Role Of Hosted Voip Contact Center Solutions

In this rising world of technology, people are looking forward for things which make their life troublefree to live. Business organizations are always in wait of new technologies that can raise their business and earnings. One such growing industry is call center industry. They are now transforming from premise based solutions technology to hosted contact center solutions technology. Contact centers have a major role in the business organizations as they offer wide online alternatives to the call centers.  People are quite satisfied with the new hosted call center technology as all the old appliances are replaced by the new agent desktops and internet cables.Main purpose of these contact centers is to render superior business scheme that will make their client happy. The hosted call center solutions are also known as VOIP contact center solutions. Thus, these call centers should stress on things like superior customer care service, lead generation, one  call resolution and establishing excellent relationship with the customer. Hosted VOIP technology has many advantages such as: 1. Network Management Scalability: under the hosted call centers, its trouble free to alter the network pattern by extending or adding the internet or telephonic lines as per the organization demands.2. Flexibility: hosted VoIP offers universal services that suits the users configuration and also offers preferable bandwidth. 3. No Geographical Limitation: these hosted call center can be set up anywhere around the world and can use the well-known hosted contact center technology.4. Bandwidth Efficiency: VOIP hosted call centers increases the bandwidth efficiency, as large no. of ends on the same connection is shared with the network. Considering all these benefits and features of hosted contact center solutions, one can find that it facilitates the user in saving money and improvising the organizational growth. They also provide inexpensive calling rates on long distance and international calls. They deliver huge audio-video output which serves the user to acquire the sound, video and data easily from the receivers end. They permit their customers to enjoy flexibility and mobility of procedure as the calls are routed through IP packets.To conclude upon, its found that hosted VOIP call center solutions are a good style of interacting with people across the world at lower rates and executing business with big flexibility. Setting up hosted virtual call center solutions will raise your business earnings and thereby making your life easy to live and enjoy.

Enhancing Contact Center Intelligence

By Jose Allan Tan

Peter F. Drucker once said that a company which owns 30 percent market share knows only 30 percent of the market. That company has no clue about the other 70 percent of the market.

Having been in the IT industry for 20 years I can tell you, with certainty, that Drucker is even wrong about that 30 percent (at least in Asia anyway). For years, I worked for IT vendors and every day business managers complain that they don’t know enough about their customer to guarantee security for themselves and the company.

How to win new business from existing customers as well as potential ones is every company’s call-to-arms each day. The most common approach for touching those opportunities is the contact center. Whether it’s an in-house operation or outsourced, there is a growing dependency on these entities to bring in the dough.

What irks me about this is that contact centers are becoming the single largest repository of data for which little is being mined beyond the campaign. For example, if an agent receives a call asking for helpdesk support, the agent’s task is to clear the support call as quickly as possible. For an outbound campaign such as telemarketing, the goal is to make as many calls as possible from a prospect list. In either case the communication that happens during the period when the customer is engaged with the agent is just as important as the final outcome.

Contact center agents do this day in and day out.

One caveat though is that with the proliferation of contact centers throughout the region, you can expect a growing disparity in the level and quality of service delivered by each. For sure the larger providers are able to leverage best practices, tools and experience. The mom-and-pop type contact centers, however, offer flexibility in campaigns and willingness to work the extra mile.

Added extras

Roger Woolley, senior vice president of Marketing and CMO at Autonomy Etalk, believes that organizations need a combination of traditional performance tools and intelligence-based functions to get the most from their contact centers. “While delivering quality service within the contact center is certainly a key to success, it is critical that the organization be able to analyze and understand their customers on a deeper level based upon daily communication,” says Woolley.

This level of analysis enables the responsibility of customer service improvement to be expanded to the rest of the organization, making back-office operations, product development, sales initiatives, promotions, and marketing a key part of the service initiative.

Jaehoon Wee, vice president of ASEAN and Korea for Genesys Telecommunications Labs, notes that many call centers in Asia operate as processing centers, where customer requests and queries are processed and day-to-day questions are answered.

The issue here is that as the quality of customer handling falls, this may well impact the company’s ability to sell products or services in the long run.

A research study of consumer attitudes and how Asia-Pacific Contact Centers are managing self-service titled “Contact Centre Realities” reported that 85 percent of consumers said they would stop using a company’s product or service based on a bad call center experience. Conversely, 76 percent of consumers stated that they would buy from a company again based on a good call center experience.

“Customer service strategies must be adapted to meet the needs of this increasingly sophisticated customer base, one that can easily defect to the competition,” adds Wee.

