Boost for contact centres

Izwan Ismail
New Straits Times
11-16-2009
Boost for contact centres
Byline: Izwan Ismail
Edition: Main/Lifestyle
Section: Tech & U
Column: News front

ASPECT Software's unified communications products for contact centres now can inter-operate with Office Communications Server 2007 following a tie-up with Microsoft.

OCS 2007 provides a platform that supports the concept of presence of individuals in an organisation, including their profiles, skills and availability.
With the Aspect-Microsoft unified communications offerings, contact centres now have the ability to match the right agent to handle a customer request, said Aspect's chief executive Jim Foy.

"Often in a contact centre environment, customers or callers are left dissatisfied with the feedback they receive as the agent may not be knowledgeable enough to answer or solve the problem.

"The new solutions from Aspect and Microsoft can identify the exact skills profile of all the agents in the contact centre so the most appropriate agent can be assigned to help the customer, with just a single click."

Contact centres also can cut expenses as the offerings simplify management and maximise the budget and resources.

"Companies can consolidate costly third-party solutions and avoid capital investments. This is done by reducing travel expenses. For instance, replace in-person meetings with Web and video conferencing modes," Foy explained.

"Companies can also reduce telephony and audio conferencing charges by up to 40 per cent. Built-in VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) and unified conferencing capabilities help lower long- distance charges and audio conferencing minutes."

Foy pointed out that Malaysia is an important growth market for contact centre applications in the Asia-Pacific region.

"Malaysia has already established itself as a contact centre hub. The market here is driven largely by the banking, telecommunications, airline, healthcare and Government sectors.

"Western countries outsource to places such as India, China and Malaysia because not only is the cost base justified, the language skills and business case are also proven."

Frost & Sullivan sees the global unified communications market growing to US$45 billion (RM153 billion) in the next five years.

(Copyright 2009)