A majority of decision makers in the IT department would prefer a well-oiled machine rather than cut costs. According to a recent Enghouse Interactive (News - Alert) Customer Interaction Index survey, 78 percent of North American IT executives said just that, suggesting that making the right decisions on effective day-to-day operations will affect the bottom line anyway.

Today's contact centers, according to an EON Business Wire report, require a list of rather complex operations and important IT infrastructure. Business executives have decided to focus on those resources within their own operations and in the marketplace.

Time, financial and personal resources make up some of the complexity of contact centers. In addition, contact centers are derived from completely separate platforms like customer interactions within different business functions and various locations. The upkeep of multiple individual contracts and the tedious task of maintaining platforms to be in sync can be expensive and daunting.

The evolution of multiple customer communication channels is both a blessing and a curse. The growth has presented an opportunity for a reduction in call center complexity, as well as the ability to leverage current infrastructure against customer interactions. At the same time, both can alleviate expenditures while facing other challenges. Some of those challenges affect call center staffing and the use of different platforms to track customer interactions.

The best possible end result would be a unified platform. CSG Systems (News - Alert) International and Enghouse Interactive developed a solution to meet the many needs of a multiple platform call center trying to reduce costs. AgentHub is the product of this collaboration.

CSG brings its SaaS (News - Alert)-based platform with interactive messaging and multichannel expertise to the table while Enghouse gives us CosmoCall University. This contact center software suit is an icon around the globe and has the ability to connect functions, personnel and customer contact locations, including home agents and other outsourcing options.

AgentHub is the virtual contact center infrastructure solution, specifically designed to maximize operations within a contact center and streamline all of its processes. The service gives users so much potential for multichannel messaging and other technologies through a cloud-based portfolio. This fully hosted and integrated option clearly has efficiency in mind for contact center solutions.

The introduction of AgentHub allows businesses to give their customers a more beneficial and cost-effective tool to manage their contact center solutions. The technology is not only more cost effective, but much more effective in its approach to handling customer interactions. Agent productivity, call handling times and customer success stories are destined to be more heard of with this particular SaaS model.

Extending the virtual contact center concept is that of the at-home agent. Alpine Access is exploring this topic in a free webinar. Visit this page for registration information.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.

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