IP Contact Centre

A contact centre is a central point in an enterprise from which all customer contacts are managed. The contact centre typically includes one or more online call centres but may include other types of customer contact as well, including e-mail, Web site inquiries and chats, and the collection of information relating to customer interaction. A contact centre is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.

Matching a caller with the right agent the first time, creating call handling tailored to different categories of customers and even for individual customers, and providing flexible contact centre operational profiles based on varying business needs are all critical requirements in providing high levels of customer satisfaction whilst maintaining cost-effective, efficient operations. It is critical that your contact centre be correctly deployed and effectively operated to help provide optimal performance and improve customer satisfaction.

Unified communications (UC) in the call centre promises to improve the customer experience by extending the customer service operation beyond the walls of the call centre and into the greater enterprise through the use of presence and collaboration tools—all from one platform. Given the degree of flexibility that UC and VoIP provide, it is no wonder that so many organizations are trying to integrate these technologies into their call centres.

The reasons for deploying a contact centre using IP Telephony rather than traditional analog telephony as the foundation include:

• Cost saving: VoIP cuts costs in two key areas – communication and infrastructure.  Voice communications are transmitted over data networks, cutting out the need for costly traditional telephony where calls are generally billed per minute or second.  As phone calls are routed over existing data networks the need for separate voice and data networks is eliminated, also cutting down the time spent on IT support.
• Flexibility: VoIP offers call centres scalability and provides an easy platform which adapts and grows along with the business.  Some large call centres are taking advantage of this flexibility and setting up operations in a main office, with extended operations using agents and home workers at remote locations around the world.
• UC-ready technology: Implementing VoIP is, for many call centres, the first step towards rolling out a full Unified Communications (UC) solution.  UC is the integration of voice (telephony) and data (email, instant messaging) and streamlines a company’s communication, allowing for greater productivity and efficiency and reduced costs.
• Voice and data convergence: By moving to a single converged network for voice and data traffic, organisations can save on network maintenance and administration, equipment, software, management and operational costs. An IP contact centre attached to your IP network simply becomes another resource to maintain - just as you would your storage and data servers.
• Support for existing equipment:  With IP-based systems you don’t necessarily need to throw away your old ‘trusted’ systems and start again.  IP contact centre systems frequently work alongside existing PBXs and data systems to create a smooth path for migration.
• Support for advanced features: IP contact centres will typically support a range of advanced features,  Automatic Contact Distribution, Automatic Telephone Call-back for voice, email, SMS and Web form contacts; Fully automated IVR with flow charting; Call Recording, Retrieval and Playback with Supervisor Monitoring; Computer Telephony Integration; Real Time and Statistical (historical) reporting.

Headsets have played a key role in realising the full benefits of IP telephony. VoIP technology sends information using twice the bandwidth of traditional telephone lines, which allows for a much clearer, richer sounding conversation. Improved sound helps to improve customer satisfaction of call centres as customers and agents are being heard and understood properly and without straining to hear.

Contact Centre Voice/Call Recording

An important component of any Contact Centre is call recording. Call recording is not just about monitoring and recording information for legal purposes ie. to use as support for a commercial transaction or to monitor agent performance. Today’s call recording technology can be a much more valuable asset. From spotting call trends that could identify problems with a specific product or distribution channel through to enhancing training when integrated with performance management components, call recording can even be used to record contacts going through an interactive voice response (IVR) system, thereby giving managers the opportunity to streamline and enhance self-service as they see fit.

Why Record Call Centre Calls?

• Staff training and development: Recording and monitoring calls is one of the best ways to train and coach staff on how to handle calls effectively.
• Protection and dispute avoidance/resolution: Protecting business interests by proving ‘who said what’ in a dispute can be vital, saving an organisation time and money. Recording telephone calls can also avoid the problems associated with inaccurate order taking, lost delivery details or disputes concerning pricing.
• Compliance: In many sectors recording telephone conversations is mandatory to comply with government regulations. Having recording in place may prevent fraudulent information being given in the first place, whilst giving the company a lasting record of what was said.

Cisco

Cisco Contact Centre Solutions offer an integrated, full-featured solution for managing customer voice contacts while retaining all the benefits of fully converged, IP telephony solution.

Cisco offers ease of installation, configuration, and application hosting, as well as reduced business application integration complexity, ease of agent administration, increased agent flexibility, and network hosting efficiencies–continuing the evolution toward a true Customer Interaction Network.
Cisco Unified Contact Centre Enterprise allows you to smoothly integrate inbound and outbound voice applications with Internet applications such as real-time chat, web collaboration, and e-mail. Cisco provides contact centre solutions to manage customer interactions based on almost any contact attribute.

ANDTEK

ANDTEK delivers solutions for communication systems to integrate your corporate infrastructure and processes within your unified communications system. There are various areas where solutions are available depending on your type of environment and end devices.

• Value-Added Applications
• Computer Telephony Integration
• Mobile Corporate Communication
• Voice Recording and Security Services
• Provisioning
• Phone Voice Recording