Cloud-based Contact Center Featured Articles

How to Really Improve Customer Experiences, REALLY!
In the last several weeks as a result of the Interactive Intelligence Interactions 13 event, and a variety of industry developments, I have been exposed to not just to the latest and greatest in contact center solutions. It has also been my good fortune to interact with some very knowledgeable people from across the broad spectrum of community stakeholders-customers, resellers, channel partners, industry analysts-literally from all over the world. What they all have in common is an intense focus to improve/deliver an "improved customer experience."

5/23/2013

Telvista to Handle Virgin America's Unique Customer Services Program
For those of us who fly around the U.S., Virgin America is likely a favorite. Not only do they have a modern fleet with all of the amenities-wide seats, personal video, power adapters, etc., and reasonable prices-but they also happen to provide great customer service.

5/20/2013

Kohl's Moves Platform to Cloud with ININ's CaaS
Kohl's Department Stores just signed a multi-year deal with Interactive Intelligence to move its contact center solutions to the Interactive Intelligence Communications-as-a-Service solution. The deal will allow Kohl's to increase its level of business, meet seasonal demands, and enhance its business practices.

5/17/2013

SCA China to Take Full Advantage of eFuture's Cloud Services
eFuture Information Technology, a provider of software and services in China, recently signed an agreement with SCA China to provide its Chinese operation with Data Link services, a cloud-based distributor relationship management application.

5/17/2013

Starwood Hotels and Resorts to Set Up New Customer Contact Center in Kansas
To give more convenience to its guests in booking reservations and provide Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) member services, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. plans to open a new customer contact center in Wichita, Kan. in late 2013.The staff added in the new contact center will allow Starwood to support innovative customer programs, including the Ambassador Program, and to offer personalized experiences to guests.

5/17/2013

Ombudsman Services Manages Operations with Intelecom Cloud-based Contact Center
Intelecom, a provider of cloud-based contact center solutions, is now helping Ombudsman Services, which runs four national, private sector ombudsman schemes in the U.K., to support its U.K operations.

5/9/2013

Promero Offering Oracle Contact Center Anywhere
Promero, an Oracle partner and contact center solution provider has announced that it will be offering its software as a service Oracle Contact Center at a new low price for a limited time. The company is now charging a meager $59 per user for the call center software. As part of the offer, Promero is offering the version 8 of the Contact Center Anywhere software.

5/8/2013

Middle East Insurance Providers Can Gain a Competitive Advantage by Deploying Advanced Contact Center Solutions
Shaheen Haque, territory manager for the Middle East and Turkey at Interactive Intelligence, makes a case for the deployment of advanced technology solutions in the contact centers of modern insurance providers. While identifying pain points, he also outlines the business benefits and potential streamlining of operations that result from addressing these through smart technology deployments.

5/7/2013

Twilio Adds Contact Center-Focused Capabilities to Communications API Platform
Earlier this week, Twilio, a cloud communications company that is redefining telecom by merging cloud computing, web services and telecommunications, extended its footprint into the market with an upgraded communications API platform, complete with an array of contact center-focused capabilities.

5/3/2013

Cloud-based Contact Center Provider Adds Customer Satisfaction Surveys to ServicePattern
Hosted or cloud-based contact center platforms are continuing to replace other types of much more costly contact center infrastructures. Cloud-based contact center solutions are best known for their minimal up-front costs, quick deployments, favorable ROI and a "try before you buy" approach.

5/2/2013

collab9 Selects Calabrio ONE Workforce Optimization to Enhance Its Cloud-based Communications Solution
collab9, a Cisco-powered cloud communications service provider, chose the Calabrio ONE Workforce Optimization (WFO) Suite to optimize its cloud-based communications solution.

5/1/2013

OBT Anywhere Deploys AltiGen MaxACD Contact Center for Lync Solution
OBT Anywhere, a provider of hosted Lync services, has deployed AltiGen Communications MaxACD contact center for Lync to enable a hosted cloud-based call center service to deliver communications services to contact centers in North America, Asia and Australia.

4/25/2013

Key Tech Trends in the Call Center Industry: An Interactive Intelligence Infographic
This is no longer the case. Cloud-based contact center solutions have achieved critical mass across the industry. In fact, contact center agent positions in the cloud are expected to grow 18.7 percent in 2013 while premises-based agent positions are expected to grow by only 2.0 percent, according to analyst group Ovum and its report entitled, "Global In-House Contact Center Market Forecast: 2011-2016."

4/25/2013

Interactive Intelligence and Founder Dr. Don Brown Honored with Awards for Indiana Tech Innovation
TechPoint is Indiana's technology growth initiative, and its Mira Awards are a celebration and a prime opportunity to raise the visibility for new innovations and to help grow Indiana companies, said the organization. To determine the winner of the award, TechPoint convenes an independent panel of subject matter experts. This year, the panel chose Interactive Intelligence for the Tech Company of the Year Award based on its innovative technologies and services, which help businesses lower costs, increase productivity and improve customer service.

4/24/2013

Cloud Contact Center Solutions: CIO Checklist to Reap Maximum Benefit
The growing popularity of social and mobile channels is driving a paradigm shift in customer communications. Companies are now faced with an imminent contact center revolution and support professionals are gearing up to engage with customers though social media, blogs, community forums and mobile apps.

4/18/2013

Interactive Intelligence to Discuss First Quarter 2013 Financial Results
Interactive Intelligence Group will be broadcasting its first quarter financial results for the period ending on March 31, 2013 on Monday, May 6, 2013 after the close of the market.

4/18/2013

3CLogic Completes Deployment of UC Solution for Quez Media Marketing
3CLogic has successfully completed the deployment of its communication solution to Quez Media Marketing. The leader in cloud-based contact centers was asked to help Quez Media, who was reportedly suffering from a lack of reliability and low connection rates. The two companies thus formed a business partnership to help expand 3CLogic's customer base, while at the same time, improving Quez Media's service.

4/10/2013

Canadian Human Rights Commission Intros New Online Complaint Tool
The Canadian Human Rights Commission recently unveiled a new online complaint tool, which is expected to help people suffering from discrimination.

4/8/2013

Orange Business Services Chosen as Asian Contact Center Leader by Research Group
Orange Business Services, a division of France Telecom-Orange, is announcing this week that it has been named the leader among cloud contact center providers in the Asia Pacific by research firm, Current Analysis. Orange was ranked as the leader for its overall cloud contact center strategy, portfolio of core and value-added services, global service availability, and strong customer references.

4/5/2013

Converser Launches In-App Cloud Communications Platform with $1.2M Investment
To help launch its in-app cloud platform for developers, Dublin-based cloud communications company Converser secured a $1.2 million round of funding from Loughshore Investments. The company, which was founded by Barry Nolan and Oisin Hurley in 2011, offers a customer relationship management (CRM) and cloud communications platform that is embedded in apps to make it easier to communicate with customers.

4/5/2013

Kentucky School Districts Join the Cloud Hosting Revolution
It's been two years in the making-The Kentucky School districts have transitioned 173 of their districts over to a cloud based system. They already use the hosted Munis solution for statewide e-mail as well as for other services.

4/5/2013

Mitel Rolls Out Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution for SMB's in the U.S.
Small and medium sized businesses in the U.S. now have an option to choose Mitel AnyWare Cloud Contact Center solution.

4/3/2013

3CLogic Integrates Hosted Call Center Solutions with Infusionsoft's Sales and Marketing Software
3CLogic, a provider of hosted call center solutions, today unveiled its integration with Infusionsoft, an all-in-one sales and marketing software for small businesses. The Rockville, MD-based 3CLogic offers a full suite of cloud based inbound and outbound customer interaction channels such as voice, chat, and social media, which integrate with existing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. The company's cloud-based contact centers are hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

3/27/2013

Myfreetaxes.com Helps Low Income Citizens File Taxes Easily Online
Spring is round the corner and while gloves and coats are being discarded for lighter clothing, it also signals that the deadline for filing tax returns is approaching. For some American taxpayers filing taxes can be tough and they dread the idea of having to do it alone, as they cannot afford a professional for the job.

3/27/2013

Comm100 Adds 'Zero Downtime Upgrade' Feature to On-Demand Live Chat Solution
Comm100, a provider of customer service and communication solutions for enterprises, has enhanced its live chat solution with a "zero downtime upgrade" feature. Comm100 Live Chat, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based live chat software solution, is used by more than 100,000 businesses, the company said.

3/20/2013

Interactive Intelligence Explores Small Call Center Roots
Interactive Intelligence is an example of a disruptor which went mainstream and in the process changed the way contact centers operated. Soon after launching in the mid-nineties the company would attract huge crowds to its booths at trade shows as it showed off all-in-one solutions which combined the dialer, ACD, PBX and more into a complete solution which operated seamlessly together. The company was first to espouse the concept and is responsible for getting the competition to emulate them.

3/18/2013

NewVoiceMedia Called an 'Outstanding' Workplace
Typically when something gets a two-star review, it indicates mediocrity - if not downright failure. We think of a film Roger Ebert could barely sit through, or a restaurant that serves so-so food and whose waitstaff is in space. But that's not what two stars means in the vocabulary of Best Companies, the workplace engagement company who has given NewVoiceMedia, the U.K. provider of the cloud-based contact center solution, ContactWorld, a two-star ranking.

3/14/2013

Callzilla and LiveOps Team Up to Improve Contact Center Services
Callzilla and LiveOps have teamed up to offer their clients Spanish speaking live agent services. The new agreement enables Callzilla to offer LiveOps' cloud-based contact center platform with Callzilla's Spanish-speaking agents.

3/12/2013

Digital Technology Transforms into a Software-as-a -Service Business
Digital Technology International (DTI) has a long history of technical innovation and business success in the news publishing industry, and in keeping with that tradition, is fast becoming a cloud company.

3/8/2013

Bloomfire Releases Enhanced Next-Generation Knowledge Sharing Platform
Bloomfire has unveiled an improved release of its premier service. The latest version of Bloomfire offers novel incorporated mobile, social, content development and business analytics capabilities, allowing enterprises to unite the people with knowledge, with those who require it, either in the office or while traveling.

3/7/2013

Germany's Wincor Nixdorf Builds New Polish Contact Center on BT Cloud Platform
Wincor Nixdorf, a German company that provides retail and retail banking hardware, software and services, recently outfitted a new contact center in Poland, and the Paderborn-based company chose a cloud-based contact center solution from BT, Wincor Nixdorf's provider of international voice and data communications.

2/28/2013

Bright Pattern Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution Scalable from Five to 5,000 Agents
Bright Pattern's ServicePattern, a cloud-based contact center solution, has been successful in scaling for tenants with five to 5,000 concurrent agents at a full load. This ensures that the cloud is capable of supporting sales and customer service for small business as well as large enterprises.

2/28/2013

Interactive Intelligence Appoints Mervyn Gomez as Communications-as-a-Service Sales Executive
Industry veteran Mervyn Gomez recently joined Interactive Intelligence as a Communications-as-a-Service sales executive. Interactive Intelligence is a provider of unified business communications solutions for contact center automation, enterprise IP telephony and business process automation.

2/21/2013

CloudWork Intros App Integrations for Toggl to Enhance Business Efficiency
CloudWork has announced app integrations for Toggl, which help eliminate repetitive manual entry by replicating data from connected business apps into Toggl's workspace, enabling users to continue to deal with more important tasks. Christophe Primault, CloudWork CEO, said, "Our new integrations for Toggl aim to help small businesses that want to keep track of one of their most valuable resources - time."

