers:
1. Sales department- physical stores are important, but more and more people now
prefer to make calls to purchase their products since it is easier compared with
physically commuting to stores.
2. Accounting department- contact centers help in facilitating the follow up of
delinquent clients. They help in collecting late payments.
3. Customer service departments- customer service desks are found in physical
stores while information desks are found in places like malls.
4. Marketing Department- Products and services are made available to target
clients.

13. Basic concepts in contact center
services
Call center This is an office handling a huge volume of customer
inquiries via the telephone.
Call center agent - This is an individual tasked to take customer
calls, orders, or inquiries to provide customer assistance.
Cloud computing - This is the process of sharing and accessing
computing resources online instead of using local servers or
devices.
Collections This is the process of reminding customers about
overdue bills.

14. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - This refers to
a company's set of practices to handle data and interactions
with clients for the purpose of building and maintaining
customer loyalty.
E-mail- This is a system that allows the electronic exchange
of text-based messages either between computers or cell
phones.
Help desk - This refers to a service providing technical help
and support for people using a computer package or
network.

15. Inbound call - This is a type of phone communication that is
initiated by the customer.
Internet - This is a network that links computer networks all
over the world by satellite and telephone, connecting users
with service networks such as e-mail and the World Wide
Web.
Off-peak - This describes a time period when fewer calls are handled
in comparison to other periods.
Online chat - This refers to an exchange of messages in real time
between and among computer users.

17. Outbound call - This is a type of phone communication
initiated by a call center agent to a customer on behalf of
the call center or a client.
Snail mail This refers to correspondence sent through the
postal service that requires cut out stamps or inked
stamps.
Technical support - This is the process of providing
assistance to customers who have questions about how to
use a given product or a service.

18. Telemarketing - This refers to the promotion of goods or
services by means of telephone calls to target customers.
Telephone - This is an electronic communications device
with a receiver and a transmitter connected to a
telecommunications system, enabling the user to speak to
and hear others with similar equipment.
Telesales This refers to the selling or promoting goods and
services by telephone

19. URL- This is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator, which is
an Internet address identifying the location of a file on the
Internet, consisting of the protocol, the computer on which the
file is located, and the file's location on that computer.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) - This is a category of
hardware and software that allows telephone services to be
delivered over the Internet.
Web -This refers to a system of Internet servers created tor the
purpose of supporting documents that are specially formatted.

20. career Opportunities in Contact Center
Services
Call center agents -They are responsible for effectively handling
individual calls with the goal of maintaining customer satisfaction.
Call center team leaders - They provide daily direction and guidance to
call center agents so that calls are answered in an effective, punctual,
and knowledgeable manner.
Cloud consultants - They provide contact center companies the technical
support and assistance they need in relation to servers, bandwidth, and
data storage which call center agents need.

21. Customer relationship managers - they develop, implement, and manage
customer service guidelines for an entire organization that caters to customer
contacts.
Customer service representatives- They solve customer requests while
proactively offering ideas and suggestions to improve any issues or challenges
a customer may have. .
Data entry clerks - Also called order clerks, they maintain records for purposes
of entering customer information on a computer system.
Inbound telemarketing specialists - They exert promotional efforts in behalf of
companies that try to reach potential customers.

22. Systems engineers - They provide contact centers direct support in
their day-to-day operations on network hardware, operating
systems, monitoring response time, and detection and correction of
operational problems.
Technical support staff - They are call center agents whose duties
are focused on providing technical solutions to customers who may
have problems in operating products they have purchased.
Telesales staff - They are contact support staff that reach out to
customers who may be interested in purchasing certain products..