Contact centers are technically savvy, process-driven organizations and often the primary interface for clients and customers. They represent nearly every aspect of a business by being the “voice of the company” and wield the most influence in shaping the perception of the company brand.

A headset sits next to a telephone in a contact centre
Hands typing on a laptop keyboard in a custom service chat box as part of a contact center experience

How do contact centers differ from call centers?

While contact centers often encompass call centers, the terms are not interchangeable.

Contact centers involve more than just customer service representatives answering and placing calls. They are at the intersection of numerous channels, including call, live chat, web, and social media. In the past, call centers managed the customer experience via the telephone. As customer expectations evolve, companies are developing omnichannel or multichannel strategies to interact with customers through their channel of choice.

What is an omnichannel strategy?

An omnichannel strategy enables a positive and repeatable experience across channels. The goal is to offer a unified interaction across platforms, such as call, email, and web. The outcome is a seamless and integrated customer experience.

By contrast, a multichannel strategy treats each channel as a silo and a separate opportunity to engage. It enables a flexible customer experience, wherein a customer can engage with a company through their preferred channel. However, the brand experience is limited to the confines of the channel as each exists in isolation.

Our approach to contact centers

We see the contact center as a strategic differentiator that drives customer experience. A company’s ability to successfully develop and maintain its contact center can have a monumental impact on brand reputation and loyalty and act as a critical lever to drive revenue.

  • Benchmarking: Assess your contact center’s performance against peers in similar industries
  • Contact center automation: Integrate automation to improve your service delivery
  • Contact center stand-up: Build a contact center in-office and or remotely
  • Customer journey mapping: Assess and optimize your end-to-end customer experience across channels
  • Health check: Determine your contact center performance against global best practice
  • Process optimization: Optimize your service delivery with proven methodologies
  • Target operating model (TOM): Design and implement your service delivery strategy
  • Technology: Assess and implement the technologies that support and enable a contact center

Testimonials

“A number of Canadian banks have worked with Burnie Group to complete a contact centre benchmarking survey. I was impressed with the quality of work and information gleaned from the benchmark."

SVP and Head Global Contact Centres at a Top 5 Canadian Bank

"Burnie Group is a great consulting partner. They are easy to work with, highly collaborative, and bring real-world experience to an engagement."

Cathy Ly, Vice-President, Customer Experience and Digital Banking Operations at EQ Bank

"I enjoy working with Burnie Group on our industry-wide benchmarking. Burnie Group did a nice job pulling the data together, normalizing it, and presenting it back to the participants. They have a very professional team and deliver results and insights that are useful, timely, and valuable."

Greg Smith, SVP, Head of North American Shared Services at TD Bank

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