Hosted Call Center Featured Article

The Benefits of Hosted Contact Center Solutions: ITEXPO West Interview

By Beecher Tuttle
TMCnet Contributor

The cloud is one of the hottest buzzwords in technology today, and is a major focus of ITEXPO West 2011, which got started early this morning at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.

To offer our readers and prospective attendees a window into what can be expected from the conference, TMC CEO Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) reached out to a few cloud experts who will be participating in panel discussions at ITEXPO later this week. Tehrani recently interviewed James Dunn, chief executive at TelStar Hosted Services, a provider of cloud-based contact center solutions, to learn more about the company and its recent initiatives.

Dunn said that the market for hosted contact center technologies has never been hotter, mostly due to the scalable, flexible and cost-effective nature of cloud-based services.

The biggest news in the TelStar world is its partnership with call center technology vendor Vocalcom, which recently selected TelStar to be its exclusive provider of hosted services in North America, says Dunn.

The collaborative Vocalcom solution integrates a customer’s preferred means of communication through unified management of a number of multimedia applications – including inbound and outbound calls, emails, chat, co-browsing, fax, SMS and video – enabling agents to handle all forms of communication without having to change call center processes.

Dunn also gave opinion on the importance of leveraging social media and accommodating virtual workforces, and explained how TelStar and Vocalcom can help in this area.

The two wrapped up the talk by giving readers a preview of Dunn's upcoming panel discussion at ITEXPO (News - Alert) West. The session, titled, “What’s Really Driving the Hosted Customer Care Trend?” kicks off at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 15 at the Austin Convention Center, and will focus on the unique advantages of hosted customer care as well as some recent innovations that will continue to drive the migration toward cloud-based contact centers.

TelStar and Vocalcom will also be camped out at booth #332/431 to showcase the new product and talk to prospective channel partners.

Check out the interview below to hear more of Dunn's thoughts.

How has your market segment evolved over the past year and what trends have fueled those changes?

TelStar Hosted Services, Inc., “Your Call Center in The Cloud!” provides communications-as-a-service via the cloud for contact center operations. Our market segment is projected by Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) to have a CAGR of 32 percent (2008-2015). Our market will reach $2.4 billion by 2015. This is largely because of the value proposition of hosted services, namely that you trade Capex for Opex; stay focused on your core business; enjoy affordable, scalable, flexible, stable and reliable IT services; and reduce the need for an in-house IT team. 

What do you see as the next disruptive force in technology and how will it impact your market or business?

New forms of communication and social media are a new disruptive force that will compel change in the call center services marketplace. TelStar Hosted Services, Inc. is pleased to announce a new partnership with Vocalcom, a world leader in call center technology, to be their exclusive provider of hosted services in North America. Vocalcom’s product is truly cutting edge, providing a customizable user interface for supervisors and agents and the ability to receive not just inbound, outbound and blended calls, but also email, fax, SMS, chat and video chat communications and handle these in queue, so that a customer’s preferred form of communication can be combined with customer data screen pops without changing call center processes.

How has the acceptance and adoption of the cloud model influenced your development cycle and process?

We are solely a cloud communications service provider, and specialize in hosted call center offerings. Increased adoption of cloud technologies is helping to grow our marketplace. We offer multiple vendor solutions.

What is the most common request you are seeing from your customers? How is your company addressing these demands?

Our clients demand a high level of customer service, and we at TelStar Hosted are solely a service provider. In fact, we are the only hosted call center service provider with multiple product offerings, and we are dedicated to offering the finest client service in the world.

How is the continued growth of social media changing service and product development strategies?

Our latest product offering through Vocalcom allows customers to communicate in multiple ways, and combines these new forms of communication with existing call center processes of queuing these communications simultaneously with customer calls, benefiting from customer data capture. 

Vocalcom’s technology accommodates video chat as well, adding a personal element to customer communication. Social media offers another opportunity to integrate media into communications. 

As businesses continue their move toward virtual workforces, how are you meeting the need for increased mobility?  What barriers are keeping others from adopting mobile strategies?

As a cloud technology, TelStar Hosted Services allows you to create and manage a virtual workforce. Further, with our new Vocalcom product, user interfaces for agents, supervisors and managers are completely customizable to meet the individual needs of your business and provide a real time dashboard of statistics to allow you to effectively virtually manage your workforce remotely. Many vendors of best in class technology are struggling to market and sell a cloud offering effectively. We hope to find many new partners at ITEXPO and help bring their excellent software to our large client base.

How do you see the mobile operating system war (iPhone (News - Alert) vs. Android vs. RIM vs. WM7) playing out?

We are very concerned with regulation in this area. We hope Congress will keep up!

What are you most looking forward to at ITEXPO West  in Austin? What do you see as being the biggest trends at the show?

TelStar Hosted Services, Inc. and Vocalcom are excited to further discuss our partnership and showcase the Vocalcom product, at the Vocalcom booth #332/431 at ITEXPO. We are also interested to see other cloud technologies and discuss potential partnerships with channel partners. If you would like to set up an appointment, please contact Meghan Harris at mharris@telstarhosted.com, 720.306.4338.

What issues will you be addressing during your ITEXPO session and why should attendees be sure to attend?

We will discuss the advantages of hosted customer care, the use of non-voice applications such as email, fax, SMS, chat and video chat to provide customers with multiple means of communication, which should be handled in queue without changing call center processes, and the rise of social media such as Twitter (News - Alert) to address customer care. 

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell