With today’s need to cut costs and boost customer satisfaction, a good majority of businesses have turned to virtual call centers as a practical solution in the execution of their answering services. There are distinct advantages to converting to a virtual call center instead of keeping an in-house one, and with call center outsourcing proving itself as a powerful and efficient element in the running of our businesses, having a virtual call center becomes much more a necessity.

Aside from the already established truth that a virtual call center saves money, there are other key benefits to it, such as: flexibility in virtual assistant staffing, a more efficient routing of outsourced calls, lower turnover rates, an expanded labor pool, and even environmental conservation.

Having a virtual call center today is still not bereft of issues though, but major leaps in improving the call center technological infrastructure, virtual assistant user adoption, and outsourcing management systems have led to almost zero-risk legitimacy in implementing the model.

Adapting your business for virtual call center reality is no easy feat, since it involves careful preparation and a huge adjustment in management practices. But the most important aspect is choosing your virtual call center software provider. We at CService Direct have a list of favorite software companies in the realm of virtual call centers, let’s run down a few:

Contactual

Contactual’s software is touted as the best-designed virtual call center in terms of the complexity of how its technology was built. They are considered pioneers in the virtual call center software business, and have numerous awards to show for all their work. Since maintenance costs are reduced to almost nil, Contactual is by far the choice of most companies in the industry.

VoiceNet

If it’s value you’re looking for, VoiceNet provides a ton of features including automated dialing, call management processes, an IVR menu, plus a host of various tools needed to create a complete virtual call center environment, but at a greatly reduced price. They sell their software license at a single price point only but do away with some of the more frequently overpriced support and maintenance fees.

Contact Center Anywhere

Oracle has Contact Center Anywhere as its virtual call center software, and being the largest software provider in the world, theirs is an ultimate collection of platforms ranging from inbound to outbound, email and chat, fax, and virtually everything associated with the industry. Compatibility with a bevy of call center metrics is not an issue, and the software is considered a premium when stacked against its competitors. And since it’s Oracle, the software is offered via numerous certified partners who have customized their own versions when it comes to support, pricing, and installation.

Centcom

Call Center Development Services makes state-of-the-art virtual call center software easy through their predictive dialing software Centcom. It only requires a standard phone line (or VOIP if that is the case) and a computer, enabling quick setup and the flexibility to cater to call centers of any size. It has all the basic features like agent reporting, numbers tracking, and the usual dialing modes, and is priced very reasonably.

Five9

Our favorite of the bunch, Five9 prides itself in its ability to provide everything you need in the virtual call center business but without the usual big investment. The system is robust, the number of included features is the most complete in the business, and a unique workforce management solution is included in the package. The support team is A-plus, with great vision for establishing smooth relationships with their partners, and the engineering capacity to further boost their technology. They even have an international sales and support office in Manila, Philippines.

There are a host of other virtual call center companies such as EagleACD, ACCES (Ocwen), LiveOps, and many others, as well as the big traditional companies like Avaya and Nortel. But what it all comes down to is the fact that adopting the virtual call center model is the way to go. It is by no means perfect, but is an important part of a sound call center outsourcing strategy.

Tags: answering service, Centcom, Contact Center Anywhere, Contactual, Five9, outsourcing, Philippines, virtual assistant, virtual call center, Voicenet

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Call Center Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.