While many contact centers use cloud-based solutions today, it’s important to consider that not all of these solutions are created equal, and this can have great impact on the reliability of the solution. Cloud-based contact center systems are only as reliable as the networks that support them, and many companies find that network congestion can result in poor quality, dropped calls and other barriers to customer service excellence. Insufficient network quality can also result in data breaches, something many online merchants or companies with a strong online presence have discovered the hard way.

When it comes to cloud-based contact centers, most companies recognize the benefits: low upfront costs, automatic upgrades and updates, work-at-home and disaster recovery features and multichannel flexibility. When asked what’s holding them back, however, many companies still using premise-based systems cite concerns about security and call quality as a barrier to adoption.

Call center on-demand solutions provider Five9 (News - Alert), already a significant player in the cloud call center marketplace, this week announced an enhanced cloud offering for its customers through a private network. With Five9 MPLS Agent Connect, Five9 customers are able to avoid potential impacts of internet congestion on call quality and data vulnerability.

Agent Connect was designed to link Five9 agent stations to Five9 applications using a dedicated network that is separate from the Internet, a move that ensures better call quality and can eliminate data breach risks that can come with forcing companies using a cloud-based solution to procure their own connectivity, which comes with not only quality and security risks, but a need to maintain IT personnel to maintain and troubleshoot the network. The new solution supports both voice and data connections in the private cloud network, allowing companies to engage in multichannel customer support with clearer quality, more reliability and better security.

"Five9 customers deserve highly reliable connections and the ability to facilitate quality interactions,” said Liz Osborn of product and solution marketing for San Ramon, California-based Five9, in a statement. “With the Five9 MPLS Agent Connect, those customers can now enjoy high-quality, private connections."

The result, says the company, is that a contact center using the solution can focus on what they do best: creating a great customer experience without the headaches inherent in running a solution on the open Internet.