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Call Centres ExplainedA call centre or call center is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing, clientele, and debt collection are also made. In addition to a call centre, collective handling of letters, faxes, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact centre. A call centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace, with work stations that include a computer, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration (CTI). Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centres. Examples of this include help desks and sales support.
Call Centre Technologies Call Centres use a wide variety of different technologies to allow them to manage the large volumes of work that needs to be managed by the call centre. These technologies ensure that agents are kept as productive as possible, and that calls are queued and processed as quickly as possible, resulting in good levels of service. These include various technologies are outlined below:
Testing Specifics When assessing the overall testing needs of a call centre you must address the following primary points: Ø
Express
that testing at development and
pre-deployment stages highlights bottlenecks and performance problems before any
go-live launch Ø
Outline
that a unique combination of Load &
Performance Testing and Tuning and Voice System Performance Testing gives a
reality check on the real-world needs of a quality Call Centre Ø State how quality and focused testing optimises call flows, shortens links and decreases the overall call costs Ø Scalability issues.
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