Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 24
Information Systems Projects
in Contact Centers
Rui Rijo
Institute for Systems and Computers Engineering at Coimbra, Portugal
João Varajão
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
Ramiro Gonçalves
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
AbstrAct
Over the past decade, Contact Centers have experienced exceptional growth. In UK and USA Contact
Centers employ about three percent of the working population. Contact Center's projects are complex
because occur in a multidisciplinary area with multiple actors and constraints. Information systems play
a decisive role in these projects. However, several studies indicate a low success level of information
and communications technology projects leading to research opportunities for their improvement. In
their previous research the authors have identified a framework with the key factors to be considered
in these projects. Due to the highly dynamic reality of the Contact Centers, the framework must evolve
in order to maintain its usefulness for project managers and other center professionals. Focus groups
are interactive discussion groups used for generating knowledge and hypotheses, exploring opinions,
attitudes and attributes. In this way, the study presented in this chapter aims to verify, expand and ac-
tualize the existent framework, using a focus group with professionals in the area.
introduction
nizations have found it cost effective to provide
service and sales to users (of the Contact Center)
through remote technology-mediated centres
(Holman, Batt, & Holtgrewe, 2007).
Contact Centers' users gain from new or lower
cost services, while governments view them as
a source of jobs and economic development.
Organizations reduce costs, increase productiv-
ity and gather information about their users that
Over the past decade, Contact Centers have expe-
rienced phenomenal growth in several countries
around the world. Fuelled by advances in Informa-
tion and Communication Technology (ICT) and
the plummeting costs of data transmission, orga-
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