Virtual Call Center

It's no surprise that call centers, as communications hubs that maximize economies of scale and rely increasingly on cost-saving audio technologies such as VoIP, have emerged as major players in today’s technology industry. DMG Consulting, a provider of call center and real-time analytics market research and consulting services, recently published its "2009 Quality Management/Liability Recording Market Share" report.

 

According to the report, The Quality Management/Liability Recording or Workforce Optimization market grew by 14 percent, from $2,389.1 million in 2007 to $2,724.3 million in 2008. The call center segment contributed 4.3 percent, growing from $1,019.3 million to $1,062.8 million.

 

Although this growth rate is a bit of a decline from prior years, the WFO market has outperforming many other IT software markets and DMG Consulting attributes this growth to increased spending on security, risk and liability avoidance, and cost reduction.

 

"One of the more interesting things in 2008 is that the growth of the QM/recording market was largely organic," said Donna Fluss, president of DMG Consulting. "We didn't have any large-scale acquisitions or anything that really shook up the market. What we did have are vendors who continue to provide high-value applications that help end users solve the problems that plague them -- security, risk, liability, quality and cost reduction. Also interesting is that the market hit the tipping point for IP-based solutions, as these sales accounted for 61.4 percent of the market. This is a significant change from 2007 when the mix was close to 50/50."

 

Call centers use technology such as recording to capture agent/customer call and screen activities for liability, verification, quality assurance, and to feed into analytics applications.

 

San Carlos, Calif.-based Contactual (News - Alert) provides small businesses and enterprise departments with an efficient way to improve customer satisfaction while lowering costs with its “OnDemand Call Center.”

 

The solution allows companies to integrate headquarters, remote offices, and outsourced locations in to a virtual call center. All locations will operate seamlessly as one team and will included capabilities to access talent outside a specific geography, eliminating overtime costs, and reduce overhead.

 

With Contacutal’s OnDemand Call Center’s rich feature set, virtual call centers can quickly and easily optimize operations and immediately realize significant cost-savings that continue over time.

 

Officials said that moving to a virtual contact center model doesn’t require companies to sacrifice control over customer experience. Real-time monitoring and reporting are included to manage service levels both locally and globally.

 

The company has been the leader in hosted call center technology since 2000, Contactual officials said and their patented skills based routing algorithm, patent pending Advanced Virtual Tenant Architecture or AVTA and six additional patent pending technologies set them apart.

 

“Our commitment to continuous innovation has reinvented the customer contact experience and is something that will continue to benefit our customers and partners for years to come,” company officials said.