Hosted Call Center Featured Article

West Interactive on Contact Center Hosting

By Brendan B. Read
Senior Contributing Editor

As companies begin to see increased revenues, their purses are beginning to open after three years of being closed as a result of the downturn. High on this list is replacing aging outmoded inbound and outbound customer contact handling solutions i.e. IVR, ACDs and predictive or progressive dialers. Many of the applications -- and in some cases, boxes -- do not have what have become essential features such as IP enablement, chat, SMS/text and ready linkages to inbound agents on outbound calls, e-mails or texts to enable interactive automated outbound notifications.

Yet instead of shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for premises-licensed products and having these configured onsite, companies are now considering and deploying hosted solutions. Once sourced for specialized high-volume and short-duration tasks, such as business continuity and marketing campaigns and research, hosted product delivery is now going mainstream. Hosted platforms are shouldering more of the day-to-day contact center processes. Firms have tested it during the downturn, say industry sources, and liked the results.

West Interactive, a division of global BPO firm West Corporation has long been and continues to be a leader in hosted contact center services. It recently announced for example a managed service offering that simplifies the design, installation and operation of premise-based IVR systems. This service allows an enterprise to use its existing onsite telephony infrastructure, which will reduce costs while keeping its IVR platform current and VXML certified. The Managed On-Premise solution extends West’s portfolio of flexible deployment options which now includes:

• A fully managed premise or hosted solution that allows businesses to outsource all aspects of their IVR solution to West
• A platform-as-a-service solution that provides an enterprise access to West’s hosting facilities to develop and manage IVR applications
• A platform purchase model which allows companies to license the West platform for use in their own facilities

To find out more about the hosted option TMCnet recently interviewed Bruce Pollock, vice president, strategic growth and planning West Interactive (News - Alert). Here are the highlights:

TMCnet:         Outline and detail with ideally figures the benefits of having IVR, predictive dialing and routing hosted versus installing and maintaining these solutions on-premises?

BP:      There are lots of benefits to the hosted model; here are three:

First, hosting allows companies to focus on their core business and leave the design, development, deployment and management of technology based solutions to hosting companies with expertise in these areas and others. This point becomes even more critical when we consider the fact that technologies are becoming more complex and yet they need, more than ever, to be connected with one another in an efficient, effective manner.

Second, hosting allows companies to avoid making large capital expenditures for hardware and software, thereby freeing up capital for other investments related to the company’s core products and services.

Third, hosting allows companies to develop and deploy applications quickly, flexibly and easily, without having to wait long periods of time for internal IT teams to prioritize and execute on the specific project at hand. Typically, companies who offer managed hosting solutions have a full staff team including usability experts, application designers, developers, project managers, QA experts, telecom, operations and monitoring teams and many other skilled human resources.

• Here are a few examples of how some of our hosted solutions have helped our clients:
  
  Saved a communications company $7 million and improved customer service and by automating customer appointment reminder and reschedule calls. The solution is also environmentally friendly in that it reduced the number of unnecessary onsite visits that our client made to customers’ homes
• Helped a cable industry client generate more revenue and saved almost $1 million annually too, by automating some of their customer collections processes
• Helped one of our retail clients to improve their customer satisfaction scores by implementing customer-friendly, speech enabled, call routing and customer service applications

In addition to the case studies cited above, we have many more examples of how our West Interactive solutions have helped clients to reduce cost, increase revenue and improve service.

TMCnet:         What differences are there--if any--in these benefits between OEM-hosted i.e. the supplier versus a third-party that purchases, hosts and resells these solutions? Weigh up the pros and cons.

BP:      Third party providers have the ability to offer integrated, “best of breed” solutions leveraging hardware, software and technologies from multiple vendors, rather than being restricted to just one or perhaps two vendors.

Third parties are also free of any potential (perceived or real) bias or conflict of interest when it comes to recommending a particular solution or technology. That is because they don’t “make” the hardware, software or technologies themselves; rather, they build and integrate solutions with them.

