Wondering what the top unified communications features for call centers are? For most organizations, presence, call recording and conferencing top the list, as they streamline operations and ensure quality of service.

It's frustrating for your customers if their calls can't be resolved straight away, and they need to leave a message or are informed that somebody will be in touch shortly. We've all experienced that.

But call center software provider Zeacom has found that delayed responses affect your organization even more -'in terms of double- handling, additional costs and possibly even lost business,' company officials say.

This is why the company engineered its ZCC Rich Presence with the features it has, to enable employees to make direct contact when they call one of their colleagues.

The product lets users view the status of all other users within the organization - are they in the office or not? It also shows users' availability, such as whether they're at their desks or not.

You can also see the subject of users' Calendar appointments - if there's a weekly sales meeting scheduled or not, for example. You can see the expected time of return and see at a glance if someone is on an inbound, outbound, or conference call. The product also lets users request a screenpop return notification, when a user gets off the phone or returns to the desk.

It also shows you if users are online for IM or on Skype (News - Alert). This might be a feature popular with management. You can dial with a click of the mouse and monitor levels of staff activity through Presence Reporting.

'You'll also find that presence is an integral part of other key Unified Communications (News - Alert)functionality,' company officials say. 'For example, your console operator or receptionist needs to easily and quickly transfer calls, and will appreciate the fact that their intuitive application is combined with the visibility of everybody's whereabouts.'

And hey, if knowledge workers wish to organize an ad hoc conference call with colleagues in other parts of the world, they will only click on icons of co- workers who are actually at their desk.

Executives will only need a single phone number to always be contactable, since ZCC will transfer calls to the office phone automatically to their mobile, as soon as they're away from their desk. And when they're traveling, they can use presence on the mobile to see who is active at their desk before they call the office.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David's articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Patrick Barnard