2/19/2013

Yardi Systems Picks Interactive Intelligence's Unified IP Business Communications Software
Yardi Systems, a company that designs, develops and supports software for real estate investment management and property management, recently switched to Interactive Intelligence Group's unified IP business communications software to support its four distributed contact centers in Irving, Texas; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Cleveland, Ohio; and Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

2/14/2013

ShoreTel Improves Contact Center Offering
ShoreTel, a provider of closed source VoIP solutions, announced an enhancement to its contact center solutions with the introduction of its brand new Contact Center 8.

2/14/2013

Auxilion's Virtual Service Desk Power by AltiGen MaxACD
Auxilion, an innovative virtual support services provider, is now an AltiGen customer. The company recently deployed AltiGen's MaxACD contact center solution for Microsoft Lync, gaining advanced features for its Virtual Service Desk.

2/12/2013

SAP Introduces New, Rapid Cloud Deployment Solution
Cloud computing is becoming increasingly popular as well as playing an important role in information technology operations for businesses of all kinds; however, some companies are still wary or outright refusing to move to cloud-based solutions, as deployment and management of cloud infrastructure is sometimes not easy or fast. So, the crucial question is how to optimize deployment of cloud solutions within provided infrastructure in the cloud. When it comes to this, it seems SAP has got the solution.

2/8/2013

Bright Pattern Announces Simple, Seamless Integration with Salesforce.com and Force.com Platform
Bright Pattern, a provider of next-gen cloud-based contact center and customer service management solutions, has reportedly managed to blend communications with CRM with its ServicePattern cloud contact center's simple and seamless integration with salesforce.com and the force.com platform. Sales and customer service should supposedly receive numerous advantages from the unified call center communications, and CRM and customers will be able to receive the convenience of self-service, while service agents will enjoy a streamlined and convenient combined user interface.

2/7/2013

The ROI of the Cloud-Based Contact Center is Hiding - Can You Find It?
Dig through the telecommunications news space and you'd be hard-pressed to find any contact center coverage in the last couple of years that didn't have some connection to the cloud. After all, the benefits to the cloud-based contact center are real and measurable, driving a number of organizations to adopt this deployment platform to support their call center activities.

2/5/2013

UK-based Cloud Call Center Company NewVoiceMedia Raises $20 Million
Launching a call center was a very expensive and involved business once upon a time. Phone systems had to be installed, as did premise-based solutions that routed the calls and supported operations. The cloud has changed all that: cloud-based contact center solutions today allow even the smallest companies to be up and running quickly with a full-featured call center that is flexible and can be operated from anywhere in the world, all at minimum up-front cost.

1/29/2013

LiveOps Announces Availability of Engage
LiveOps, Inc., a company that provides cloud contact center and customer service solutions, recently announced that its integrated, multichannel desktop Engage is now available. A browser-based cloud application, Engage is available to companies worldwide directly through LiveOps or its global partner network.

1/28/2013

SAS Chooses Intelecom Connect for its Contact Centers
Intelecom's cloud-based technology has been chosen by Scandinavia's major airline, SAS. The technology will be used to develop an agile contact center covering three countries and capable of assisting the organization's demanding ground handling department. Standardization offered by Intelecom Connect will hasten customer response times and increase agent self-esteem. Intelecom Connect has also been able to offer considerable cost benefits to the organizations in less than a year.

1/24/2013

Indiana Governor Honors Interactive Intelligence CEO Dr. Donald Brown
Indianapolis-based Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. announced this week that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels honored the company's founder and CEO, Dr. Donald Brown, with the 2012 Sagamore of the Wabash award.

1/23/2013

T-Mobile Austria Uses Interactive Intelligence's Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution
The recent emergence of cloud computing has enabled business owners to set up call centers without the installation of additional hardware. Cloud-based call centers are economic, secure and reliable and without the complexity of a traditional POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).

1/17/2013

Xerox Highlighted as Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant
Recently, business process and document management provider Xerox has been placed in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner's 2012 Global Customer Management Contact Centers Report.

