Call center software provider Zeacom, which is exhibiting its unified communications solutions this week at VoiceCon 2010, has announced that its revenues rose by more than 15 percent and the number of employees jumped to nearly 150 in 2009.

“Despite a global economic downturn, 2009 marked a significant period of growth for Zeacom (News - Alert),” said CEO Miles Valentine in a release. “In addition to the cost-effectiveness and inherent functionality of Zeacom Communications Center software, our team maintains an ongoing commitment to exceptional customer service, and a belief that a sales cycle continues long after a deal closes. With budgets stretched thin, it’s imperative that our customers do not experience downtime that could hinder their business.”

Indeed 2009 was a year of significant milestones for Zeacom. In August the company announced that it had added new features and capabilities to its flagship unified communications solution, Zeacom Communications Centre, geared to improve collaboration and boost productivity for corporate workers. Service Pack 3 for Version 5.0 includes a new Executive Mobile module that lets corporate workers easily synchronize their desktop/desk phone with their mobile devices, including the BlackBerry and Microsoft (News - Alert) Windows Mobile smartphones. This way, mobile workers can access the corporate directory and view the presence, or availability status, of others on the network, including other mobile workers. In addition they can manage their own presence, indicating, for example, whether they are “away;” “available;” only available to certain users; or only available through specified modes of contact, such as email, chat or phone.

The new version also sports a visual voicemail feature that lets users view their voicemails in list form on their mobile device’s screen. This lets mobile workers prioritize voicemails by order of importance. The user simply clicks on the voicemail he or she wants to listen to. This saves time as the user no longer has to dial in to a voicemail box and slog through all the audio messages in chronological order.

Version 5.0 also now comes with an Executive Conference module offering visual identification of all parties on a conference call by way of a simple and secure login for callers. Individual speakers are identified by name so that there is greater certainty as to who is on a conference call. In addition it features a new single click recording option and Microsoft Outlook integration for simplified scheduling of conference calls.

In November the company announced that it now offers a direct gateway to Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2. This means companies running, for example, an Avaya (News - Alert) IP PBX for corporate-wide telephony, with Zeacom ZCC in the call center, can integrate both those systems with Microsoft OCS 2007 and pick and choose the features and capabilities they want from each system – whether it be presence, conferencing, mobility, single-click access to voicemail, or process automation. What’s more, they can customize the UC features and functionality available to each department or user in your organization.

Zeacom claims with its new gateway for Microsoft OCS, organizations can integrate and enhance Microsoft Office Communicator and the desktop phone in two important ways: First, users can have full desk phone features and functionality from Communicator; second, they extend Communicator’s “presence” capability to other systems and applications.

Also in November the company announced the launch of a new U.S. Associate Channel Manager Program to provide its reseller and channel partners with additional training and resources for sales development, customer service and support.

Before going live in the field, Zeacom Associate Channel Managers (ACMs) must complete an eight-week training program including courses entitled “Call Center 101,” “UC 101,” “Fundamentals of Telephony,” “ZCC Product Training,” “Customer-Centric Sales & Presentation Techniques,” “ROI and How to Measure It” and “Channel Engagement.”

Upon completion of the training, ACMs will be deployed in the U.S. cities of Irvine, Calif.; Seattle, Wash.; Denver, Colo.; Houston, Texas; Lexington, Ky.; Minneapolis, Minn., Hoboken, N.J.; Manhattan, N.Y.; Charlotte, N.C.; and West Palm Beach, Fla., the company reports.

In December the company announced its new Zeacom Record and Evaluate module for ZCC. The solution enables contact centers to record and evaluate customer calls. It permits managers to choose to capture all inbound calls or just those from selected extensions, to be recorded, forwarded, used in training and archived.

The Zeacom Record & Evaluate module provides contact center agents with real-time feedback that helps them reach agreed-upon benchmarks, and enables contact center managers to closely align individual remuneration with performance. Human resources and training managers can now create and utilize customized reports to assess agent performance against preferred customer service metrics; criteria can be selected from a database comprised of more than 350 pre-defined behaviors, or via custom templates.

Zeacom reports that more than 179,000 users within 2,800 organizations are using its unified communications solutions to enhance their respective competitive advantage.