Contact center technologies like CTI, vXML-based IVR systems, advanced call-routing, virtual call centers and workforce management have enabled customer service executives to consistently enhance service for customers while simultaneously reducing costs. However, the most profound improvements have come from those, which have provided unprecedented opportunities to serve customers at greatly reduced cost, and make organizations more readily accessible to the general public.

Wee advices that “no matter what the size of the business, companies need to implement more business-driven customer service strategies. These strategies allow you to automatically identify callers and incorporate customer segmentation to deliver business value across both inbound and outbound communications to your customers, creating revenue-generating opportunities.”

Woolley concurs and adds, “Most organizations have not been able to track, manage, or access most of their unstructured data. This includes web pages, audio files, emails, chats, and documents that are scattered throughout the enterprise. And for businesses that record customer interactions, the amount of unstructured data is constantly increasing. Without a way to process and share this data, businesses are missing out on critical sales, marketing, and service opportunities.”

Adding intelligence to deepen experience

How would you like it if the person on the other end of the line is able to quickly answer your queries and respond to you in a manner befitting a long-time acquaintance?

Some contact centers now incorporate business intelligence (BI) tools and processes into the arsenal of technologies to deepen the information derived from the contact center database. BI tools help to improve the management of contact centers, and provide deeper insight into how these complex systems work (or sometimes don’t work!). However, Wee warns that BI tools are only as useful as the level of expertise in the domain-specific metrics that are available. Unless one is measuring and analyzing the most relevant metrics, BI tools will yield little useful insight (this is true in any industry).

“BI technologies combined with information from an Intelligent Contact Center helps provide a multi-dimensional view of the customer that allows the examination of purchasing, sales, or preference trends with valuable qualitative data directly from the customer,” says Woolley.

Another aspiring strategy has to do with understanding the context of the data and arriving at relevant information that can be used to make business decisions.

Meaning Based Computing enables users to search and access information across the organization, no matter where it is located or what format it is in. This technology is unique because it searches for data based on its inherent meaning, not just by a key word or phrase that exists in the file. This allows users to not only find more relevant data, but also to access information they didn’t even know existed.

Woolley notes that MBC provides a competitive advantage because “it processes data in real-time, it delivers actionable information that can be applied to decision-making processes, product and service development, and creative business strategies.”

Genesys’ Wee concurs. “Meaning Based Computing allows computers to understand the relationships that exist between disparate pieces of information and perform sophisticated analysis operations with real business value, automatically and in real-time,” he says.

Properly understood and executed, meaning based computing provides call center agents or business managers with valuable supporting material and even richer customer intelligence to apply to their business and customer-service objectives.

Whichever technology or processes you want to adopt, benefits can only be realized if the whole organization understands what the problems are, what the customers want, what the technology or process change is meant to achieve, and why it is important for the whole operation to take the change seriously.

Failing that, you may start looking for something better to do.

The Multiple Users Capacity of the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere Software

Promero is what is known as a Hosted Call Center Solution Provider, and one of the key call center software products that it offers to call centers is the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere Software. Basically, a Hosted Call Center Solution Provider will absorb all the headaches that come with installation and use of call center software by client call centers. That means that, if you buy your Oracle Contact Center Anywhere Software from Promero, they will not only install it for you but they will also help you with any problems or issues that crop up. Although the Oracle call center software will help you create a virtual call center environment for your call center system to use, this does not mean that you do not need help installing it anymore.

By letting Promero handle virtual call center issues (which are common with multiple-user environments), your call center will find it easier to cope with your normal customer relationship management problems. Some things are best left to the experts to handle (unless your organization intends to become an expert at this call center technology as well.) But that may entail your organization becoming an Oracle Certified Partner (like Promero is now) rather than just simply knowing how to use the call center technology.

The Oracle Contact Center Anywhere call center software is classified as a hosted call center solution, meaning you allow Promero as the hosted call center solution provider to handle hosting for you so that your call center will only need to function using the Predictive Dialer call center technology and by using the simple hardware like a USB headset, Internet access, and a standard PC for your multiple users (or agents.) As you can see, this helps reduce overhead for your call center which would traditionally go towards real estate rental or construction; while allowing you to benefit from the Promero level of experience in management of the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere call center solution.

Actually, use of a call center software and hiring a hosted call center solution provider are very beneficial to management of a multiple-user contact center because they allow for your many company agents to focus on customer relationship management issues that are closely related to your product or service, rather than get bogged down in trying to figure out how the call center software and system work. You will find the assistance of the Promero technical support team to be invaluable especially since their techies are on call 24 hours a day, year round. Since it is already a tough job trying to handle multiple users in one call center, Promero can help make your call center job function better.

