Vodacom Business, along with two partners, has developed the first virtual call centre hosted in the cloud environment in SA.
Vodacom partnered with Presence Technology, a global provider of call centre software; and Inovo, a call centre service provider, to enable customers to focus on their core business, while hosting call centre applications in the Vodacom Business Data Centre (VBDC), says Vodacom Business.
Ermano Quartero, managing executive of Vodacom Business, says: "IT operations are a crucial aspect of any company's operations. One of the main concerns is business continuity; companies rely on their information systems to run their operations.”
If a system becomes unavailable, company operations may be impaired or completely halted. The Vodacom Business Hosted Call Centre (HCC) product suite allows a company to continue running without having to worry about their IT infrastructure and call centre operations, he says.
In the cloud
Gary Hart, executive head of managed network services at Vodacom Business, explains that the HCC products will be offered “in the cloud”. “No hardware/software is needed at the customer end, except connectivity to the Vodacom Business Data Centre, screens, keyboards, mouse, as the connections are Internet-based.”
The agents can use normal headsets and connect via a “soft phone” over VOIP. “Thus there is no capex [capital expenditure] required, additional agents at the customers' premises can be added with the click of a mouse, all the data - lists, information, infrastructure, servers, etcetera, are hosted in the Vodacom Business Data Centre.”
“Up to now, call centre suppliers only offered traditional premises-based call centre solutions; this solution from Vodacom Business now offers a centrally hosted call centre platform as an on-demand, opex-based, modular call centre solution,” says Vodacom Business.
Quartero says the cost of setting up and running one's own call centre infrastructure is prohibitive. "The drive towards offering an opex [operational expenditure] costing model ensures that Vodacom Business and our business partner Inovo give us and our customers a competitive edge in the market where a large majority of call centres are sold as a capex model, requiring large capital outlay."
Stiff position
Hart says there are no security risks when using cloud in this solution for call centres.
The necessary security measures are in place at the VBDC, and a fully hierarchical access control system is in place to only provide system access to users with the correct password credentials and to the level of authority as designated.
There is also data integrity. “The only data hosted on the platform is call data. Customer business data resides with the customer themselves within their CRM [customer relationship management] platform, and as such, is managed and is the responsibility of the customer.”
Hart says although there are no security risks, there is one disadvantage to using the cloud. If the system is not architected properly, there is the risk of losing connectivity between the customer premise call centre, where the call centre agents are based, and the HCC application residing within the VBDC.
“As such, we always propose a fully-redundant solution in terms of last mile connectivity using multiple links of either fibre optic or microwave.”
There are some challenges in being the first to set up a virtual cloud-hosted call centre, according to Hart. The first issue he mentions is positioning. While Vodacom Business provides the actual call centre service, the customer is fully responsible for the operations of the call centre and managing the relevant campaigns and campaign data, explains Hart.
“The other issue we sometimes face is that the customers' LAN (local area network) may not be QOS (quality of service) enabled and as such the customer could experience inferior voice quality, because the LAN is not optimised.”
Any platform
The suite includes various modules, including: inbound, outbound, recording, scripting, messaging, reporting, IVR and intelligent routing, says Vodacom Business.
“Skills-based routing to the appropriately experienced agent is integrated into the product, thus enhancing both the agent and customer experience,” it adds.
In order to leverage the reliable hosted call centre technology, call centres can be accessed through any means, whether it be telephone, fax, SMS or e-mail, the company says.
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