Tactics to Make Your Business a Networked Organization, Part 3

1. A strategic role, because they know what’s happening with the whole population of partners and customers.
2. An advisory role to production, because they're the first to know what customers’ issues are.
3. A design role, linking people who are creating new products and services with the customer needs those new products and services must meet.

So frontline call-center employees play all these roles. It requires time, resources and a mastery of technology to work with the information, manage it and share it. Top management must understand the additional value creation, funding those roles and not just paying employees to provide answers to customer questions.