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ITEXPO West Video: Taking the Call Center to the Cloud with TelStar

With so much talk surrounding the cloud, the reference can mean different things to different people. For TelStar Hosted Services, it is the primary delivering model for its call center solutions.

To gain more insight, TMC’s (News - Alert) Group Editorial Director Erik Linask took an opportunity at ITEXPO West 2011 to visit with James P. Dunn, CEO of TelStar Hosted Services Inc. The interview was captured in this video.

When ask what the cloud means for TelStar, Dunn responded, “I appreciate the question. We deliver call center communications services via the cloud….we have data centers, software, routers, everything…we maintain their IT staff so their people can come in and they can focus just on managing the people and that customer experience…That call managed by the call center is delivered via our software and our system.”


A typical customer with a 50 seat call center generally has to spend half a million in CAPEX, according to Dunn. TelStar helps to alleviate that pressure. They want to help call centers to focus on their core competency.

One use case example Dunn provided was of a behavioral health provider who has taken his offerings to the web. He now has to offer online enrollment and call center capabilities – something he knows nothing about. TelStar handles these tasks for him.

The nice thing in today’s world is that there are a lot of good competitors out there. “We work with best of breed software providers around  the world and select different solutions according to the needs of the client base, so we can offer them a choice,” said Dunn.

The company just announced a new relationship with a French company to offer call center software solutions via the cloud.

Many of TelStar’s professionals have been in the call center staff for more than 30 years. These professionals recognized that if they had several solutions to offer to the enterprise, they could be much more successful.

TelStar operates out of the D.C. area, serving 140 clients with several thousand call center seats.

TelStar clients may be new to their industry, or they may be migrating from an on-premise solution to TelStar support in the cloud. More and more companies have substantial IT staff and call center operations, yet they don’t want to spend CAPEX to evolve and grow and are looking to the cloud for new opportunities.

As for social, it’s about customer acquisition today, shared Dunn. It’s about word of mouth electronically. You can create a viral spread and word of mouth promotes your products cost effectively, with a lower cost of customer acquisition. It is still evolving with: “word of tweet.”


Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Feb. 1-3, 2012 in Miami, Fla. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.


Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell