Historia del Call Center: desde la primera compañía automotriz • iKono Telecomunicaciones

Call Center, Communication, Technology

It all started at an automotive company.

One might think that call centers are innovations in customer service created just over 10 years ago, but the reality is that this telemarketing activity has been part of marketing strategies since the 1960s.

The first step in the historical record is the creation of the telephone thanks to the inventor Alexander Graham Bell who patented it on January 14, 1876 in New York, who would later install telephone devices in New Haven connected to a central office so that several customers could use them simultaneously.

The first telephone exchange

According to records, the first exchange had eight individual telephone lines, serving 21 users. This allowed Ford, 86 years later, in 1962, to conduct its first telemarketing campaign, a moment considered the beginning of the call center worldwide.

However, the 1973 oil crisis that shook the global economy motivated companies, especially American ones, to look for tools that would reduce their costs but guarantee their income, so call centers became allies during that time.

Arrival of the Call Centers

By the end of the 1990s, the arrival of call centers in countries like Spain was closely linked to the implementation of cell phones, employing more than 10,000 people.

Now, in the case of Colombia, this telemarketing activity arrived in the country at the beginning of the 90s, with the financial, telecommunications, pharmaceutical and government sectors, to mention a few, being the ones that began with its implementation.

#History of the Call Center

The advantages of implementing a call center lie in the close relationship that is generated between the company and the customer, personalizing their attention, which translates into customer loyalty.

Continuing with the chronology of this type of marketing, in 2001 the Call Center Association was created in Colombia, considering that at that time it generated employment for more than three million people in North America and Europe, and that being one of the countries in Latin America with advantages over the rest, it should be strengthened for what would come with its implementation.

The rise of Call Centers in Colombia is due to the quality of the infrastructure, the academic level of the population working in that sector and the neutral accent of the agents who are mostly concentrated in the interior of the country.

Finally, today Call Centers are already part of other activities that complement a company's marketing strategies, such as websites, IP communication, the use of social networks, and smartphone applications, transforming the environment into what is now known as a Contact Center.