“However, while it’s true to say that the majority of call centres in the UK are probably still working from traditional switching, VoIP will become commonplace in the near future as businesses learn about its benefits and how they relate specifically to a contact centre business environment.”
“Aside from the traditional benefits a Hosted solution can offer, such as cost savings, mobility and scalability, the functionality of a Hosted VoIP solution can help to significantly improve performance and enhance business practice within a call centre setting. For example hunt groups can easily be determined with software from a PC which could help to improve overall customer satisfaction.”
“Call centres traditionally experience a high turnover of staff, requiring frequent changes in the number of users. Notoriously sophisticated, these PBX applications can be costly and complicated to expand to support fluctuating staff numbers. In comparison however, changes and innovation in a Hosted VoIP telephony environment are less expensive and require less upheaval.”
“Employees in contact centres tend to be made up of working parents and students, all of whom require flexible working hours. A Hosted solution allows multiple agents to operate from several different locations, thus enabling staff to work from home and improving their work/life balance. Call centres supporting the current demand for flexible working automatically create a desirable working environment thus helping to phase out the problem of fluctuating staff numbers.”
“For call centres, especially those making outbound calls, time is money and business continuity is paramount. If an existing telephone system breaks down for reasons beyond their control, for example the recent floods, the call centre can lose up to thousands of pounds an hour in lost sales. The nature of a Hosted solution however means that business can be done as usual because calls can be easily diverted to home phones or mobiles.”
“Hosted VoIP is gradually gaining ubiquity amongst the call centre market and migration will be a natural progression given that revenue is made exclusively from making or receiving calls. With the help of resellers, suppliers can further infiltrate this profitable market by educating the contact centre market of the invaluable business benefits.”