Certainly OEMs are capable of hosting their own products and solutions. For some enterprises this may be an option worth considering, depending on their priorities and decision criterion.

TMCnet:         What growth have you seen in the demand in your hosted IVR/dialing/routing solutions? Provide a breakdown between organic i.e. market share, greenfield demand with customers/clients who are switching from on-premise solutions. What shift have you seen say in 2010-2011 from say 2008-2009? What are the drivers?

BP:      We continue to see demand and interest in our hosted solutions (managed hosted and platform-as-a-service) and in our premise-based solutions as well. Hosting business growth comes from both current and new clients. Some new clients have hosted before (with other providers), while others have been running premise based equipment and applications.

One common thread in all of these above-listed scenarios is that enterprises increasingly do not have the resources and expertise to keep up with the design, building and maintenance/management of both leading edge and traditional technology based applications and solutions. This is particularly true during the post-recessionary, growth-challenged environment in which we find ourselves today.

In terms of key demand drivers for hosting, here are three:

First, many companies are faced with “forklift upgrade” scenarios these days, and need to do complete contact center transformations: that encompass new technologies, both on the inbound and the outbound side of the business. Many enterprises simply do not have the technology expertise, and the solutions design /deployment/management expertise, to pull these contact center transformation projects off on their own.

A second key demand driver for hosting is a post-recession residual trend that we think is becoming a stronger “meta-trend” towards more cloud computing. Many companies are capital constrained coming out of the recession. They are asking themselves if it really makes sense in the future, to spend scarce capital and human resources on IVR and other contact center technologies and initiatives where the enterprise has little or no expertise.

A third demand driver for hosting is the need for speed and agility. In a post-recession, increasingly competitive business environment, enterprises need greater agility to deploy innovative customer contact solutions. Internal IT teams are in many cases, “tapped out” and can’t help the business team move forward with the initiatives the business wants to pursue aggressively. Thus, some enterprises are turning to third party providers to help in designing, hosting, deploying and managing their applications – in other words, to help them “move to the cloud,” so to speak.

TMCnet:         What has been and is happening with hosted solutions overall with regards to pricing, deployment (including customization), reliability and security?

BP:      The market is and always has been, very competitive. Some industry players attempt to take market share though price leadership, while others focus more on quality and value added services. That’s one of the benefits of a competitive market; buyers can choose from a range of providers who position and deliver their offers differently.

Certainly reliability and security remain at the forefront for enterprises, whether they are looking to host their application or run them on premise. Consumers expect the applications with which they interact to be both reliable and secure: and enterprises are, in turn, expecting internal teams and vendors to deliver with excellence on both of these fronts.

With regard to application customization, many large enterprises demand these kinds of capabilities, given factors such as the complexity of their operations large number of products and services they have. Yet for small-midsized businesses (SMBs) and for at least some of them, the story is a bit different. Some SMBs can be served quite well with off the shelf, configurable applications. Having said that, larger enterprises can and do benefit from configurable applications as well.

We typically work with our clients to understand their goals, applications, and their customer base and the frequency with which customers contact our clients. We then assemble the optimal combination of configurable and custom applications, maintaining a focus on providing personalized, effective, efficient self-service applications that customers love to use.

TMCnet:         Is there any reason why—and if so what are they—for firms to go with on-premises IVR, dialing and routing?

BP:      Some enterprises have data security and government requirements that demand and require them to deploy premise based IVR and contact center applications, so the option to host is not really something they are able to consider or are prepared to consider. Other enterprises believe that having the hardware and or software “on premise” gives them a feeling of control; e.g. they can see the actual hardware so they prefer it. Certainly some enterprises (fewer of them following the recent recession and continued economic malaise) have the expert staff on-hand – and the capital to spend - and thus, are partial towards premise based solutions.

What is interesting about this point directly above, is that while some enterprises have the capital to invest in equipment, many lack the trained, expert human resources to design, develop and maintain automated customer contact applications. Thus, they contract with managed services providers both on the hosted and or premise based side, to help them to design, deploy and manage applications.

