The Australian Contact Centre Survey, which assessed 110 contact centres ranging from four to 1,000 seats (customer-facing employees) across Australia found that the number of seats in the average call centre grew 11.7 percent in 2002. This trend is expected to continue throughout 2003.
Eloise Palmer, managing director of Vivaz, the company that conducted the research, told ZDNet Australia that 76 percent of the contact centres surveyed expected to invest in new technology in 2003.
"The most important reason that people invest in new technology is if there was a guaranteed improvement on the bottom line," said Palmer, adding that companies were looking for a return on investment of under two years.
Palmer said 43 percent of companies indicated they would definitely invest in new technology, with another 33 percent indicating they would be likely to invest in new technology in 2003. On average, each company planned to invest in two new technologies out of those available to call centres.
The most likely software to be invested in by call centres will be Workforce Planning Software, according to Palmer, and 25 percent of respondents are interested in CRM software.
However, less than five percent of respondents indicated they were interested in speech recognition. "Voice [Recognition] has got a long way to go to catch up to IVR," said Palmer. IVR (Integrated Voice Response) uses a recorded voice to prompt the caller to enter numbers on the keypad.
"Voice is fantastic in the right environment, but it's not right for many companies," said Palmer.
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