In the new e-book just released, Rethinking Customer Service: The Call Center as Corporate Information Hub, we started with the idea that call centers and customer service departments are evolving into richer, more vital parts of companies as a whole. The premise makes sense, because we all see that customer service has to evolve, or it will continue to be marginalized as it has been in the corporate structures of the past. Customer service also has to evolve because the conversation and collaboration between companies and customers has advanced exponentially with the rise of the internet and social media.

The issues that surround this evolution are the meat of what we considered in both the e-book and the recent webinar on the subject. The bottom line became how do we make sure that call centers and customer service become more pro-active instead of just reactive, as they have been traditionally.

Technology surely plays a role in supporting that motive. But when technology is allowed to get ahead of the needs of the humans who are using it -- perhaps with such things as IVRs that save money but alienate customers and make customer service workers jobs more difficult – its use can backfire.

Online conversations and interchange between customers and companies are also vital to keeping up with the current issues and concerns of customers. But they can also be a place where companies fall back into a reactive mode.

After all our discussions in the webinar, and the articles in the e-book, I have come to believe once again that the key to corporate success now and in the future will be in making good use of all the information that comes into and goes out of a company each day through call centers and other customer service channels. Smart companies do see, or will see, that through their customer service function they have a chance to raise their level of proactivity and thereby make the entire customer experience better for all involved.

When I was a kid, I played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz at our local Children's Theatre. After my long trip to Oz, I finally was back home in Kansas and had to tell my Aunt Em what I had learned about why there's no place like home. I remember that final speech in the play to this day. I said: "I've learned that if I ever go searching for my own heart's desire, I will never look any farther than my own back yard, because if it isn't there, then I never really lost it to begin with."

Okay, it might be a little corny. But I think the point in Dorothy's speech is instructive for companies today: You've been to Oz. You've learned a lot. Now it's time to look within to find your greatest value. And I would add that customer service and call centers are the back yard to search. They are the home of real-time information and feelings and spirit in most companies. They are what gives humanity to your company because they are where the people in the company meet the people who are customers.

Just as the Scarecrow had brains, the Tin Man had a heart and the Cowardly Lion had courage all along, they just didn't realize it, I think the key to most companies success is much more within reach than many in the C-suite realize. If they rethink the role and value of customer service in their strategies and culture, they can unlock so much untapped potential. Elevate the status of customer service in your company and you will elevate your whole company, including your bottom line.

Download the e-book and you can start to help your company on that journey. And I promise, there is nothing in there about ruby slippers, or yellow brick roads or flying monkeys. That metaphor stops here. But the business ahead for us all,  of evolving customer service into a hub of proactivity, is only just beginning.

Download here: http://bit.ly/qr0UVf