TMCnet:      One question that has been raised with hosted as opposed to on-premises is whether the key value proposition i.e. replacing CAPEX with OPEX (News - Alert) will lead to higher costs later on: just like leasing a car as compared with owning one. Please discuss.

BP:      There’s no real “one size fits all” answer to this one; there are a lot of cost drivers and variables that, frankly, many enterprises don’t consider, regardless of which deployment option they’re looking at. That’s why it’s important for enterprises to partner with a well reputed vendor partner who will help them weigh through all the options, ask critical, detailed questions and assess what’s best for the individual client: be it hosted, premise or hybrid.

One important thing to remember is that for many companies, it’s not just about cost containment these days. In our post-recession economy, customer retention and revenue growth are absolutely critical as well and hosting can certainly be helpful in this context as well. So you’ll find enterprises considering a wide range of factors before deciding to go with one deployment mode or the other.

One observation I will make, related to this topic, is that in our experience, enterprises tend to underestimate the opportunity cost and time and effort it takes for them to design, build, manage, change and maintain applications on –premise, using internal staff.

TMCnet:         There have been issues with hosting that are calling into question the effectiveness, reliability and security of this deployment model for contact centers:

(a)        The well-publicized Amazon cloud outage, leaving firms cut off

(b)        Application and data security concerns

Please respond and discuss

BP:      I’ll avoid commenting on the Amazon situation. Having said that, it’s important to point out that hosting has been, and will continue to be, a fantastic solution for some enterprises, while others will prefer to deploy premise based solutions. There’s a wide range of criteria for enterprises to consider before deciding one way or another and there’s no perfect answer. In an ideal world, enterprises should look for vendor partners who can help them across the spectrum from “A to Z”, from premise-based deployments on one hand, to hosted, managed applications on the other – to give the enterprise maximum agility and flexibility

On the application and data security front, I think you will find many of the top tier firms across the industry perform well in these areas, regardless of deployment mode. Frankly, a strong track record in these areas is “table stakes” in the industry now. When seeking a vendor partner, enterprises should ask tough questions on these topics to ensure they’re comfortable with the vendor’s approach and experience.

TMCnet:         When in the solution lifecycle should firms consider switching to hosted for IVR, dialing and routing?

BP:      There’s no “right time or wrong time” to consider hosting or premise based deployment modes. It all depends on many of the factors mentioned above in this article such as capital availability, internal staff availability and capability, corporate priorities at the time, time-to-market constraints and other factors.

TMCnet:         What enhancements have you made or will be making to your hosted solutions to make them more functional, cost-effective, more reliable and more secure?

BP:      Continuous improvement is integral to everything we do at West. We are continuously seeking ways to improve the performance of our managed hosted (and premise) solutions to make for a better, more efficient and effective, user experience.

We conduct usability tests, agent focus groups, customer focus groups and use other testing and analytics tools to ensure that our applications are user friendly and are continually improving. We tune and improve continually, our applications so that they’re always performing as designed and meeting or exceeding our clients (and their customers) expectations.

Many of our applications are personalized, context aware and intelligent, and we continue to focus in this area to improve the overall customer experience. For some time now, we’ve been working with our clients to broaden their customer contact solutions beyond just “voice” to include integrated multi-channel solutions such as social media monitoring and outreach, mobile and outbound notification solutions.

Reliability and security are of paramount importance to us – and our clients. We are an industry leader in this area and continue to invest in new infrastructure, technology and processes to meet and exceed our industry’s – and our clients’ - expectations.

Our team of dedicated highly qualified information security professionals manages multiple level testing and audit scenarios developed in coordination with clients and platform management teams to ensure proper attention to critical asset protection. To maintain our alignment with industry standards, external audits are conducted each year to ensure the policies, procedures and governance controls are functioning as designed.

Internal monitoring processes are in place to supplement external reviews. These include periodic vulnerability scans, penetration testing, specialized audits on key risk areas and security architecture design support. Key features of business contingency planning include a system criticality identification review, regular review of plans, scheduled testing of table top and operational exercises and other related initiatives, processes and procedures.