A few weeks ago I reflected on the last 10 years of my life with Percepta and the changes we had been through.  So what factors will impact on how customers contact is managed over the next 10 years?

The 2010 election will impact severely on the public sector, where cost reductions are concerned:  pay freezes, process improvement and so on.  How will the public sector offer good customer service in these times, how will they keep their employees motivated?

The recent eruption of the Icelandic Volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, brought the majority of Europe to a standstill.  This event cost the airline industry millions of pounds because of the six-day shut-down of UK airspace under air traffic control. I read an article that talked through just how this event impacted on how businesses contacted their customers to keep them updated on the impact of the event and the importance that social media played .

Technology has sometimes been seen as more important than people. I think recently and going forward there has been and will be a recognition that customers want to have personable interactions that requires the people element.

That aside what are the predictions for this year and going forward in the area of technology? David du Toit gives us his top five predictions for call centre communication technologies to watch out for this year in his article in call centre helper; http://www.callcentrehelper.com/top-5-predictions-for-call-centre-technologies-in-2010-8174.htm

With companies looking for global solutions to improve services and reduce costs, contact centre outsourcers are going to have to look at how they can support global, multilingual centres providing global efficiencies whilst retaining local requirements. This is not just happening in the world of contact centres but also in other functional areas such as marketing.  Recently Vodafone and Coca Cola have restructured to move to a more global one.  This has been driven by economic turmoil, the digital age and social media.