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BT Expands Hosted Call Center Portfolio in the US with Cloud Contact Solution

By Amanda Ciccatelli, TMCnet Web Editor

These days, the hosted call center is gaining significant popularity in the global community as businesses are realizing the value of running a call center operation without worrying about the cost and burden of the physical call center.

Recently, British Telecommunications (BT (News - Alert)) has expanded its hosted call center portfolio in the U.S. The newest addition to the portfolio is a cloud-based IP contact center service based on Cisco's Unified Communications (News - Alert) and Collaboration technology (UCC).

With organizations everywhere are looking to take advantage of the emergence of hosted call center services, BT Cloud Contact helps overcome challenges by providing global unified communications to contact centers like flexibility and cost control. Built to support the global expansion of multinational organizations, it is based upon BT's global network, with this UCC platform based in BT data centers.

BT Cloud Contact is a global hosted solution that can be easily integrated into other call center infrastructures. It combines the best features of BT's CRM portfolio into a single, powerful center, hosted by BT and flexible enough to grow with an organization.

John Hernandez, vice president and general manager of the Customer Collaboration Business Unit at Cisco (News - Alert) said, "The cloud-based contact center empowers businesses and organizations of all sizes to provide world-class care to their customers. We are delighted that BT is launching this new service based on Cisco Unified Contact Center technology."

With cost the key driver for the market shift to cloud-based services, BT Cloud Contact is available on a flexible pay-as-you-use basis. Costs savings result from shifting to an opex-based commercial model, driving operational savings and service improvement. The biggest savings come from the ability to share hardware, software and licensing across an organization's contact centers in a secure 'private cloud.’

Andrew Small, vice president of Unified Communications, CRM & CPE Portfolio, BT Global Services (News - Alert) added, “As the drive for cost reduction continues to place increasing demands on call center operations, this service can be a key enabler to transform the traditional call center into a customer interaction network, enhancing reliability while streamlining interactions to help deliver superior customer service.”