I've implemented/maintained several. Call centers are one of those things you try to keep as simple as possible. Generally speaking, you've either got one big ole call center where anyone could take any caller at any time, or more specialized deals where the call center is divided into teams who are partitioned across the set of dial in numbers you prearrange the phone company to route.
To get your metrics right, you don't want your queues doing weird things, because it's hard enough making sure you have enough bodies to keep the queue times short enough your customers will even bother.
I put particular emphasis on getting my Call Center people exactly what they need to do their jobs quickly, because I don't see them as sunk cost, but an incestment in customer goodwill. Present a good face to the public, and be able to handle their problems, and they will either stick around or come back.
It's an interesting piece of technology to set up and QA. The meeting of telephony and Internet is a section of tech I like to dabble in, because phones are cool.
Neat, thanks for the interesting perspective. You mentioned you invest in your CS because you don't see it as a sunk cost. How were you able to convince the execs to give you money to do this? Sounds like a huge challenge
Oh yes. Totally different based on whether a company's execs hate customer service.
I'm not one of those of those though. I like my CS people to be able to do their jobs to keep the inevitable discruption to a customer's day minimized.
In the place I'm at, my Call Center is one of the happiest groups in the company. So many other places I've been that wasn't the case, do I made damn sure to deliver the best impl possible when I got the chance to oversee it.
