Hosted Call Center

Debunking 5 Myths of Hosted Contact Centers

No Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) discussion is complete these days until someone touts the multiple benefits of moving applications to the cloud. It’s hard to ignore the promise of CAPEX and OPEX savings, especially when many businesses are still recovering from the economic crisis and searching for ways to provide additional value to their customers. But not all SaaS offerings are created equal. Some applications are a better fit for the cloud than...

The main topics of interest at the IQPC Call Center Week Las Vegas were ‘cloud’ and ‘multi-channel’.  Attendees were also concerned with the use of social media.

How customers connect to companies is evolving.  Customers want to connect on their own terms with the channel that suites them best.  Vendors are attempting to respond to the customer’s needs with a variety of new solutions.  Below is a recap of exciting technologies and solutions that were at the event.

360'CRM   is a full spectrum CRM...

Over the last ten years, interest in remote agent contact center models has steadily increased. For example, attendance at the February 2012 Remote Agent Summit increased by 30% over 2011. And home agent models are not limited to the United States and Canada. Several firms are operating home agent models in Europe and a UK version of the US Remote Agent Summit is planned for July. Michele Rowan of At Home Customer Contacts which hosts the Remote Agent Summit and Workshops reports that:

Survey...

The following are some more information on the vendors who attended the IQPC event.  

Analytics

For companies frustrated with isolated or disparate data sources, 360'CRM's latest advances in its InSight data analytics tool provides new levels of actionable information for the Call Center or Channel Management practitioner.  InSight not only automatically draws call center performance data in to a common, universally comparable dashboard and report analytics library, it also integrates internal...

The staff of CRMXchange was present at the IQPC Las Vegas Call Center Week. IQPC did a commendable job with the content and speakers in the event. The exhibit hours were long, running close to 11 hours on day one, but the vendors were pleased with the amount of interest that people showed in their products and services. 

We traveled the exhibit hall. Below are some vendor highlights.

Analytics

Contact Solutions – The Continuous Improvement Practice (CI) is based on a unique methodology and supported...

Driven to rethink priorities over the last few years, business leaders have been forced to look for more cost-effective and flexible ways to acquire and update their contact center solutions. This has paved the way for the rise of the hosted or cloud-based contact center market. While most other technology segments lost momentum, this sector has grown rapidly over the last two years. End users are turning to hosted contact center solutions because it gives them flexible and scalable virtual ACDs...

Your company’s brand and reputation depend on your team’s ability to deliver a superior customer experience. Yet, people, processes and technology often conspire to create headaches for management and unsatisfactory interactions for customers.

Do these problems sound familiar? You receive calls from management demanding answers about why a host went down or why customer complaints are up. You may be  off for the  weekend but you still worry that a problem will not be detected as quickly as it...

In a recent Blog, we reviewed a report from Ovum that analyzed the growth of the hosted contact center market and ranked its leading vendors.

Today, we’ll look at a new white paper from Contactual, a global leader in hosted contact center technology, which concludes that rapid technological changes make on-premises contact centers obsolete soon after they are installed, and suggests how enterprises can eliminate capital expenditures, increase customer satisfaction and stay on the forefront of...

A 2010 report from Ovum examines the growth of the hosted call center market and ranks the leading vendors within that market.

The study explores the competitive dynamics within the hosted contact center service market in the US, and is designed to help businesses select a vendor based on technology strength, reputation among customers, and impact on the market.

Ovum reviews each vendor’s capabilities and then advises on those that businesses should explore, consider and shortlist.

Driving forces...

Twenty years ago, the contact center industry was greatly improved through the application of a mathematical modeling tool now commonly known as  contact center workforce management. We found that computers and mathematics could do a better job of determining agent schedules than we could do by hand or using a spreadsheet. It had long been thought that this modeling technology has run its course and that we have captured all of those contact center workforce management benefits. But we’re not...

The practice of using speech analytics to drive strategic process improvement in call centers has been proven effective and valuable.  The challenge arises when companies try to use existing agent quality management tools to tie into these same strategic objectives. Previous methods for performing quality management included random monitoring, automated score cards and the use of small sample sizes. Today, emerging trends in speech analytics can make agent performance management a key force in...

More executives are looking at hosted call center solutions. Hosting is a delivery model that allows you to secure needed contact center applications now – not “when the economy turns around,” or “when budgets free up.” Hosting goes by a lot of names. “Application service provider ASP is one. “Software as a Service (SaaS)” and “cloud computing” are currently in vogue. Another trendy term along is “on-demand” services.

The basic idea is that you secure applications you need by paying a...

2008 was an impressive year for the hosted call center infrastructure market, and the first half of 2009 is proving to be even better. Research showed that the worldwide economic recession drove many organizations in all verticals to consider hosted contact center infrastructure solutions. DMG found that many of these companies were not classic risk takers, but rather companies that viewed hosting as an opportunity to do business differently, without a great deal of initial investment.

Growth of...