Cloud telephony has fully emerged and remains to be quite a hot commodity. The basis for most companies switching from traditional telephony systems to cloud services is to cut costs. Although cloud telephony does help constrain costs for a call center, it does more than that— it can also help increase a business’ innovation.

A recent study, conducted by the London School of Economics and Political Science, suggests that lower costs, setup and reoccurring costs, are no longer the sole reason for converting to a cloud-operating call center. In fact, the study found that call centers using cloud telephony are presented with the opportunity to be more innovative and experimental within their call center environment. Being that a call center is complex and constantly evolving, they are often hard to sustain. When operating under traditional telephony hardware, it becomes difficult to keep up with the latest innovations. Bulky, expensive hardware hinders businesses from updating their equipment as frequently as upgrades or innovations are released into the market. With cloud services, however, the process of experimentation and prototyping with new telephony innovations is simpler and more cost effective. As one each component of telephony relies on another, the flexibility that cloud services provide to this integrated system are unparalleled.

Traditional IT models are more expensive to sustain, not to mention create a delay in the entire process. Cloud service s do not require half of the things traditional telephony does, rather any changes that need to be applied can be done more easily, rapidly, and cost-consciously, not to mention eliminate great risk.

Researchers also found that when introducing cloud telephony to your company’s call center, customer service representatives are able to think more creatively and customize solutions to tailor-fit the needs of their customers. Furthermore, agents can be more receptive to the industry changes, allowing them to bounce back without difficulty. Cloud services have contributed tremendously to call centers all over the world, changing how IT personnel, call center management, and call center representatives conduct business and manage relationships with prospective and existing customers.

Virtual call centers are becoming increasingly popular in today’s world. With the economic crisis from a few years ago still present and fresh in everyone’s mind, contact centers are finding themselves in search of cost-saving telephony solutions; many are finding cloud based call center solutions to be the most suitable option. According to a study sponsored by Enghouse Interactive, switching to cloud based call center solutions provides many cost saving benefits. Additionally, virtual call centers are helping companies reach full potential by creating a forum on which contact centers can operate more efficiently and increase productivity.

The results of the conducted study, which surveyed more than 200 contact centers operational leaders, confirm that switching from a multi-site call center to one virtual call center helps decrease queue times and problems with call variability. In fact, 71% of those who switch to a virtual call center saw an improvement in those two areas.

Furthermore, cloud based call center solutions allow for call center agents to work from home while still being able to maintain and provide valuable customer service. This survey shows that 42% of respondents allow this behavior to take place, and that the number of agents working from home is dramatically increasing year after year. This luxury is only offered to a call center by incorporating cloud based call center solutions.

Creating a virtual call center environment in your company allows for a more powerful and flexible environment, granting agents flexibility yet providing structure. And to mention again, the costs one can save by switching to a cloud based call center are significant. Overall, the Enghouse Interactive study supports that a call center using “cloud” enabled software is well-substantiated, thus many companies, of all sizes, are turning to cloud based call center solutions.

What is VoIP? Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that allows you to receive voice calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular, or analog, phone line.

With more South African companies investing in VoIP service technology, the more that surfacing research is able to prove the cost savings one can incur when transitioning from a regular phone system to VoIP services. Although monetary savings are always a good incentive for acquiring a service, it shouldn’t be the deciding factor. After all, reliable service, ensuring that each business opportunity is exercised optimally, is more of importance, regardless of its cost. As a result, it is of value to review the key benefits VoIP South Africa technology provides: 1) real time communication operating in the “cloud,” thus eliminating hardware, 2) accessibility to a remote call center regardless of location (call center or at home), and 3) provides high-speed access to all work and customer information.

If you are starting to believe that your company can benefit from VoIP service in South Africa, you are probably right. As data supports, the message about VoIP South Africa has been clearly delivered; those who have no already acquired the service are now looking to find the best VoIP service provider in South Africa.

DOW Networks provides the best VoIP service in South Africa, granting your business access to voice over IP on your own PBX— and not another piece of hardware! We understand that this transition may be slightly intimidating for the traditional telephony disappears. However, we found that the shift to VoIP South Africa is quite effortless, only requiring a reconfiguration of your PBX to send calls to the IP address versus your landline or mobile telephone number. VoIP South Africa has become the ideal, cost effective alternative to the traditional telephony for VoIP service users in South Africa.

A contact center serves as a platform for which customer relationships are built and managed. In order for such relationships to be carried out properly and effectively, suitable contact center solutions must be in place. In today’s world it is not enough to have any contact center solution employed; instead, a call center must be equipped with call center technology that not only enables it to carry out the necessary procedures capably, but also speedily, productively, and cost-efficiently.

Contact center solutions are a tightly integrated package in which each component heavily relies on the other. This package not only includes the obvious and necessary call center technology, but also business software applications which allow for the system to function intelligently apart from the knowledgeable provider. What does this mean? It means that without a superior, fit-for-your-business contact center solution in place, your call center may be lacking and operating at less than its full potential. And because your contact center’s success depends both on routine upgrades and evaluations, the responsibility of introducing and incorporating such technologies to your contact center would greatly depend on your contact center’s management team efforts.

