Now that Voice over IP (VoIP) technology has come of age, the same networks are carrying voice, data and Web communications. Which means that organizations can offer their customers more than one way to make contact. In addition to calling the ever-present toll-free phone number, customers can:

• chat with a company in real time on the Web
• send text messages from their mobile phones
• send e-mail, asking for answers or for a call-back at a later time
• fill in forms on the Web and get replies via the medium of their choice

Thanks to VoIP, the call centre can be a multi-channel contact centre more easily and less expensively than ever before. What's more, unlike traditional centres that use premised-based solutions, the IP Contact Centre is network-based. Adding an agent is as simple as adding a phone and an Internet connection. An agent can work from anywhere in the world, at any time. And when customers make contact, their questions or requests can be easily routed to agents based on time zone, language capabilities, skills, product knowledge and more.

As a result, scalability is no longer the issue it used to be with expensive premised-based solutions. Organizations can quickly and cost-effectively staff up for peak seasons or add agents as demand grows. And cost isn't an issue either. With no need to duplicate systems and software licences at multiple sites, savings can be dramatic.

Making it work

Despite the advantages of IP Contact Centre technology, there are challenges. For example, companies are understandably reluctant to centralize technology without being very sure that the centralized system can't "go down", bringing global operations to a halt. The answer lies in newer network architectures where all system processes can run in parallel on multiple servers, all the time. If an individual server fails, communications will continue.

Another challenge for a multi-site organization operating more than one call centre may be "political". Local managers, whose careers and compensation depend on the efficiency of their operations, may be reluctant to support any initiative that centralizes everything in the hands of a remote IT department accountable to someone else. Conditions may also be different in different areas served by the organization.

Fortunately, there is a solution. When a service provider like TELUS provides a hosted IP Contact Centre solution, it uses "multi-tenant" technology. Each of our clients purchases the same basic service, but uses it in their own unique way. For a multi-site organization, a similar solution will deliver a level of "tenant-autonomy" that no premised-based system can match. Resources such as hardware and software licenses are shared and centralized, but each tenant (or site) can run its own separate software processes.

As a result, local managers have more control over their infrastructure than would ever be possible with a centralized, premised-based solution. Using browser menus, they can create their own individual, multimedia campaigns on demand. They can even institute their own fixes, at the most granular levels, in real time.

A good host makes all the difference

While some companies may still prefer to run their own IP Contact Centre technology, outsourcing to a hosted service offers a number of distinct advantages:

• No upfront expenses: Hosted services mean no capital expenditures for equipment, no traditional development and testing costs and no integration expenses.
• Ongoing operational savings: A large host enjoys tremendous economies of scale. This enables them to dramatically drive down the cost of technology management to levels far lower than companies with dedicated, stand-alone systems can achieve.
• Risk management: Here, a number of factors come into play.
  
  
  • Business publications, analysts and academic researchers report that 60% to 70% of IP Contact Centre deployments never achieve their stated objectives. When you choose a hosted solution, the deployment risk belongs to the service provider, who must meet your needs to keep your business.
  • Hosted solutions feature real-time disaster recovery capabilities. If you experience a disaster at one of your sites, your agents can simply plug in to another phone and Internet connection anywhere else and continue working. If your host experiences a disaster, they will have redundant systems in place to ensure that your availability isn't affected.
  • A hosted solution places the technology obsolescence risk firmly at the host's door. Your service includes all upgrades, maintenance and support, at no additional charge.
• Time to market: A new hosted IP contact centre solution can be deployed within as few as 12 days. Similarly, new capacity can be added almost instantly. When complex customization requirements must be met - for example, routing rules and company-specific needs - they can be fulfilled with on-demand, menu-based technology.
• World-class advice: When you're dealing with a tier-one service provider like TELUS, you can leverage their advice on best practices on an on-going basis.
• Try before you buy: Tier one service providers often also sell the technologies they use to deliver their hosted services. If your organization prefers to own its technology, you can try it first before investing in it yourself.

Adopting adaptive technology

Historically, contact centres have cobbled together as many as 24 different solutions to create a multi-channel infrastructure. The result was expensive to buy, expensive to maintain and notoriously rigid, requiring significant time and money to change.

But now, thanks to adaptive technology made possible by hosted IP Contact Centres, changes can be made in real-time, at no cost. An entire range of standard outcomes can be pre-programmed into a solution, allowing changes to be easily implemented from Web menus. If an outcome hasn't been pre-programmed, it can be added quickly and cost-effectively by readily available Web services.

Because of this, call centres can now run in a more optimized state, more often, enabling them to achieve competitive advantages in both productivity and customer responsiveness. And customer satisfaction is key. Studies show that when a business deploys multi-channel solutions and has the ability to adapt to changing customer needs in real time, it enjoys higher customer satisfaction rates, which translate into higher customer loyalty and growth rates.

All in all, IP Contact Centre technology is already delivering dramatic improvements in the way companies and their customers communicate with each other.

A glimpse into the future
In the not too distant future, analytics technology will not only analyze data and suggest proactive changes to such things as call logic, call treatment and the content of future customer communications, it will actually be able to implement the changes itself by linking to Adaptive IP Contact Centre platforms.

For example, if a contact centre's system told you that there was an estimated wait time of 30 seconds for an agent, you would likely wait. However, if the wait time was 30 minutes, you might hang up and call a competitor. An Analytics engine would identify whether you are likely to hold or hang-up, based on historical patterns for your queue and your call against the demands of other queues and callers. If you're likely to hang up, the engine could instruct the Adaptive platform to avoid telling you the estimated wait time, while simultaneously addressing the bottleneck in order to reduce your hold time. It could even offer you options, like letting you enter your telephone number and receive an automatic callback when an agent is available without losing your place in the queue.