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inContact Makes Migrating from On-premises to Hosted Call Center Fast and Simple

One of the main advantages of today’s hosted or “cloud”-based call center solutions is that they can be deployed quickly, easily and with minimal up-front cost. What’s more these solutions offer organizations flexible deployment options to help them better meet their ever-changing business needs.

With the cloud-based model of software delivery, there is no need to make a huge upfront investment in new hardware and network architecture: Basically all that is needed are the computers and a high speed (e.g. T1/E1) Internet connection. This is in contrast to the traditional on-premises call center, which requires investment in up to 12 different pieces of hardware, as well as network infrastructure, all of which must be continuously monitored and maintained. With the hosted or cloud based model of delivery, the vendor takes on responsibility for application performance, including maintenance and troubleshooting of equipment and architecture, thus significantly reducing the strain on a company’s internal IT department.

Unlike traditional on-premises systems, which take months to install and configure from scratch, today’s hosted call center solutions can be deployed in a matter of weeks. Helping to speed deployment is the fact that they support fast and simple integration with existing IT systems. Most vendors are now providing out-of-the-box integration with the leading CRM and business systems, thus enabling companies to extend their investment in existing software and systems.

inContact offers a comprehensive, all-in-one hosted call center platform that is delivered via the cloud model. With this fully Web-based system, all core call center applications – including ACD, IVR, call monitoring/recording, workforce management, reporting and more – come tightly bundled on a single platform, which in turn means faster deployment and reduced integration costs, as well as higher reliability through reduced system complexity. Perhaps most important, inContact offers several different deployment options, including the ability to use applications on a ”hybrid” (on-premises/hosted) basis as well as the option to have applications delivered via inContact’s virtual private network.

To learn more about inContact’s hosted call center service -- and in particular ease of migration from the on-premises to the hosted model -- TMCnet recently interviewed Jim Tanner, Senior Vice President, Product and Strategy. What follows are excerpts from our interview:

TMCnet: I understand that inContact offers its hosted call center solutions via its own dedicated network – what other deployment options does the company offer, and how does offering flexible deployment options help customers?

Jim Tanner: Many of our customers do connect to our platform via dedicated connections, but several other options exist as well. A growing number of customers use voice over IP (VoIP) to access the inContact cloud, or we can provision SIP Trunks. Transport mediums can be via the public Internet or a private MPLS network should QoS be desired.

Call centers with a premises-based ACD/IVR/CTI (News - Alert) solution often have dedicated voice connections from some network provider to deliver inbound calls from the PSTN to the premise ACD gear which distributes calls to an agent tied to that ACD.

Alternatively, inContact uses several inbound carriers and access points from the PSTN to receive those inbound calls on behalf of our customers, and those calls are delivered to our cloud-based ACD/IVR/CTI platform where we enhance the agent and caller’s experience and then terminate the inbound call to an agent using our web-based solution. The method by which we deliver that call to the agent may be a host of options based on customer preference including traditional PRI T-1s, PSTN termination over traditional analog lines, full service VoIP where inContact will deploy IP phones to agent desktops, SIP trunking to an IP PBX (News - Alert), or delivering the call to a hosted telephony provider of the customers’ choosing who will terminate the call to the agent phone. We can even terminate calls to a cell phone, although we don’t recommend it except as a last resort.

TMCnet: What’s the advantage of using inContact’s dedicated network as opposed to having the service delivered via provider of my choice?

JT: Since inContact receives an inbound call from the PSTN and then delivers that call to an agent station, essentially connecting the caller and the agent while maintaining awareness of the call, connecting to the cloud platform via an established inContact connection is a simple one-stop solution for the customer and eliminates the need for the customer to maintain separate telecom and contact center provider relationships. However, inContact will connect to all major tier one carriers for call origination and delivery, should the customer desire a different provider.

TMCnet: Does going the dedicated network route have any impact on speed of deployment? In other words, will establishing a connection to the inContact cloud add time to the implementation?

JT: Should customers choose to connect using inContact’s high available network connections, the speed of deployment of the overall solution is very rarely impacted by the connection component as the network connectivity is being provisioned simultaneously with the design, implementation and testing of the contact center solution. inContact maintains standard intervals of 30 calendar days for dedicated voice and internet T-1s and the customer is always welcome to use whichever ISP they are comfortable with, including existing bandwidth when using VoIP or SIP Trunking connectivity options.

TMCnet: Explain in general the advantages cloud-based call center solutions bring in terms of ease of deployment.

JT: In the software-as-a-service model, customers have no need to plan for future growth or wait for roadmap hardware improvements. The technology expands and contracts as the needs of the customer's business dictate and the most advanced functionality is implemented up to four times per year through the multi-tenant architecture - all customers get upgraded, and the majority of the time, it’s free. Integrating to a customer's CRM is typically done through a simple and secure Web push, which makes the speed to integration a huge advantage. This gives our customers access to their data without having to spend thousands of dollars and months of time to make that integration work.

Typical full deployment cycles range from two weeks to 60 days, which is 300 percent faster than an average six month deployment of basic premised based technologies.  In the cloud-based model, the idea is to overlay advanced contact handling across rudimentary or out-of-date hardware, thus continually extending the life of capital expenditures while proving improved and more cost efficient functionality.

TMCnet: How many of inContact’s customers migrate from on-premises to hosted gradually, for the purpose of extending the life of their existing call center system investments?

JT: More than half of our customers extend the life of their existing equipment while taking advantage of the most advanced call routing and IVR functionality available through inContact and the Cloud. The majority of our customers implement the full solution all at once, versus small pieces at a time. inContact's differentiation is a sophisticated implementation process with multiple levels of scope and business analysis prior to developing the solution. This adds accuracy and efficiency to the professional services development cycle.

Typically, our customers implement IVR and call routing as a first phase. Their customer first interacts with our customer through the IVR, where they indicate what they need. Very often that need can be ascertained through computer telephony integration automatically, without the aid of the customer. Those preferences are assigned a series of skills, which then get sent to the agent population which is best suited to help that customer. Once IVR and routing are accomplished, the typical next step is to link the CRM with the call routing to speed transaction time and provide the highest level of customer interaction.

Finally, our customers typically augment their call center with the complex workforce optimization tools inContact provides. Our WFO tools are designed to provide a complete lifecycle of agent productivity. We help our customers hire the best agents for their contact centers, keep them on the phone, and train them in the most optimal way, while not disrupting efficiencies in call handling. At the same time, we provided the most effective solution for individual customer satisfaction measurement.