The Different Benefits of Using the Contact Center Anywhere Call Center Software From Oracle

One advantageous component of the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere call center software is the Predictive Dialer call center technology which is appropriate for use by any call center because call center agents require the telephone to sell the products and/or services of the client that owns the account. You can also find the Predictive Dialer beneficial for lead generation, fund raising, or research purposes.

If your organization purchases phone lists, you can use the Predictive Dialer technology to manage content of your phone lists so that more leads are converted daily so that income and profits go up for your company.

The Predictive Dialer call center technology is also important for cutting down time spent in useless dialing tasks so that your contact center agents can devote more of their time to actual sales and marketing tactics.

Because there is more business coming in to your organization daily with use of the call center software called Contact Center Anywhere, you will find that the cost per lead decreases so that on the whole agent efficiency will also go up.

Contact Center Anywhere is a special kind of call center solution in that it can either be applied as a hosted call center solution, or as an on-premise call center solution. The hosted option means that you will allow a hosted call center solution provider to handle the hosting chores for your call center (inclusive of technical support services round the clock, 365 days per year.) With the on-premise call center solution of this call center software system, you can have the Contact Center Anywhere system customized so that it follows the specific business requirements of your contact center organization. And regardless of how big or vast your call center is (based on number of total agents employed there), the Contact Center Anywhere call center software can be scaled up or scaled down for the number of multiple users who are scheduled to use it during the day or the night.

Contact Center Anywhere relies on a single-system infrastructure that is centralized so that every location on the system can access the same system (even from remote locations.) In addition, this call center solution permits productivity to go up, efficiency to improve, and cost benefits to be realized because telephone lines, hardware plus software resources can be shared by multiple users throughout the same call center system. At the same time, independent user sites on the same system can retain their autonomy.

Most Common Performance Measures for Contact Center

Its not easy task to develop a simple Contact Center into multichannel contact center overnight. This process requires to upgrade new call center technologies, and certainly skills of the customer service representative who are directly connected with customers through the phone, mails and chat.In the recent time, call centers are always keep on improving the quality of services through quality evaluation of the their calling agents, live call monitoring, daily agent feedback and training programs, and enhanced reporting capabilities. However, It’s very important to rethink about what performance measurements are important to keep track, running call center operations. Are the measures of performance that served you well in the call center the same ones that will determine how well the multichannel contact center is working?Here are numerous control variables are used to measure the performance of any call center. A description of the Key Performance Indicators that are most used to determine ‘how quickly’, ‘how well’,

How Supervisors Benefit From Using the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere Call Center Software

It is fortunate for contact center supervisors that the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere comes fitted with special integrated supervisory tools so that their mission of providing optimal customer service, yet being able to maintain an efficient and quality call center service, becomes less arduous and more realistic to achieve. Oracle Contact Center Anywhere is offered through Promero.

One beneficial feature of this call center software is the Supervision Manager interface which allows supervisors to choose the right framework to supply the correct data at the right point in time. With this feature, supervisors can come up with pertinent decisions in real time so that both call center performance and customer service can be addressed properly.

The Supervision Manager is a Web-based service which can be used by supervisors from anywhere in the world provided that Internet access is available. If you are a supervisor on a business trip, you can check on the activities of your agents at any time of your work day and from anywhere you can get Internet access (even within your hotel room, if they have Net access that is.) This virtual call center feature allows supervisors to set up a mobile office anywhere, which makes the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere a friend of all mobile office workers everywhere. It also allows agents to stay in touch with their supervisors at any time of day, regarding any problem or issue that may crop up.

It is equally good that a call center technology set for quality assurance purposes (such as call monitoring) come as a basic part of this call center software package. This allows you big savings that would otherwise go to paying for additional fees or for third-party integration. As an integrated-by-design software design model, this call center solution permits you to monitor calls by audio, or by looking in on what is happening to the desktop of the agent while listening in on the call as it is being conducted. If you are the supervisor and you see a crisis approaching (such as when one of your agents finds it hard to answer client queries), you can take advantage of the barge-in capability so that you can directly answer the questions of the client yourself. If necessary, you may even assume control over the desktop screen of that agent

