The top 10 call centre websites and blogs

Looking to expand your reading in the contact centre and customer service space?

We take a fresh look at some of the best websites out there.

Thanks to all of you who nominated your favourite …

1. Service Untitled

An excellent customer service blog, Service Untitled is now five years old and as strong as ever. Practical advice on how customer service can differentiate a business and drive success is in abundance here, with multiple weekly posts that share tips and anecdotes from the careers of an experienced team of customer service writers.

2. Google News

When our last top 10 call centre websites list was compiled, in 2009, Google News was the best way to search the widest possible selection of call centre news stories. That hasn’t changed two years on, and the ability to create a custom feed of all the latest news stories is a very useful feature. Stories published by national, local and industry media can be found easily here.

Google News Call Centre feed
Google News Contact Centre feed

3. Spoken Communications

This blog covers call centres, virtual contact centres and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) across the world. Run by the US IVR company of the same name, it is a good example of a vendor blog that offers in-depth advice with a human side, and not too much of a sales push.

4. Destination CRM

The website of US magazine CRM covers a broad range of customer relationship topics across many industries and sectors. It also has a comprehensive news section. The site is focused on North American readers and while this may put off some in the UK, it is a still a useful site.

5. Call Centre Helper

Once again, the Call Centre Helper team reluctantly include our site in this list, but only after many readers recommended the website as their favourite place to find call centre industry coverage. Call Centre Helper is also the highest-placed UK website on the list.
6. Melissa Kovacevic – Contact Center and Service Tips

There are comparatively few personal blogs around by call centre professionals. Consultant Melissa Kovacevic has one of the best, sharing stories from her own experience and bringing a welcome human side to popular customer service topics.

7. International Customer Management Institute

ICMI.com is one of the best-designed call centre websites, as you’d perhaps expect from a site owned by large global business media company UBM. It also features a wider range of content than most rivals, with white papers, webinars, newsletters, downloadable WFM and quality monitoring scorecards, and separate sections for training and consulting.

8. Call Centre Focus (no longer published)

Another UBM site, this time focused on the UK. Call Centre Focus publishes news and opinion features, an occasional digital magazine, and promotes the popular annual Call Centre & Customer Management Expo.  Former editor Claudia Hathway recently returned to the publication, and it will be interesting to see how the site develops.

9. Call Centre Clinic

Call Centre Clinic’s main feature is its call centre newswire service. This aggregates press releases from across the industry, posting several each day. It may not be objective news, but if you need to keep track of a certain company or product, or take a look at how competitors market themselves, this is a useful resource. Unfortunately, the rest of the site isn’t quite so useful.

www.callcentreclinic.com

10. Contact Centre World

This website comes in several different editions, depending on where you are in the world. The densely packed design of the site makes navigation difficult, but those with time to explore can soon find a network of useful forums and advice groups.

Thanks to all our readers and Twitter followers who nominated a website. What is your favourite call centre website? Let us know with a comment below, or join the debate in our forum.

Author: Jo Robinson