Calling it the “most significant advancement in company history,” contact center technology provider TouchStar (News - Alert) has introduced its new 2008 Enterprise Call Center System, which provides enterprise scalability, redundancy and functionality to connect thousands of call center agents in multiple locations anywhere in the world. The introduction of this new platform marks TouchStar’s entry into the Tier One enterprise market.

According to the company, the new system offers functionality which is critical to modern call centers seeking to expand their use of remote labor resources and unified communications. Interfacing options include a new Application Programming Interface (API), an updated Microsoft (News - Alert) SQL database structure, several new web services, and a scripting tool that can connect to multiple real time data sources. Meanwhile, TouchStar Global Enterprise offers the security and regulatory compliance requirements that are essential for enterprise clients.

“TouchStar 2008 Enterprise is a new first tier product and a full set of services that we heavily invested in over the last two years,” explained Steve Bederman, TouchStar’s CEO, in a press release. “We built the product and the infrastructure based on direct input from our enterprise clients. Some examples of enterprise businesses that have selected TouchStar include AIG, McKesson, Zimmer, Ecolab, Roto-Rooter, The Men’s Wearhouse, Symantec, and several large collections firms.”

Bederman added that 2008 is going to be “a very exciting year for TouchStar because we are well prepared for enterprise market growth,” plus it marks the company’s ten year anniversary.

“We have a proven history of becoming market leaders each time we have entered a new market,” Bederman said. “We started by unifying voice and data in small call centers and then we grew to become the premier call center technology partner for medium call centers that have hundreds of agents …”

TouchStar’s contact center platforms enable organizations to seamlessly tie together all contact center locations as well as remote agents or small remote offices. Thus these platforms facilitate the “virtual contact center,” where all end-points on the network are equal, no matter where they are located. That means remote agents or even other knowledge workers within an organization can have access to all the same software and systems that the agents use in the main center – plus all workers can be monitored and have their performance tracked through a single interface. It also means that all customer interaction data can be collected in real time and shared across the entire organization. In this sense, the software enables the contact center to become the “central hub of intelligence” for the organization. With its distributed architecture and unified communications capabilities, these platforms also allow for enterprise wide communications and thus deliver operational efficiencies and improved customer service. Furthermore, these systems give customers the sense that they are contacting a whole organization, rather than a separate, or “siloed” department within the enterprise.

In addition to its new 2008 Enterprise Call Center System, Touchstar is also offering a new Edge Enterprise Service program to help companies with matters of implementation, optimization, support, custom development, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning. Depending on an organization’s location and its specific needs, TouchStar will assemble a team of experts, managed by professional project managers, to offer a wide range of services. With more than 10 years of experience in the contact center industry, the company has some of the very best technicians and engineers to offer. Currently the company has more than 2,500 clients on six continents, many of which are benefiting from TouchStar’s formalized processes, staff expansion, and geographic office expansion.

“Our development and professional services teams have done a fantastic job with our tier one enterprise system,” said Rick Morris, COO of TouchStar. “This was a long term project that began by re-engineering our processes to be more scalable; we then invested in product development and professional services. We are looking forward to disclosing additional projects in 2008 that are going to add more value for our clients. We can help any business in the world with our wide range of communications solutions that drive productivity and reduce operating expenses.”

Denver-based TouchStar -- which has acquired several other contact center software makers in the past year as part of its strategic plan to achieve rapid growth -- now offers five hosted and on site communications solutions to match the budgetary and functional needs of businesses of all types and sizes.

The company made news in early November when it announced that it had acquired Phoenix-based contact center technology firm Data-Tel Info Solutions for an undisclosed sum – this part of TouchStar’s ongoing strategy of consolidating the market through the acquisition of direct competitors.

The deal means TouchStar can now sell Data-Tel’s hosted, turn-key call center solutions, which are primarily geared for the telemarketing industry. Data-Tel offers a wide range of solutions, from small-scale hosted solutions to enterprise-level systems, as well as a set of competitively priced stand-alone products. TouchStar plans to maintain Data-Tel’s full product line and will now operate the company as a subdivision, with development, support, marketing and sales being handled within its well-managed business framework.

TouchStar is reportedly actively recruiting resellers in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Latin America. Its indirect TouchStar Partner Program is offered in three levels – Referral Partner, Gold Partner, Silver Partner, and Platinum Partner. Currently the company boasts over 20 global partners.

For more information about TouchStar visit www.touchstar.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.

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