Five9 Inc., a call center software provider, is introducing Release 7.3 of the company’s Virtual Call Center Suite for general availability. 

“This is an upgrade for existing customers,” said David van Everen, vice president of product management at Five9. “As our software is delivered in a software-as-a-service model, our customers will automatically be upgraded as we upgrade the software on the host computers in our datacenter.” 

With the new 7.3 release, Five9 has integrated with other on-demand customer relationship management, or “CRM,” leaders Salesforce.com (News - Alert), NetSuite, RightNow and Leads360 to create an integrated platform for Five9’s customers. 

According to van Everen, there are more than 20 new features in the 7.3 release. 

Three major new applications in the product are:

1. Local Touch: call center administrators may now configure associations between the phone numbers to be dialed, and the phone numbers displayed on the customer’s caller-id. 

“This feature allows call centers to appear more customer-friendly by displaying a local phone number for returned calls,” van Everen said, adding that, with this new feature, Five9 customers can build stronger relationships with their prospects and customers.

2. List Priorities and Ratios: this new feature gives the customers the power to easily change the order in which calling lists are dialed. In addition, dialing ratios enable customers to record calls from multiple lists at specific frequencies. 

“If your campaign has separate lists with hot and cold leads, you may dial hot leads more often than cold ones, without excluding any leads,” van Everen said. “This gives more flexibility and power to our customers and, in the example of dialing hot leads more often than cold, can increase sales.” 

3. Built-In Web Brower for Agents: an Internet Web browser has been added to the agent application, which allows agents to use Web-based applications or call scripts that are hosted outside of Five9, which will increase productivity by not having to switch between applications. 

More and more companies are moving from premises-based technologies to cloud computing platforms. According to Jim Dvorkin, chief technology officer for Five9, the company has built pre-integrated on-demand call center/CRM solutions specifically to provide a robust and predictable migration path for these companies. 

“In doing so, we've decided to make our cloud computing platform and APIs available to all other software vendors and third-party developers that would like to extend their software to the call center market,” Dvorkin said. 

Additionally, the virtual call center suite release 7.3 moves Five9’s call center customers forward with a plethora of new features driven by customer demand. That demonstrates the company’s ability to respond to market needs. 

“In addition to improving productivity and end-user satisfaction, this release includes new features that enable our customers to more efficiently maintain their call centers while adhering to telemarketing regulations regarding do-not-call lists and day-of-week dialing,” Dvorkin said.