There will always be outbound contact (phone, e-mail, etc) in centers – it is inevitable that companies will need to contact the customer by outbound means. If the company is not following up on previous contacts then it will want to be proactive and contact their customers on a periodic basis to cement the relationship.
Blending is a funny word in the industry. In the truest sense of the word it means taking an inbound service rep and asking them to make outbound calls that may or may not be related to their service contacts.
Inbound reps do make outbound contacts to follow up and resolve issues. But this is not true blending.
According to LeapFrog!^® 36% of the companies have blended reps while 64% do not. However, it is not clear if this blended responsibility is full-time or part-time.