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Customers expect a number of things today, but perhaps the most important is a customized experience. Customers may choose to contact a company via a variety of different channels, and regardless of which medium they choose, they expect that the organization will know who they are, what their history is and what their preferences are.

They also have far less tolerance for waiting on hold, waiting in queue or transfers than they once did. We live in an immediate kind of world, and we expect that the businesses we do business with will respect our time.

So while the world has changed, many call centers have not. They don’t offer robust enough self-service, they don’t prioritize their customer’s calls, and they don’t seem to understand that the competition is only a click away.

Many companies have found that 21st century customer service comes with 21st century technology, such as hosted, VoIP-based call center platforms. Virtual call center platforms like those from IP solutions provider 8x8 (News - Alert) offer an array of benefits to contact centers, particularly as they have built-in features that once would have cost a fortune to attain in premises-based solutions. These include:

Skills-based routing. Contacting centers can route callers to the right agent with the right skills, which is the most important ingredient in attaining first-call resolution. Multimedia queues allow contact centers to customize routing by a variety of criteria, reducing the number of times customers are transferred and boosting customer satisfaction.

Improved service level results. Call monitoring, together with customizable reporting functions, allow contact centers to keep an eye on service levels and determine how best to meet them.

Immediate deployment. While premises-based contact centers once took weeks or even months to deploy, virtual contact center solutions can be up in hours. 8x8 offers a hands-on jumpstart training program to get the contact center running even faster. The solution requires no hardware, software or IT department to deploy or run, and changes can be made simply and easily.

Scalability. To meet seasonal fluctuations or spikes in call traffic, contact centers can expand and contract as needed, eliminating the need to pay for seats they need only once or twice a year. With the pay-as-you-go model, contact centers can start small and add capacity as they grow.

Distribute the workforce. Virtual contact centers are a particular bonus to contact centers that want to distribute capabilities across multiple offices or facilities or even use home agents. This feature also serves as built-in business continuity in the event of a storm, power outage or other unforeseen event.

Call centers, once the least flexible of departments in any business, are now the most adaptable, thanks to virtual contact center solutions. With hosted call center software, security is robust and professional, private customer information is kept private, and companies no longer need to worry about being stuck with more call center solution than they need.