Contact Centers and Green Technology

(This article originally appeared in Customer Interactions Solutions magazine.)

Thirty-five years ago, TMC (News - Alert) launched the world’s first magazines on energy efficient, non-polluting technologies. Yes, we are proud to be industry pioneers in contact centers, telemarketing, VoIP and CRM. We also pioneered the first five magazines on energy efficient, non-polluting chemical technologies, which are today, the heart of environmental protection technologies also known as “green technology.”

 

Contact/CRM centers have always been great users of green technology and environmentally friendly technologies. Ever since 1982, when this publication laid the foundation for what is now a trillion-dollar worldwide call center industry, it has been well known that call centers contribute to the energy efficiency and protection of the environment.

 

According to recent research, some 15 million people worldwide are involved in customer interaction, contact/CRM center activity working in the following areas, among others:

 

Home Agent/Remote Agents
This is one of the fastest growing segments of the contact center industry today. They eliminate the necessity of driving to work every day, wasting gasoline and polluting the atmosphere while wasting time traveling to and from work. As a result, home agents are becoming more and more an integral part of the green technology/environmental technology scene, by contributing significantly to environmental protection, energy conservation and pollution controls. The estimated number of home agents in the U.S. is between 400,000 and 500,000. It should be pointed out that the call center agent position lends itself to the home-based model.

Video Conferencing
Video conferencing, as a significant part of the teleconferencing sector, is also a significant contributor to the environmental/green technology by eliminating the necessity of hundreds of thousands of people traveling globally, which is not only costly, but also contributes, once again, to the wasting of energy while adding to the atmospheric pollution.

Customer Service, Customer Care and Customer Retention Services
These also play a tremendous role in the conservation of energy and reduction in the pollution of the atmosphere by simply contacting or conducting two-way conference calls with customers in order to solve customer service related problems while eliminating the travel to each customer worldwide. Can you imagine how much money and gasoline would have been wasted, not to mention major pollution introduced to the atmosphere?

Banking and Financial Services
Two other areas where contact centers are contributing significantly to green technology and environmental protection are the areas of banking and financial services. These industries are major users of contact centers to handle a variety of customer care, customer service and customer satisfaction matters, not to mention cross-selling of credit cards, debit cards, etc.

 

Insurance
Another sector which is heavily involved in the use of call centers for sales, claim services and customer care is the insurance industry. Once again, hundreds of thousands of people are engaged in this sector while eliminating significant energy waste as well as considerable pollution to the atmosphere.

 

Telecommunications
The telecommunications industry is yet another major user of call centers to handle a variety of applications while conducting business selling sales support, database building, etc. in a most energy efficient non-polluting manner.

 

Collections
The credit and collection industry has always been one of the vitally important parts of every business. It also utilizes hundreds of thousands of contact center personnel. Incidentally, this sector, along with the fund raising sector, is exempt from the do not call regulation.

 

Fundraising
This is an extremely vibrant and dynamic sector of outbound, also uses hundreds of thousands of call center personnel and agents to raise funds as charitable donations, for building hospitals, libraries, schools, etc.

 

Sales Support
The sales support and sales service industry, which is one of the most vital segments of every business, also heavily uses hundreds of thousands of contact center personnel to build databases, qualify prospects and conduct assorted other sales support functions, so it, too, contributes to a healthier, greener environment. When you consider the amount of energy conservation and pollution elimination which the contact center industry has contributed toward green technology and environmental protection, you find that few, if any industries have contributed as much, in the last 26 years to the global economy and to environmental protection.

 

Teleworkers are the Champions of the Green Technology Movement
By reducing daily commuting distance, teleworkers can reduce their annual carbon emissions by as much as 36% from 16.9 tons to 10.1 tons, according to statistics derived from the personal carbon emissions calculator on www.carboncrisis.net. Applying this formula to the 15 million call center agents, you are talking about a reduction of more than 90 million tons of carbon emissions per year.

 

Other Factors Contributing to the Rapid Growth of Green Technology
The following are excerpts from an article from the Washington Post, which explain how world leaders are also getting involved in Green Technology. The title of the article is, Internet Visionaries Betting On Green Technology Boom, Vast Market Huge Profit Potential Beckon Investors.

 

“Bill Gates (News - Alert), John Doerr and Steve Case believed in the Internet long before Wall Street did. Now, they’re betting on the next great ‘disruptive’ technology: alternative fuels and other environmentally friendly products, but this time other investors aren’t far behind.”

 

“Last year, AOL (News - Alert) LLC founder Case launched Revolution LLC, which has invested in companies such as car-sharing service Flexcar that promotes sustainable lifestyles. In November, Microsoft (News - Alert) Inc. founder Gates committed $84 million to a California company to finance the construction of five ethanol bio-refineries. And last month, Doerr, the venture capitalist who invested early in Google (News - Alert) Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., set up a $100 million fund to invest in ‘green technology.’”

 

“To be sure, the investments don’t make up a large proportion of their portfolios, and even with oil at $70 a barrel, alternative energy sources are still at the margins of the market. Gates, one of the world’s richest men, has committed far more toward developing low-cost drugs for impoverished countries. And while Case has committed around $500 million of his own money to Revolution, some of that is going to fund health care and spa investments. But just as two decades ago they saw the Internet as a way to make money and change the world, they now think green technology is poised to make a difference of its own.”

 

“Greentech could be the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century,” Doerr said in a February press release announcing that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the investment fund that helped underwrite many prominent tech start-ups, would raise $100 million for the green technology fund.