Hosted contact center solutions are increasing in importance as the industry makes a switch from premise-based technology to solutions provided over the Internet. With hosted contact center software, contact centers of all sizes are benefiting from lower infrastructure maintenance and more flexible agent staffing, among other benefits.

 

Five9, a global provider of on-demand solutions for telemarketing, customer service, and call centers, took some time recently to discuss the hosted contact center software market as well as their highlights from the past year.

 

The award-winning Five9 Virtual Call Center targets call centers that are small to mid-size, departments of larger enterprises, and companies that provide outsourced services.

 

2007 went very well. We saw growth in most of our customer segments.  Our solutions were used to streamline operations, reduce costs, improve agent productivity, and enter new markets.

Have new trends or standards emerged in hosted contact center software over the past year?

We think there’s been a renewed interest in serving mid-sized companies with demands for more seats, more integrations and more analytics.

 

Customers in all segments are reporting large, tangible cost reductions in telecommunications with our implementation of VoIP.

 

 Customers are also expressing interest in a range of hosted voice and data services along with contact centers.

We saw tremendous growth in 2007 including new contracts in many service sectors such as marketing services, professional services, agency services and outsourcing.

 

We also increased productivity in our Engineering and Development center in Russia and developed new partnerships for distribution and offerings. 

 

In 2007, Five9 was also named to the annual Inc. 500 List of fastest growing private companies (based on three years of sales growth).

In the upcoming year, Five9 will enhance the functionality of our inbound, outbound, and blended solutions and we will continue our rapid- fire implementation of on-demand services for new customers in financial services, healthcare insurance, information technology, outsourcing, and retail. 

 

In 2008, we will also share our knowledge of best practices and contact center performance with our customers to help them achieve success.  We have many cases of significant cost savings and time-to-market benefits with our solutions.

 

 

For the hosted contact center market, we see strong customer interest in flexible sourcing and on-demand contact centers that offer sustained value. 

 

We also see customers expanding and re-structuring their operations to make the most effective use of agent resources wherever they may be as well as an increased emphasis on contact center analytics, agent training and performance.

 

 

For more, be sure to check out the Hosted Contact Center channel on TMCnet.