As your managers approach the contact center evaluation process, one might suggest dividing this task into two separate phases: 1) assess the available call center technology and 2) determine the strengths of the contact center solutions provider.

The first step will help determine what is required from the contact center operationally. This in-depth assessment should touch on the contact center’s technology design, software solution potential, and customization capabilities. As a call center technology solution is decided and ready for implementation, managers move on to the second phase— an evaluation of contact center employees. This is a crucial part of the evaluation process. Why? It is a known fact that even if a contact center features the most advanced equipment and technology, failure to add value and intelligence to that technology solution from the contact center provider will ultimately influence the results negatively. Thus, although the first step is fundamental, the second phase is equally, if not more important to the success of a call center.

Upon completion of the evaluation process, both call center technology and customer service efforts will have been modified and improved. With refined and promising contact center solutions in position, productivity is certain to improve.

Creating an environment in which a customer service representative can easily manage both call volume and call quality, allows them to conduct calls more effectively and efficiently. When call center quality management software is in place, call centers are creating an essential balanced work environment, focusing on call quality assurance by providing superior customer service, and establishing customer relations through customer relationship management practices.

Call center quality management software permits those in leadership positions to best evaluate the procedures and decisions made by their employees, ultimately guaranteeing that their performance is serving callers with corporate procedures and standards in mind. Additionally, this tool enables call centers the ability to gather data and analyze efforts made by employees to ensure quality call center management.

As stated earlier, supporting a call center requires the efforts of many departments and resources, including Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Human Resources, etc. Despite the belief of most, call center management also heavily relies on the performance and “brain power” of IT departments. Yes, we know what you might think— these two departments could not be any more different! But the fact remains that without the support of IT reps, quality control for call center management would be nearly impossible. The IT department provides the essentials for call centers: its systems and applications, hardware and software, and not to mention administers and monitors the network capabilities necessary to enable customer connections. Nonetheless, in order to provide satisfactory customer service, call center representatives and the company “techies,” must have incredible synchronization.

Many callers have lost trust in 0800 UK numbers after being charged by their mobile carrier. All of that is about to change, according to BBC News report released earlier this month. The Independent Regulator and Competition Authority for the UK Communications Industries, Ofcom, has come out saying that they want to change that in order to protect the consumer. Acting on behalf of the consumer interest, Ofcom wants to protect the caller that is paying for being on hold or waiting to submit a complaint, thinking the she is calling a number described as “free.” The regulatory body says it is especially thinking of low income household who only have a mobile phone but are hit with the unexpected charge when calling 0800 UK numbers. The consumer watchdog is looking to make a final decision by early next year.

UK 0800 Numbers Free from Mobiles

While this is great news for the consumer, it is also great news for the companies relying on toll free numbers for customer communications. By making 0800 UK numbers free from mobile phones, consumers will regain the trust in toll free numbers. The businesses offering toll free numbers will start seeing an increase in their return on investment in toll free numbers. This will especially benefit companies who have purchased 0800 UK numbers, as their customers will no longer have to deal with the uncertainty of whether and how much they will get charged by their mobile carrier.

By simply making 800 numbers free to call whether a caller is using a landline or a mobile phone, Ofcom is hoping to:

• Eliminate unexpected charges for calling 800 numbers
• Increase the usage of 800 numbers
• Encourage innovation with 800 numbers for the benefit of the customer.

We look forward to the final decision at the beginning of 2013.

Call center technology is subject to frequent improvements and innovations. Such advancements have left a controversial imprint on the  industry, questioning the importance of call center software enhancements and how they contribute to a company’s contact center performance.

Companies spend millions of dollars annually investing in technology advancements in order to improve customer service satisfaction and operational performance while also cutting costs. As this becomes a key objective for most, if not all call centers, a reoccurring question arises: does more sophisticated call center technology directly influence customer satisfaction and overall contact center performance? Without a confirmed correlation of the two, the answer to this question has remained quite an ambiguous one. However, recently, this has changed. Upon the release of “The Impact of Technology on Contact Center Performance,” the relationship between superior call center technology and software and call center performance is undeniable.

This 2012 study is the first to statistically prove that highly developed call center software directly impacts the efficiency and productivity of a company’s contact center performance—not to mention increases its annual profit. Continuous developments in call center technology and call center software provide opportunities to decrease cost per call and queue time, while improving on customer satisfaction, response time, first contact resolution time, and the amount of calls made per agent in a given hour. As a result, upgraded call center software allows for customer support representatives to complete calls at a more speedy, yet effective rate.

As these fundamental call center activities are fine-tuned, companies can be certain that their call center software and technology is working to benefit both call center representatives, and more importantly, provide quality customer service to callers, boosting the likelihood of customer loyalty and customer retention rates. In response to the benefits of such sophisticated technologies in contact centers, co-author of “The Impact of Technology on Contact Center Performance,” Dr. Natalie L. Petouhoff, assures that “For executives looking to justify management decisions regarding technology acquisition, they now have scientifically‐supported evidence that satisfying customers and enhancing financial performance are not at odds.”