Customer service has became a valuable opportunity. In times of a pandemic, which has never happened before the era of the internet, job security is critical. Appearantly some of you might be wondering how to be able to have a safe income. There are many ways of earning money, but thanks to the internet, you can dot a lot of them remotely these days. This works within the safe environment of your own home as long as you have a well-working internet connection. Many of these jobs are of a freelancing nature. In general they are project-based and it is totally up to you how many hours a day or a week you spent on the job as long as you meet the deadline.
Contact Center for customer service
One possibility for such a job is working in customer service. There are plenty of customer service companies with contact centers around the world. Contact centers are a relatively new term and should not be confused with sole call centers even though the work is similar. Contact centers are the melting pot of customer experience. They cover accommodating teams for marketing, technical support, sales assistance and other kinds of customer service.
Difference between contact center and call center
The difference to a pure call center, however, is that the service of a contact center does not only involve communication via phone but also interaction via e-mail, live chat and/or social media. This brings the advantage of being able to work at maximum efficiency while being open on all channels. Modern technology helps distributing incoming inquiries to the employees. Normally outside companies specialized in customer service manage customer care centers. A lot of big companies also work with community help centers where customers help customers. Normally, a technical support staff administers the forums, so that clients still find help quickly.
Of course, contact centers and call centers are not solely for incoming customer inquiries but also for sales marketing. This is where the reputation of call centers often drops. However, call centers can be advantageous when it comes to e.g. fraud prevention by your bank or a quick fix of the internet router. I had the experience while being on holidays in Spain that my bank in the UK called me to tell me that I was withdrawing money from an ATM in the U.S. 10 minutes ago.
Being multilingual in customer service
Especially now during the pandemic, more and more contact centers work delocalized with their employees being outsourced so that one can have a phone call to or from anywhere in the world. This might lead to language barriers, a common complaint especially in call centers. Therefore, being multilingual is a big advantage when working for a delocalized and/or worldwide acting call center.
The Finnish company Katrium offers contact center services to their customers along with market research and business support services. Katrium works multilingually with international freelancers. This network structure allows their freelancing employees to fit their working schedule around their personal lives, work from home and at the same time to always find the best fitting customer service for Katrium’s customers.