Outbound Call Center Featured Article

Call Center Software Week in Review for the Week of May 20th

By Chris DiMarco
TMCnet Web Editor

Given the pace with which call center software evolves, it’s important for those in the industry to keep abreast of trends emerging throughout the week. This week we saw partnerships and unveilings that tell us about the future of the call or contact center and show it increasingly moving to the cloud.

Noble has unveiled software upgrades that will allow its agents to be decidedly more mobile than they had been up until now. Noble Harmony v.2 builds upon the flexible, browser-agnostic design introduced in the award-winning Noble Harmony series to allow even further support for mobile clients. Noble Harmony v.2 supports multiple browsers and operating systems making it work for tablets, smart phones, laptops and desktops.

“Yesterday’s contact center was a static location limited by desktop hard drives and copper wires,” said James K. Noble, president and CEO of Noble Systems. “That time has passed. Today, Noble Harmony is an integral part of fast, effective contact centers that rely on our flexible premise and cloud-based applications, burstable line capacity and mobile-friendly management tools.”

As call centers reduce their dependence on centralized workforces and increasingly utilize at home agents the flexibility of mobile software support will likely increase. Noble is the likely the first of many to roll out this option.

In other news, Following the lead of Salesfore.com, Microsoft (News - Alert) will be dropping the 2-3 year long development cycle currently used for it CRM software in order to bring features to market faster.  This is another quickly evolving market, and by reducing the time frame it roll upgrades out in Microsoft will remain a competitive alternative to CRM juggernaut Salesforce.

Staff management tools also received a new utility this week, as call center setup outfitter People cube unveiled this week its Workspace Manager application, a simple, visual-based room and desk scheduling application which can be used for  booking and managing rooms, desk booking, scheduling car parking spaces, and visitor management. Users can search for and book resources on Workspace Manager by accessing the application from a web browser, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, LCD digital room displays, mobile phones, touch screen kiosks, and VOIP telephony handsets.

Keep an eye out for another rundown in the continuing evolution of call center software next week.