Call Center White Papers and Demos

This paper is written for contact center executives, managers and decision makers who are evaluating or have chosen the on-demand platform as a viable replacement for premise-based infrastructure. This white paper takes a detailed look at the industry trends, the value proposition for on-demand contact center technology, linkages between functions, key tools, technologies and current agent optimization practices.

When selecting a call center technology, many factors must be considered. The underlying strength of the technology is crucial. But the most important element is to select a solution that is in tune with the focus of the business: both short-term and long-term goals must be taken into consideration.

In recent years, call centers have begun to deliver more value. In industries like banking where call centers can generate up to 25 percent of total new revenues or telecommunications where they can contribute up to 60 percent of revenue, it’s easy to see why. But even without the sales component, the link from satisfied customer to loyal customer to increased revenue is not hard to make.

This paper discusses options for deploying and managing a home-based agent model with the ultimate goal being increased customer loyalty. As the key driver in this model, other cumulative benefits result: higher agent productivity, reduced attrition, lower operational costs and stronger business continuity.

Unless you’ve been living in some remote location without a phone, you’ve interacted with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system at one time or another. They are increasing in popularity as more and more companies are turning to self-service solutions to reduce costs and serve their customers better. But as you may have experienced yourself or with your own customers, there is a right way and a wrong way to use an IVR.

As a call center, business is a lot different than it used to be. Once upon a time, you only had to worry about the competition down the street. These days, you not only have to worry about them, but you have to worry about being better than businesses in the next city, in the next state and, thanks to economic globalization, you also have to worry about competition on other continents. Competition is only part of the problem. Not only are they competing against you, but they are commoditizing your products and your brand.

Despite the explosion in the number of ways customers interact with a company, benchmark research carried out by Ventana Research shows that contact centers handle the majority of customer interactions. As the primary interface point for customers, the center thus is the de facto face of the company, and how an agent handles an interaction can have a significant impact on perception of the company and its brand, and as a result on its business performance.