intern needs some info please

[derums]

Hello call center community,


My name is Leif and I'm doing an internship concerning Call Center Marketing. I am having a very difficult time coming across information concerning the call center market. Especially since I have no research budget. If you wouldn't mind, perhaps you could help me answer the following questions or lead me to a good resource to find the information, I believe at this point I've stripped google of any good use.


1. Are there parts of the genereal cc market that are underserved, emerging, or weakly defended?

2. What markets would utilize the same types of tools and technologies as the traditional call center market?

3.what is the current amount spent of IT budget spent on call centers?

4.Has there ever been a call center audit? Was it done internally or externally? If not, why not?

5.What are the services that must be offered to maintain current levels of service?

thanks for helping out, Leif

[kala]

Leif - In response to your inquiry. These are my thoughts...

1. Are there parts of the genereal cc market that are underserved, emerging, or weakly defended? I wouldn't say any area is underserved - some technologies may be hard to justify with an ROI, example CRM Technologies. The industry is growing so fast I can hardly keep up with it.

2. What markets would utilize the same types of tools and technologies as the traditional call center market? As a whole I think that most call centers use an IVR, ACD, CTI, WFM regardless of the industry - dialers may be different depending on if you are inbound vs. outbound.

3.what is the current amount spent of IT budget spent on call centers? Depends on the size of the call center - You may go to www.incoming.com or www.thebradygroup.com or www.benchmarkportal.com for more information on this.

4.Has there ever been a call center audit? Was it done internally or externally? If not, why not? Users of the computer systems may get audited, IT and computer systems are audited for security.

5.What are the services that must be offered to maintain current levels of service? IVR usage, CTI, WFM are all a must to keep service levels and to not increase staffing.

Pleae e-mail you if need additional information. Hope this helps.