Employing around 17 million people globally, contact centres are one of the many sectors that have been affected by recent economic shifts and now more than ever budget control is at the forefront of people’s minds as companies try to maintain efficiency and growth.
There are various options for people looking to run a contact centre. As it stands, traditional in-house models and the growing number of CCaaS options are currently the main ways in which businesses to handle the contact centre experience, but there is also another way of doing things which may prove the most cost-effective for a lot of organizations – the informal contact centre model. As a somewhat novel solution, informal contact centres are now showing their worth when it comes to key business must-haves, bringing efficiencies in how they can get customers the assistance they need. And an important trend that we are now seeing is in the way that providers of all shapes and sizes are seizing this opportunity to grow in a space that caters for a massive amount of seats.
But what exactly is an informal contact centre? What advantages do informal contact centres hold over traditional solutions and how can an informal contact centre be implemented?
Informal contact centres can take many shapes and forms, but the guiding principle which makes them so successful is the way in which they allow any type of customer-facing employee, not just contact centre centre agents, to handle the needs of the customer. Another important pillar that supports this model is of course its namesake informal structure which allows for smoother workflows and enables outside-the-box operating methods which are especially well suited to SMBs.
Usually on a smaller, less complex scale than a traditional contact centre, an informal contact centre is built around a complete customer experience. In essence, this approach means that every facet of a business can be customer facing. Imagine a call comes in and an agent needs to find a specific piece of sales information. In a traditional contact centre it may be a long or convoluted route to find that knowledge, or it may require ending the call and reaching out to the customer at a later date. Communication breaks down and the customer may even start looking elsewhere. With an informal contact centre that knowledge source is reachable instantaneously.
Informal contact centres not only eliminate huge swathes of cost but also allow direct access to knowledgeable experts across different segments of a business. They ensure that the call can always be answered and that customers are given the best journey possible. With the right tools and resources, all of a business’ contact centre needs can be handled in this informal fashion. Combining the informal model with robust chatting options, analytics and central reporting could be the way forward for many who are looking to excel in a period where stagnation is running rampant. Best of all, with an informal solution a contact centre can easily be deployed using hybrid or even fully remote models across multiple geographies.
It's simple - Effective, centralized communications is at the heart of every successful informal contact centre. Because of this, the main goal of every organization, informal or not, should be clear communications, collaboration and visibility. Whereas an integrated VoIP calling option is a great fit for a lot of SMBs, having a purpose built UC solution is also a great option. In either case, as informal contact centres rely heavily on the cloud, having a voice integration that can be setup anywhere in the world that is compatible with a familiar processes is crucial. And as budgets are now more important than ever, having a calling option is not only flexible and scalable but also cost-effective is a must-have for your customer-base.
With the Dstny ecosystem it is possible to roll out a robust, powerful, fully brandable set of products that would complete any informal contact centre, whether you're looking to provide for Teams-forward organizations or not. And as the Dstny suite is both modular and agnostic, Service Providers can pick and choose which pieces they need to either fully round off their solution, to build upon and create their own platform or rely upon an out-of-the-box hosted service.
Contact us today to discuss the informal contact centre and how its components can be used to build powerful solutions or book a demo to get hands on with what Dstny can give you.
Last updated: 08/07/25
