Asia-Pacific market still growing

Research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan says that the economic slump in the US has not had a major impact on the Asia-Pacific contact centre applications market in 2007, reports Computer World.

However, the firm predicts that if the US financial crisis continues, demand for contact centre applications will dive in late 2008 and 2009, especially from the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector.

Except for the Philippines where some deals were deferred, almost all other Asia-Pacific countries saw contact centres increasing their investments on equipment and applications to improve customer interaction services, it says.

Recent independent research commissioned by Siemens Enterprise Communications highlighted the drain on agent productivity caused by increasingly complex administration tasks in the call centre. On average agents spend 71% of their time entering data, making notes, seeking advice and reading from information screens, states MBT.

Equally alarming for businesses that operate a call centre, the research showed that agents are using five separate applications on average to deal with a call and 61% of agents said that better systems for managing calls would provide the most positive improvement.

Ken Reid of Rostrvm Solutions says this research should act as a rallying call for the contact centre industry to provide agents with the support tools they need to respond to the changing demands of the 21^st-century contact centre.

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories and Consilium have partnered to deliver contact centre and enterprise solutions in India and South-East Asia, reports Call Centre Clinic.

Consilium Software, which specialises in unified communications software and solutions for enterprises and contact centres, will resell the entire suite of Genesys solutions and provide implementation support to joint customers.

Through this alliance, Genesys and Consilium say they will focus on several key initiatives, including increasing sales coverage for Genesys solutions in the region, providing leading-edge services to the regional joint customers, and developing best practices that enable superior customer service, improved communication and the flow of business processes across the enterprise.