Since smaller businesses do not employ large IT departments with highly specialized skills, their call center technology should be based on industry-standard platforms that can be simply administered, with features that employees can easily operate and configure themselves.

Driving Business through Integration: New integrated solutions that combine customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities with traditional contact center technology are enabling SMBs to drive business and employee efficiencies, improve the customer experience through speedier resolution of customer problems and gather new customer intelligence.

Using Technology to Enhance Customer Relationships:
Today's call center systems help SMBs improve performance and increase productivity. By identifying the business processes and tools required to implement an effective customer-centric approach, SMB call centers can generate a full return on investment in just months—through call tracking, improved customer service and expanded up-sell opportunities.

According to industry analysts at the Gartner Group, the CRM market for small and medium businesses is expected to grow to more than $4 billion over the next three years in the U.S. alone. Companies are only just beginning to look at how they can use these technologies to harness the wealth of data their call centers collect each day. But the sooner they start viewing their call center as a critical source for business intelligence, the better. As many are already discovering, if you're not ready to listen to your customers, your competitors might very well be.

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