1/16/2013

T-Mobile Austria Soars High and Joins the Cloud
T-Mobile Austria is the second biggest mobile operator, and has over four million customers. In the last couple of months, the company has been moving in all sorts of directions. Back in October, it hired a new CEO and recently re-launched its "European Routing Platform Customer Service," and now the mobile giant has moved its contact center solution to the cloud.

1/16/2013

T-Mobile Austria Chooses Interactive Intelligence for Its European Routing Platform Customer Service Initiative
As more and more call centers put their platform into the cloud, these companies are finding a breadth of call center functionality they never would have dreamed of just 10 years ago. As one might expect, telephone companies are on the forefront of this expansion.

1/10/2013

Wheaton Bekins Improves Customer Service through Interactive Intelligence's Customer Interaction Center Platform
Companies continue to search for a way to connect with their customers. Wheaton World Wide Moving | Bekins Van Lines has been able to improve its customer service, reduce expenses, and increase productivity thanks to Interactive Intelligence's Customer Interaction Center (CIC).

1/9/2013

Eloqua Purchase Gives Oracle a Boost with its Customer Experience Cloud
Acquistion enhances Oracle's Customer Experience Cloud solution.

1/2/2013

LeadMaster Reaches 15 Years in Business Milestone
Marketing automation systems help companies in saving time and cutting labor costs by automating various repetitive tasks. Thus, the demand for marketing automation systems is on the rise.

12/28/2012

Ringio Brings the Cloud-Based Contact Center to SMBs
SMBs can leverage the cloud to enhance their customer interaction operations.

12/28/2012

Cloud Sherpas Purchases California-Based Cloud Solution Consultancy CloudTrigger
Cloud Sherpas, a cloud services brokerage, has successfully completed the acquisition of CloudTrigger, a top California-based cloud solution consultancy focused on helping organizations implement and customize CRM solutions in the cloud.

12/26/2012

Five9's Virtual Contact Center Saves the Day in NJ During Hurricane Sandy
Advantages of cloud-based contact center highlighted by Five9's performance during Hurricane Sandy.

12/26/2012

Best in Biz Awards Recognizes Broadview's Cloud-Based OfficeSuite
Best in Biz Awards is an independent business awards program judged by members of the press and industry analysts. Broadview's business phone system, OfficeSuite, has won the prized industry recognition in the category of Small or Medium Business Service of the Year.

12/26/2012

Anana Wins Two Prestigious Awards from Genesys
Anana, a specialist in 21st century communications solutions to the enterprise and telecommunications markets, has won two independently judged awards for dedication to innovation and focus on social engagement. The awards on customer service and customer innovation were presented at the G-Force customer and partner event in Barcelona this September.

12/19/2012

Wheaton | Bekins Upgrades Communication Platform to CIC
Wheaton World Wide Moving | Bekins Van Lines is reaping the benefits of implementing Interactive Intelligence Group, Inc.'s Customer Interaction Center (CIC). The CIC platform offers companies a suite of integrated contact center applications, with the option of moving everything into the cloud.

12/12/2012

Promero Announces New Business Process Solution
Contact center solutions specialist, Promero announced that they have incorporated its cloud based call center software, Oracle Contact Center Anywhere, with RiverStar's CE suite to introduce a new business process solution to the market.

12/7/2012

U.K.-Based mplsystems Recognized by Gartner as Original European Cloud Contact Center
A recent report published by the premium analyst firm Gartner reflects on the expansion of the Contact Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) provider in Europe. The firm documented four diverse styles of CCaaS providers - communication service providers, infrastructure technology providers, system integrators and application specialists.

11/26/2012

Indosoft Announces Partnership with Vidanetwork
Indosoft Inc., developer of Q-Suite, the call center ACD for Asterisk, has announced a partnership with Vidanetwork, which delivers a suite of IP-based communications products that allow organizations to communicate effectively in today's global market, and offer cloud and managed services multichannel contact centers.

11/26/2012