providers of call center services. CosmoCom now uses Microsoft Reporting Services (MSRS),
Recently, Verizon Business ( www.verizonbusiness.com) included free in Microsoft SQL Server.
announced that it has added IP capability to its Verizon Web Other SP4 enhancements include better management of
Center service, yielding IP Web Center, a hosted contact scheduled callback requests, the ability to attach voicemail
center solution for mid-sized businesses, enabling them to messages to callback requests, better storage and retrieval for
communicate with customers using both traditional circuit- voice messages, more complete and flexible system status re-
switched and IP telephony. Since Verizon Web Center and ports on the agent desktop, and Interactive Voice and Video
Verizon Voice-over-IP now share the same network infrastruc- Response (IVVR) support for a wider range of 3G phones.
ture and customer premises equipment, Verizon Business can A more radical hosted approach is taken by LiveOps (www.
deliver many IP telephony services, including IP Web Center, livops.com) a company that builds distributed contact cen-
Hosted IP Centrex, IP Integrated Access, IP Flexible T- 1 and ters. It also offers both a hosted technology platform and an
IP Trunking, to any company location. IP-based network of 6000+ remote and home-based agents
Jim Tyrrell, executive director of advanced voice services at situated around the US. Likened to a SWAT team for call cen-
Verizon Business, and Michael Barnes, director of contact center ters, LiveOps agents are a pay-as-you-go workforce, able to
services product marketing, both recently walked Yours Truly step in to help a company or other organization as a virtual
through the enhancements to Verizon’s contact center service call center when needed to handle calls. The agents can be
suites, explaining how they’ve recently IP-enabled them. brought to bear on tasks as needed, scaling up and down at a
Jim Tyrrell says: “The move to IP, on either a premise or moment’s notice to meet peaks and valleys in call volume.
hosted basis, is a major thrust in the call center world. You
can see this convergence not only on the voice and data side
but also in terms of both inbound and outbound capability,
especially on the premises side, when the same IP switch can ...after Hurricane Katrina
be used for a variety of purposes, not the least of which is
contact center applications and outbound telephony.” destroyed the Gulf Coast, an
Michael Barnes elaborates: “Our new IP Web Center product is a very complete solution. In the past, aside from a few Internet database was established large installations, it was really positioned more in the remote office market at the low end, as well what I like to call ‘non- so evacuees could register to find traditional’ contact center applications. Now, however, as we combine Web Center with our IP voice suite, it’s really mov- each other online. An 800 number ing up-market. One of our customers, Rotech, a healthcare company, uses it as a traditional contact center application put people in touch via an operator- with about 150 agents. It’s used as their ACD and IVR platform. It’s a very robust platform, even more so now that we based call-in system. Within just can provide a single network for the local long distance and data traffic. Our older VoIP platform certainly had inbound four hours, LiveOps had brought capabilities. But what’s new is that, by combining Web Center and the suite, you get not just inbound IP capabilities but online more than 400 call center sophisticated call handling that sits on top of that.” agents who began taking calls.
The seemingly inherent flexibility of IP technology has For example, a few days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed brought about the rise of hosted contact center solutions. the Gulf Coast, an Internet database was established so evac-Perhaps the best known of these, the Contact Center On- uees could register to find each other online. An 800 num-Demand™ specialist, CosmoCom ( www.cosmocom.com), ber put people in touch via an operator-based call-in system. provides hosted contact center platforms to major telcos Within just four hours, LiveOps had brought online more globally. Their flagship product, CosmoCall Universe, sup- than 400 call center agents who began taking calls. As call ports enterprise-wide virtual IP contact centers, self-hosted traffic rose over the next two days, the number of live agents or hosted by a network service provider. It’s a multi-tenant grew to 1500. They answered more than 31,000 calls. By the platform that can unify all forms of communication entering time the program ended in late October 2005, LiveOps agents and leaving the organization. had answered 200,000+ calls and reconnected 17,000 family,
Recently, CosmoCom announced the Service Pack 4 for friends and co-workers.
Version 4. 5 of CosmoCall Universe, which adds a ten-fold Indeed, Hurricane Katrina even gave call center product speed improvement to the historical reporting system, new vendors the chance to show off how quickly their wares could graphical report formats and other new reports such as adaptto catastrophicconditions.
IVR Call Details. In the past, CosmoCall Universe generat- For example, after Katrina struck, Cellular South, the ed its historical reports via Crystal Reports Server. In SP4, largest privately-held wireless provider in the US, partnered
References:
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