Introduction
Building an effective contact centre can be very expensive due to the capital expenditure required to purchase, install and integrate client premises-based technology (CPE).
The majority of today’s Centres are an office of agents linked to a single set of wholly-owned (by the end user) Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). The CPE systems include ACD, IVR and sometimes CTI.
CTI, a factor of growing importance to companies, links the telephony to business applications such as CRM (customer relationship management) and WFM (workforce management). Historically, CPE in general (and CTI in particular) has been affordable for only the largest corporations – prices in excess of £300,000 for a 100 agent centre are not uncommon.
The development of network solutions for contact centres to use as alternate technology now puts all this functionality within reach of even the smallest centre with no risk and no CapEx outlay.
"The large CapEx, upfront costs of a non-hosted solution are often small in comparison to the additional hidden costs."
Discover the underlying costs for setting up and running a contact centre.
For a number of years, there has been an alternative to the traditional approach of purchase and management of CPE Dialler and contact centre solutions, which have been somewhat gently marketed up to now by a variety of providers.
Viable solutions fall into one of two main areas; Network based or Hosted. The definition of these types of solutions: - where a service provider owns and operates a contact centre technology platform and leases its services and features to end-users for a monthly or usage-based fee.
Hosted & Network solutions offer businesses the opportunity to deal with operating costs rather than capital expenditure. Therefore the market share for Network based and Hosted, solutions has grown rapidly as a result of their strong value proposition and low cost of ownership.
Network contact centres
Network and Hosted solutions have at least the same level of functionality as CPE type equipment, and they also offer remote web-based access to authorised users. The real advantage is that as the system is managed remotely, the hosted/network supplier should be able to offer a much higher level of support to its users.
A network or hosted telephony service provides the links between the caller and the agent, whether for an inbound or for outbound calling campaigns.
There is no longer a requirement for agents to be physically in the same building – or even in the same country.
Network based centres are appealing to a growing number of companies. Ultra’s network solutions allow contact centres to access technology over the PSTN network and internet versus buying licensing software, purchasing hardware, building an infrastructure, and dedicating IT resources to implementing, maintaining, and upgrading these technologies.
That can mean many potential cost savings and a degree of flexibility unknown of before.
Main differences between hosted and network solutions
Ultra’s platform is based on fault-tolerant server architecture that delivers greater than 99.999% uptime. Our infrastructure is based inside our Tier 1 Telco partners’ premises and is supported 24/7/365. These geographically independent sites are, in turn, connected to major propriety networks across Europe and the world. We believe we are the only hosted company to be so strongly partnered into Tier 1 networks.
Ultra owns all the Intellectual Property of its solution and therefore means that we can rapidly adapt the platform to meet new applications and challenges.
The specialised business in providing network solutions
Providing a fully convergent, multi-tenant hosting telephony platform is a very specialised business. Ultra has over 4 years experience of operating and providing such network solutions and systems - more than any other network vendor.
We know what it takes to maintain a service with 99.999% uptime 365 days a year 24/7, we have in-house IT experts and the telecoms engineers who understand and communicate at peer level with our Telco partners, and we have our own UK based in-house development team who are working at the leading edge of VoiceXML standards for computer telephony integration. We work closely with our various clients and that gives us a far reaching understanding of what it takes to implement a solution for a call centre.
The differentiator between solutions is the support offered by hosted/network companies and is an essential factor now in the decision making process for businesses looking to the future. Superior providers offer comprehensive support and monitoring as part of their services.
Ultra provides 24/7/365 comprehensive support and this differentiator also permits us to offer unique proactive monitoring and access to a full team of dialler experts and IT specialists who become an extension to our clients teams.
On a pay as you talk tariff, there is clear synergy in between the call centre and the Ultra to ensure the system is fully operation, and is configured to operate at the optimum level.
What type of companies make good candidates for Hosted solutions and Network solutions?
Main differences between Network solutions and Hosted solutions
FAQs to pose to a Network or Hosted Provider
Key phrase (no times appears in content) – Google searches in last year – AdWords competition
Existing phrases (appear 3 or more times in text):
network solutions (9) - 18,100
contact centre (7) - 40,500
hosted solution (5) - 720
hosted solutions (4) - 880
contact centres (3) - 6,600
network based (3) - 3,600
hosted network (3) - 140