Telephone service providers make billions in revenue on directory assistance calls each year. They keys to profitability in this business are to answer every call placed to directory assistance, automate as many as possible, keep the average call times short and make sure that every caller gets the information he or she needs. Down time, delays, or outages are not acceptable.

For over 25 years, VoltDelta has been enabling directory assistance for over 100 telephone companies in North America and Europe by focusing on these core principals: sustaining high call volumes and availability, developing systems to minimize average agent work times and delivering high caller satisfaction.

Directory Assistance Experience Is Relevant To All Contact Centers

What VoltDelta does for the telecoms in providing directory assistance is common across the operational needs of all contact centers. These solutions rely on evolving technologies to continue to improve upon their business objectives.

Technology can be used to keep high caller satisfaction rates. Speech automation and voice-based self-service solutions allow callers to quickly get the information or perform the transaction they want when they want. Technologies such as private VoIP networks and speech automation keep costs down by providing less expensive but high quality transport and by reducing agent work time. Keeping the center up and running is absolutely a function of good technology design and architecture. Extensive call routing capabilities, redundant systems and scalability on-demand are all provided by new and improving technologies.
While technologies help attain these goals, there is always the cost constraint.

Using The Latest Technologies – Without The Capital Expense Traditionally, implementing new technologies to expand the capabilities of the call center meant a significant upfront investment. Most well run companies require that any large capital expenditure show a compelling ROI case to even be considered. The advent of the hosted, on-demand model allows for all aspects of contact center technologies to be implemented without the major upfront cost but rather with an ongoing operational cost – typically cost per minute of use.

Technologies including speech automation, IVRs and ACDs, voice and data transport, reporting, outbound alerting and multimodal messaging and more can all be implemented using the hosted model. This provides almost any contact center with the ability to leverage the technologies that used to be available only to those who could afford significant capital expenditures. Additionally, hosted solutions include the upkeep, redundancy and maintenance of the technologies as part of the price; and implementation times are typically significantly less than premise deployments.

Contact centers of all types are taking advantage of the hosted model — even the large-scale telecom directory assistance centers — whether to complement existing premise-based systems or to provide completely new solutions, the hosted model is leveling the playing field.

VoltDelta Hosted Solutions provides contact centers of all types access to leading-edge technologies including speech automation, IVR, ACD, VoIP transport, multimodal messaging and outbound alerts on the per-minute used model.

To learn more, please visit www.voltdelta.com/voltdelta-hosted-solutions.

On-Demand: The Key Driver Of Growth For Contact Centers

By Tracey E. Schelmetic, Editorial Director, Customer Interaction Solutions

The word “revolutionary” gets used too often with products and technologies. (If you’ve ever watched a late-night infomercial, you’ll agree.) There have been a lot of technologies that have done great things for the call center/customer service industry. There are lots of solutions we couldn’t imagine living without today. However, few have merited the label “revolutionary” as it applies to changing the industry utterly.
On-demand delivery of contact center solutions is probably the only event to merit such a claim. In the earliest days of the discussion of application service providers, or ASPs, we thought this concept would be a bit of cream on top of the call center’s cake: a quirky model with some benefits for some applications and some call centers. Fast-forward about 10 years, and the on-demand model is delivering benefits to call centers that we couldn’t imagine just a decade ago. It’s turned the entire concept of “call center” on its ear: it has even changed the definition of what a “call center” is.
The ability to pay for services as you go, and to offer services, like directory assistance, not dreamed possible with last decade’s technology has raised the profile and importance of the call center in any organization exponentially. Thanks to the on-demand delivery model, the contact center is no longer a sink-hole of operating expenses, but a dynamic tool for business growth.
Industrywide, the result of the demand for hosted call center solutions is expected to be a shot of adrenaline for the call center market. Analyst group Datamonitor has predicted that the contact center technology market will grow 30 percent a year, reaching $4.7 billion by 2009. The increasing demand for on-demand solutions has been identified as a key driver of this growth, as it will allow organizations to offer services they never imagined possible just a few years ago, giving consumers more choices in how they are served.
If you are a customer service organization looking to offer your customers more value to tempt them from competitors, it’s time to go shopping for value-added services to offer them. It has never been easier and more profitable to do so.