January 2005

In Search Of Enterprise VoIP ROI?

The Contact Center Is The Killer Application (Sidebar)

If a faster ROI from enterprise VoIP is what you’re looking for, then implementing VoIP in your contact center is the answer. The VoIP contact center produces a faster ROI by reducing operating costs, generating efficiency and improving customer service — making the contact center the killer application for enterprise VoIP.

To achieve a faster ROI in the contact center, a pure IP system must be deployed. However, companies in need of extending the investment of their installed TDM switches often consider IP-enabling their contact center with a hybrid IP system. The only real benefit of IP-enablement is a savings on basic transport costs between switches. The benefits of an all-IP system are much more extensive.

Consider a typical company with three contact centers, 100 agents per center. With an IP-enabled system, potential savings are limited to inter-site telephony charges (transport costs between switches) and system administration costs. The total cost savings during the first year of deployment could be $200,000.

If that same company implements an IP-based system, not only can they experience the same cost savings as with an IP-enabled system but they can reap even greater savings from five additional areas. The cost savings of a pure IP system within the first year of deployment could amount to $3.5 million in the following areas:

• Lower cost and time of deployment for CTI applications.
• Improved agent productivity from wider deployment of CTI applications such as screen pop and intelligent routing.
• Labor cost reductions result from networking multiple centers into a single, unified pool of agents.
• Lower cost and faster deployment of new centers.
• Lower maintenance contract fees and licensing fees.

The faster that the entire contact center moves to an all-IP system, the quicker the ROI, including the realization of all of the business benefits that offers. Migrating to such a solution may mean that the most recently purchased TDM switches should be temporarily IP-enabled while some of the older TDM switches should be retired. For maximum benefit, any well-thought out migration strategy will allow the company to migrate at its own pace by moving either site-by-site or functional group-by-functional group. IT

For more information, please visit the company online at www.nuasis.com.

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