Call centers are the battleground for competition, and can generate over $20 million in revenue just by making simple changes in their processes. Data can be utilized to provide a personalized experience to customers by service agents. All this and more in this week’s CCTR Perspectives. We are sure you will have a great time reading through!

Call Centers: The Newest Competitive Weapon [customerthink.com]

Call Centers: The Newest Competitive Weapon https://t.co/5S7jgBu3pG

— CustomerThink (@customerthink) March 1, 2016

It is true that the average consumer hates call centers. However, when a customer needs to call and finds a professional, knowledgeable and friendly associate who helps them, that customer falls in love.

Call centers are not only here to stay, but smart companies should understand that the call center is the most effective and economical channel to positively impact customer loyalty. The key to repeat business is creating and building relationships, and call center representatives can do exactly that.

Bottom line: Call centers can be the company’s best competitive differentiator.

America’s Call Centers Revealed – New Marchex Institute Call Analytics Data Shows How a Warm Greeting Is Worth $20 Million [businesswire.com]

America's Call Centers Revealed – New Marchex Institute Call Analytics Data Shows How a Warm Greeting Is Worth… https://t.co/XV2TIl9JZu

— Contact|Call Center (@contactcenter) March 2, 2016

Did you know that a warm greeting over the phone may be worth $20 million, according to a new report titled “America’s Call Centers Revealed”, released by the Marchex Institute? And did you know that consumers spend more than $1 trillion over the phone each year?

Bottom line: If businesses invest in better customer experiences it can lead to considerably higher revenues.

10 Strategies for Improving Contact Centre Operations [callcentrehelper.com]

10 Strategies for Improving Contact Centre Operations #cctr #callcenter https://t.co/TJVj0Anje2 pic.twitter.com/Hb8Lh0shfY

— Colin Taylor TRG (@colinsataylor) March 3, 2016

Modern contact centers are always developing, and this article highlights ten ways in which the processes of contact centers can be improved.

Experimenting with customer service, requesting agent feedback, and gathering information from customers are some of the simple steps identified that will help your contact center survive any scale of change in the future.

Powering Proactive Service: It’s All about the Data [smartcustomerservice.com]

Proactive #custserv starts with the data. @Bluewolf #cctr https://t.co/LvXIsJKQ7v

— Bob Furniss (@bobfurniss) March 1, 2016

What always makes customers happy? Well-informed and personalized service underpinned by good data. With clean and connected data, agents can provide proactive service and take actions sooner. This should be service centers’ version of surprise and engage.

Robust data-management structures will enable service agents to trust the accuracy of customer data and take steps toward offering customers proactive, more personalized service.

10 Common Retention Mistakes [contactcenterpipeline.com]

Common customer retention mistakes, by @mikeaoki: Mistake #7 No appreciation statement https://t.co/k7nfxAbAxH #cctr #custserv

— Susan Hash (@susanhash) March 2, 2016

Customer churn is one of the major hurdles any call center leader has to go through daily. Indeed, it is believed that a reduction of just 5% in churn will give rise to 35% rise in revenue. And many times it has been observed that identification of at-risk customers could easily reduce churn by 5%.

This article highlights the top ten retention mistakes that lead to customer churn.

We hope you enjoyed this week’s Contact Center Perspectives. Be sure to respond in the comments or tweet us @VOZIQ and follow us on LinkedIn.