Contact Center Provides Productive Services To Their Clients

Today contact centers are setting more emphasis on offering the right kind of services to their customers, while observing client wants and a broader insight into customer requirements. Contact centers are putting in methods and means to help their clients more proactively through newer contact center technology as these centers try to reach beyond the conventional techniques and include agents with special skill sets to serve the particular requirements of their clients. IP adoption remains to grow for virtual contact centers, and with this, these centers are getting more and more efficient in handling big number of customers while saving cost. The immediate level of contact centers may seem to be more complicated technically in handling client relationship management. Still, trying out the new contact center technology is the simplest way to succeed; all you got to do is to set it right without any visible mistakes. For maintaining the cost low, contact centers use various statistics. Some would shorten staffing because not sufficient calls are approaching in from clients, and some would reduce cost by counting at the number of calls addressed by representatives, and also call wait times, missed calls and call queue length.Contact center technology offers various tools to manage client relationship, and few of these are as follows:Phone Systems:The call system is amongst the most primary equipments in a contact center. Contact center technology offers Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) which is a system which helps assing of calls. Basic data, such as available agents and their skill sets, the priority level of customers, the awaiting time period, etc are all logged into the system at the first stages. By this, special calls are automatically pass on to particular talented agents. This technique helps to balance the over-all load of the incoming calls getting minimum awaiting time period. The phone system also allows an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system which allows queuing of incoming calls.Contact management:The contact management system holds pre-loaded data for your customers. This part of the database holds a listing of the orders that you have received from each client, and a good contact center technology would be able to offer you with the details of all interaction that have taken place between you and your customers. The contact center technology should be able to take care of any type of calls coming in. It should be able to deal with calls where the client would be looking for a expenses charging inquiry or delivery position, posting an order on the phone, etc.  E-mail Management:In fact e-mail management is a part of contact management tool, but with many organisations this is offered as an option to their clients so that there could be extra income. At times it gets necessary to continue discussions with a particular client based on a single e-mail thread and this serves in referencing all past interactions. There is another special equipment which integrates with e-mail, and this takes care of the speech by interacting with the customer before passing on to the CSR.Contact center technology offers more benefits that what talked over above, and complying with newer versions offer better opportunities in customer relationship management.

Is it time for IP Contact Centers?

For many VoIP has been an unfulfilled promise. In the old days, during the internet bubble, this technology was seen as something that would revolutionize the company/customer interaction allowing a cheap and more efficient way to deliver data/voice communications.

Unfortunately, like so many times, the technology didn’t lived up to its potential. Broadband was just making its first impact and the technology was still very recent and instable. Voice quality could be sufficient in a mother to son conversation, most of the times it wasn’t, but clearly was unacceptable for the business environment, moreover to establish a meaningful relationship with customer. After the bubble burst, VoIP was rethink and awaited better days to go mainstream.

The Skype advent meant a new dawn to VoIP. Finally the technology had reached a stage that could be massively adapted and the contact center industry wasn’t indifferent to this.

For the industry these meant a new paradigm, an enabler that represents a huge opportunity. The main benefits can be summarized in the following bullets:

The consolidation of new business models

Onshoring, offshoring and bestshoring are starting to be common words in the industry. Basically what it means is that companies are deploying their contact centers in countries with cheap labor, where costs are lower.

Outsourcers are setting up contact centers with hundreds of positions, accommodating scenarios where a person can be calling from London and the call picked up in New Delhi. This can be a voice and data interaction, integrated with customer information stored in NY.

With VoIP physical barriers are no longer relevant, contact centers can be distributed and peak interactions are off balanced to the available or nearest center.

The democratization of the contact center technology

Until recently customers had to look for solutions with proprietary technology that operated like black boxes thus creating a dependency on the vendor. The situation was worsen due to the fact a customer could have switches from different vendors which were a true nightmare to integrate and customize, not to mention the TCO of these applications.

Significant costs savings

The ROI in an IP contact center can be measure at different levels. From the hardware point of view the gains are clearly. Instead of relying on proprietary hardware, customers can know have, the same level of functionality, using Witel machines. This represents alone a significant saving.

The TCO of these solutions can also be reduced since the underlying technology and protocols such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), are standard and open. The impact is felt at the maintenance level, ability to integrate new systems and contact center functionality evolution.

By having a distributed architecture, even with remote agents in their homes, contact centers have a better control over the resources and are able to balanced inbound/outbound traffic according to peaks or specific campaigns.

Big contact centers, in the process of considering increasing their number of seats, look at VoIP as an alternative to investments in the traditional vendors; by keeping their actual infrastructure and adding new seats using VoIP. This way they are able to protect previous investments and, at the same time, grow using cheaper technology.

Even though benefits are relevant, VoIP adoption is not for every company. If a company’s business model doesn’t require customer service innovation, differentiation or cannot take advantage of the architecture flexibility provided by a IP contact center, then is not yet time to look at this type of technology.

VoIP is here to stay. According to Merill Lynch, voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) market is expected to grow 25% to 30% per year until 2011and there are many advantages for companies considering this new generation of contact centers, especially those that see in the company/customer interaction a truly important and valuable asset.