The modern call center has benefited greatly from improvements in virtualization technology, and the widespread acceptance of the cloud contact center as a wise choice has accelerated improvements in that field. Asterisk runs well on both actual and virtual commodity servers and has done for several years now. Continue reading “Virtualization Issues to Watch For With Your Call Center Software”
Is Cloud computing forcing consolidation within Unified Communication technology providers?
Shift in technology forces change. Cloud computing is the result of high speed internet, superior hardware and software, and fast paced evolution of computer technology. This allows shared computing resources interconnected through the power of internet. UC offerings bring IP telephony and ‘Presence’, combined with other real-time communication services. Let us examine its commercial impact on the unified communications (UC) industry.
The market was once dominated by large players like Lucent and Nortel with many smaller niche players. The products geared towards enterprises were purchased outright and support was handled as a service. Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) allowed space for the growth of the back office. The back office operations were boosted with the evolution of the call center ACD which runs as a layer on top of an underlying telephony infrastructure. The computer telephony integration (CTI), Personal Computers (PC) and the availability of computer telephony boards were the driving forces in the evolution of the call center software, that went far beyond the capabilities offered by an ACD. The internet revolution and the growth of VoIP presented opportunities for new players like Cisco. The astounding growth of Asterisk, the open source hybrid switch, revolutionized the industry and turned it upside down. Even though the need for both UC and contact center technology exploded during the last decade, the presence of Asterisk has exerted considerable downward pressure on the market leaders who offer UC and contact center technology.
Did all these changes impact the technology leaders of the day like Nortel, Lucent and Alcatel. We know that Nortel does exist and the modern day Alcatel is the combine entity of Lucent and Alcatel. Avaya is a leading UC provider that inherited some of Nortel’s technology. It is now owned by large equity groups who are known to look for opportunity to leverage growth and exit with investment gains. This has not transpired even though the media makes periodic pronouncements about Avaya, due to tepid growth and huge debt load. Shore-tel, another leading UC provider that offers enterprise IP telephony solutions, came out with an IPO in 2007. Its stock prices have been languishing much below the IPO offering. Recently, Mitel Networks has launched a hostile take-over bid at a value well below the initial IPO offering in 2007. The re-alignment and consolidation within UC technology providers may be a reflection of the downward pricing pressure caused by the growth and availability of UC and call center technology for open source platforms like Asterisk.
What is the role of open source technology like Asterisk in the growth of cloud based solutions? How much influence does cloud computing have on the on-going consolidation and re-alignment? Cloud solutions have introduced a newer paradigm where enterprises don’t make the upfront capital investment and retain the ability to switch providers. Imagine the size of today’s economy versus the year 2000. With globalization, the market has exploded and in spite of this, large players have disappeared. The impact of the continued growth of cloud computing driven by powerful open source driven solutions will continue to put immense pressure on larger established UC technology providers. It will feel like the race to the bottom for many of them.
Cloud contact center solutions based on Asterisk offer all the UC features within their call center software at considerably less cost. When offered as a service, the cloud services take away the risk of large capital expense from an enterprise, while offering flexibility. It remains to be seen how legacy players in the UC realm react to the downward financial pressures brought on by Cloud contact center solutions, especially the ones driven by Asterisk with other open source technology stack.
High Availability for Large Asterisk based contact centers
Cloud based call center software cater to very large systems. Asterisk is by far the most widely used telephony platform. As a natural evolution, the use of Asterisk in both Cloud and large premise based installations have come a long way. Technology for call center software is to some extent driven by the ‘assemble and build’ mode where various accessory technology element available in software form come together to deliver the final solution. Call center software depends on the underlying PBX technology and other technologies for web, database, SIP, and redundancy. Continue reading “High Availability for Large Asterisk based contact centers”
Effectively Using Alerts in the Call Center
Alerts can be an effective way to keep operations running smoothly in a call center on a day-to-day basis. The Q-Suite can be configured to utilize multiple types of events. Here are a few of the most useful types of call center alerts: Continue reading “Effectively Using Alerts in the Call Center”
Building a Basic Inbound Contact Center ACD
Implementing an inbound contact center using Asterisk can be simple or difficult, depending on the needs of the center. This post is going to focus on creating a basic inbound campaign that will incorporate a direct inward dialing (DID) number, an IVR, and a few queues. Continue reading “Building a Basic Inbound Contact Center ACD”
The Rapid IVR Development Tool for Call Center ACD
The ability to create and deploy an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a must for modern contact centers. An IVR handles the voice or keypad response of a caller. One rapid IVR development tool is a visual dialplan builder that allows the building of a sophisticated IVR using graphical icons representing the extensive IVR functionality required for a contact center ACD, within a drag and drop framework. A good Visual IVR builder tool can allow one to fulfill even the most demanding call flow requirements with ease and precision. Continue reading “The Rapid IVR Development Tool for Call Center ACD”
The Real Meaning of Call Survival
With Q-Suite’s HAASIPP our product now features Call Survival. This is often confused with Call Recovery and the terms then used interchangeably.
To understand what Call Survival really means lets look at an example. Starting off with a caller connected over a SIP trunk and ultimately connected to an agent. The diagram below shows a simplified setup with the communication path as follows:
Localization and Other Benefits of Inbound Call Routing
When handling inbound calls, directing calls to the appropriate destination while balancing resource availability is key to ensuring an optimal experience for the caller. For many call centers, skills-based routing ACD call center software is all that is needed. Other centers may have differing demands. In some cases, calls may be routed in different ways depending on various criteria, such as location, the DID dialed, user input or information pulled from the client record while still in the dialplan.
Continue reading “Localization and Other Benefits of Inbound Call Routing”
Contact Center ACD and Call Recordings
Contact center ACD and call recordings go hand in hand. Call recordings are an invaluable tool for center operation. They can be relied upon for training purposes and they can be referred to for accuracy and completeness if any sort of customer dispute may arise. Continue reading “Contact Center ACD and Call Recordings”
Tradeoffs with Answering Machine Detection on Asterisk
Answering Machine Detection (AMD) is something that interests everyone running a predictive dialer or other automatic dialing. As discussed previously, the changing world of outbound dialing and telephony leaves call center software users looking for ways to wring additional efficiencies from their lead lists and call floors, and AMD appears to be one of those ways. Continue reading “Tradeoffs with Answering Machine Detection on Asterisk”