contact centres
combining all elements in a cloud environment contact centres can effectively outsource much of the current in-house IT activity, resulting in more robust and more efficient systems.
To start the cloud journey resellers need a bespoke suite of services priced specifically for them, and the freedom to manage their own services and sell them through whatever distribution network they choose. “While the initial business solution provided by a reseller may be something relatively simple such as SIP trunking or number management, additional fully integrated features can be deployed on the same platform using the same tools,” said Edward Winfield, Director of SaaS Alliances, Cable&Wireless Worldwide. “This gives the reseller agility by allowing them to satisfy the dynamic needs of their customers and become part of their business processes.”
Intuitive user interfaces greatly simplify the process of provisioning contact centres. The reseller is able to do the complex tasks far more simply, such as assigning agent skills groups, and designing the call scripts and ACD models which would have been prohibitively complicated with an on-premise model. “Cloud contact centres should enable the reseller to design, control, configure and deploy services quickly and easily,” added Winfield. “They should also give the end user greater control and visibility of their estate.”
A reseller in the contact centre space is at the heart of a business’ interaction with its customers, staff, suppliers
and stakeholders, pointed out Winfield. He noted: “Resellers should then ask: How can I assist customers with database integration, rationalise their supply chain, help ensure that they leverage social media, drive automation, facilitate flexible working practices and improve how they work? All of these areas put resellers into deeper relationships with their customers.”
High availability Cable&Wireless Worldwide has a cloud contact centre proposition with its NGWare platform. “Up until now, technology prohibited SMEs from benefiting from the advanced functionality of large enterprises,” stated Winfield. “But the advent of cheap bandwidth and feature-rich cloud platforms makes it possible for them to reap the benefits. Technology choice in this space should scale down as well as up so that the reseller does not get outgrown by customer requirements, and this translates into the wider channel proposition. Resellers need a common platform that they can use to address the needs of both SMEs and large enterprises and the cloud meets these requirements.”
Hosted contact centres are ideal for businesses that have teams of people geographically spread. Wide area working is the sweet spot irrespective of team size. “Wide area users can implement the hosted contact centre services over IP extensions, so sales to a business with new home- based or remote users will incur hosted connectivity opportunities,” said Lesley Hansen, Group Marketing Director, TeleWare. “For
To advertise in
contact The Sales Team on 01895 454411
www.comms-dealer.com
COMMS DEALER AUGUST 2012 43
large distributed offices SIP trunking opportunities will consolidate services from the hosted contact centre to the offices.”
The hosted contact centre market is primarily driven by the need to maximise inbound calls or increase efficiency of inbound call handling. Auto Attendant and IVR are key ways to address this need and an easy way to introduce the concept of hosted solutions to a business, noted Hansen.
Magnetic North offers a cloud-based blended contact centre, and according to Andrew Jones, Sales Director, the fact that it can be delivered as a hosted on-demand service with a transactional ‘pay-as-you- go’ cost model enables companies to scale up and down their activities in line with business demands. “Zero capital investment means that partners are offering a more attractive, customer friendly proposition,” he said.
Jones reckons that once a reseller starts operating in the contact centre space the number of adjacent end user markets is beyond quantification. “Before now, if a business wanted to focus on or enhance sales, collections, account management or customer interface, it did so manually or outsourced. But the functionality today does not mean capex heavy, server- based, highly engineered and poorly supported internal hardware platforms. It means swift and secure access to a hosted platform based on a web accessed service that comes with ownership at a clearly visible and manageable RoI.”
n
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60