“In the call centre environment one effect of technology has been to reduce the cost of implementing best practice and thereby make these processes available to all. Previously, if you wanted to implement a best practice process then you probably could, but only if you threw enough cash at it. This meant that many of the systems which supported best practice methods were only to be found in the large corporations.
The new technologies have changed all this. What ICON is now seeing is the migration to, and adoption of best practice processes by, companies who previously could not afford to implement the necessary systems.
Systems such as TeleVantage include full call centre functionality as standard and allows companies with as few as 3-5 employees and turnovers of less than £1m to implement fully featured call centres and to adopt the practices pioneered by the multi-million pound corporations. In one case a debt collection agency has found that the TeleVantage system has given it the means to streamline the way it operates: staff training, debtor tracing, and defaulter agreements are just some of the core business activities which it has changed and in the view of the MD “The decision to buy TeleVantage has had a greater impact on the company than anticipated and it is fair to say that as a result of TeleVantage our business has stepped up to a new level”