We talk a lot about the call center/contact center of the future and what it might look like. We regularly write about the next-generation contact center with its integrated workforce optimization, its ergonomics, its real-time reporting, its speech-recognition, its customer surveying and feedback mechanisms, its multifaceted analytics, its distributed and virtual nature, its hosted technologies and its home agents.
Tomorrow’s Customers
What we seldom talk about, however, is the call center customer of the future, and this is significant, as the call center systems and infrastructure are merely there to serve the customers, and customers, as we know, are not always predictable. Expecting them to match their needs to the call center and e-commerce infrastructure is as poor a business strategy as deciding to make ice cream in only one flavor and expecting one’s customers to be resigned to eating mango macadamia nut crunch for the rest of their lives.
But it’s not just the changing habits of consumers that need to be taken into consideration — it’s the consumers themselves who are changing. As generations X, Y and whatever comes after them (generation Z? And where do we go after that — to the Greek alphabet?) matures and starts pulling in significant disposable income, how will companies seeking to service them have to adapt?
And why stop at young adults? According to a study from eMarketer, children between the ages of 8 and 14 — so-called “tweens” and young teens — are themselves a powerful demographic group online. They control billions in purchasing power and make up 60 percent of Internet users under age 18, according to the market researcher. Granted, it’s allowance money, lawn-mowing money and babysitting earnings, but it’s still significant, and its owners are eager to spend it.
Keep in mind, these are consumers who will have grown…