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Article : The Real Math of Subscribing to a Hosted Call Center Solution


Well, not really math. More like a list of things to consider before you subscribe to one.

The cloud is not just beyond the horizon – it’s already by your doorsteps. Chances are you’ve heard both the tall tales and good benefits of using SaaS solutions for your call center, but taking the plunge to implement cloud-based solutions is another thing.

One firm wrote (Hosted Call Center Featured Article on TMC) that a Forrester Research survey of 1,000 firms in North America and Europe recently found that 23 percent of firms use software as a service, with 11 percent of these respondents indicating that they are expanding usage. An additional eight percent planned to implement SaaS within a year’s time frame.

For the call center industry that has been using many tried and tested premise-based or enterprise solutions, moving to the cloud is not like replacing your brand of toothpaste. So, to help you decide on a cloud-based or hosted call center solution, here is a short list of things to consider when talking to a hosted call center solutions provide.

Price-to-function is key deciding factor, too

When you need more features and functions, you usually pay more. Despite the usual trick of convincing you of a provider’s low-down starting price for a starter package, chances are you need more brawn than meets the basic eye, so to speak. That’s when astronomical total subscription price goes up beyond your budgets. ACD only? How about Predictive Dialing? No CRM system included? Reports? You’ll be surprised how much the total bill will eventually arrive to.


Don’t get tied up to a long-term contract


For most call centers that tried to transition even just 10 percent of their operations, many hosted call center solutions providers require at least a year’s contract. Why is that? Free Proof of Concept (POC) agreements don’t really provide a full cycle to understand, learn and conclude that indeed cloud-based solution can work for your operations. So, can you use a hosted call center solution for just two months or four without incurring a higher cost than say a year’s contract? The best kind is a "no contract" commitment or, at least, just six months.


Subscribing to more seats does not equal to a lower per-seat rate

Here’s another sales strategy most use: get more seats and I’ll lower the price. Why? Don’t you trust me that if I like your cloud-based solution, I’ll order more seats? Don’t you understand that I first need to convince everyone in the call center that your solution will really work for us? Why is it that many providers sell hosted call center solutions as if they were manufactured goods? "The more you get, the lower the price!" If you subscribe to 5 seats, shouldn’t the price be equal to getting 200 seats? Makes sense, right?


The controversial set up cost – what are they for?

Many hosted call center providers do not really know how to explain every Dollar you pay for the one-time set up cost. It’s probably because that amount came from thin air, "Hey! Let’s charge five thousand Dollars for the basic set up and charge more as the number of seats increase." Isn’t it when you say "set up" it ordinarily means assignment of tenant estate on the hosted server space, initializing telecommunications protocols, and a host of other server-oriented procedures? So, why charge per seat? Shouldn’t it be a total Dollar amount regardless of the number of seats you subscribe to?


Experience is a must

Most providers want to sell to the biggest Fortune 500 company. Yet, many realize experience in dealing with the size of the organization, the type of business they are in, the operational processes they institute, and a host of many things that we all consider "real, truthful experience." Does your cloud-based solutions provider have the experience in your specific market, size, type and category? How long have they been doing it? "A match made in heaven" is something you should attain for. SaaS providers usually drop bombshell brand names and corporate labels, thinking it adds value to the sales process; however, haven’t you ever thought about their experience vis-a-vis your type of operations?


Ease of use adds to productivity

Beautiful graphics need not equal to productivity. I’ve used a premise-based solution that had an awesome graphical user interface yet rated poorly in ease of use. Too many keystrokes or worst, too many mouse moves, result in the slowing down of your operations. So, the easier it is to set up a campaign, the faster you can go live. The less keystrokes and mouse movement required of your call center agent, the more productive they become. You will notice that ease of training usually equals to ease of use. The live demo provided by cloud-based call center solutions providers will be the first litmus test for ease of use.


In Summary

I’m sure there are many, many more items you can think of that should be included in this list. For now, these six factors was something I used when, for the first time, I was in search of the near-perfect hosted call center solution for my type of projects or campaigns, for my call center.


About Kunnect:
Company LogoKunnect is a Tier-2 class carrier company in the USA that provides SaaS, cloud-based, on-demand, hosted call center solutions in several countries.
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Today's Tip of the Day - Utilize Time & Money Saving Tools

Read today's tip or listen to it on podcast.

Published: Monday, September 26, 2011

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2024 Buyers Guide IVR

 
1.) 
Premium Listing
Call Center Studio

Call Center Studio
Call Center Studio is the world’s first call center built on Google and is one of the most secure and stable systems with some of the industry’s best reporting. It is one of the most full-featured enterprise grade systems (with the most calling features, one of the best call distribution, outbound dialing features and integrations—including IVR, AI Speech Recognition, blended inbound/outbound calling and includes Google’s new Dialogflow and Speech API. Call Center Studio is the absolute easiest to use (with a 10 minute setup), and is the price performance leader with lower equipment cost and less setup time.


2.) 
Computer Data Services, LLC

VIRTUAL PBX
Get the benefits of an expensive, on-premise telephone system without the high price tag and annoying maintenance.

- Never miss another phone call
- No more busy signals
- Feature rich
- Answer your calls from anywhere

3.) 
eGain Corporation

eGain SmartIVR
eGain SmartIVR is an over-the-top solution to modernize IVR systems. Businesses can offer smartphone callers an easy choice to resolve queries via digital messaging and intelligent self-service. And they can optimize the IVR experience with end-to-end analytics.

4.) 
PEC Telecom

Virtual Phone Numbers (DID) and Business VoIP Phone Service
Whether a customer is running a Call Center business, an IVR system to take phone orders or a voice mail service bureau, he still needs inbound lines and access numbers (DIDs). These lines and DIDs give customers the ability to call in and use the service. Traditionally, these lines and DIDs were obtained through the local telephone company (i.e. Verizon, AT&T or Time Warner) and a company could only purchase numbers with area codes in the region the system resided. With VoIP, this has changed.

DID Live is an IP DID service that allows you to accept incoming calls via VoIP as an alternative to standard digital or analog lines. The service provides the same quality of sound you expect from...
(read more)

5.) 
Pointel

Voice Self Service
Voice self-service can reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction. As with every system implementation, it is not the software, but the implementation that will define the success of the project. This also holds true for self-service implementations. Pointel follows a unique and proven process to implement voice self service. This process has been fine-tuned through years of experience implementing contact center and self-service applications. Pointel can design and develop solutions that will meet and exceed our client’s voice application needs. With several years of experience in Genesys GVP(Genesys Voice Platform) implementation and integration, Pointel can provide an integrated voice...
(read more)

6.) 
Teckinfo Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

IVR Edge
IVR Edge is a high performance, robust and scalable ivr system that works on various leading hardware such as Dialogic, Keygoe and Synway etc. It can handle the simplest of simple to the most complex of requirements to when it come to creating an IVR. Integration with any 3rd party database, be it for banking, telecom, insurance, travel, payment gateway etc can be handled with ease. Ideally suited to create Hosted IVR and virtual patching solutions with scalabilities that can range from 4 to 128 E1’s per setup with voice recording and CDR functionality. Integration with leading text to speech (TTS) and speech recognition ASR engines add to the flexibility and functionality.
 

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