Cloud computing

Back in my Call Center Management Days, I remember waiting days, sometimes weeks for my IT Department to provide me with logins for my new employees.

As a contact center leader, I always strived for ‘added and improved’ processes before they ever were.  My CRM was good, but not good enough.  My ACD platform was sufficient, but didn’t provide me with the complete situational awareness I desired.  My receivables software ‘did the job,’ but didn’t completely analyze delinquency trends or ageing brackets.  With desired improvements documented and forecasted, I’ve often lobbied executive teams for the budget and resources needed to obtain desired ‘add-on’ contact center products.  As contact center leaders, we’ve all been there.  One of the most important words found within effective business management is “scalability.”  Scalability can be defined as “the ability of a system, network, or process, to handle a growing amount of work in a capable manner or its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth.”     Read more»

References to the cloud are ubiquitous today, but what does it mean? What is the cloud?

In my role as mom to a 6-year-old, rambunctious boy, I find myself constantly navigating the tough waters to help him discern fact from fiction and myth from reality. Is Santa Claus real? Should I lie about what I did to save myself from punishment? Will the Tooth Fairy really visit him at night?

Desktop real estate is valuable in the contact center realm and we are constantly introducing ways to boost simplicity and efficiency. In this latest episode of On The Line, Heather sits down with Madelyn Gengelbach, Senior Product Marketing Manager, to discuss some delicious comparisons involving our CRM Plug-In Agent. Get a look at some screen captures of the product, showcasing a few key features including click-to-dial, the slide-out panel, our unique ribbon interface and more!

I had the opportunity a few months ago to spend a week in Munich, Germany working with one of our premier partners who will sell and support the inContact suite of products throughout EMEA.

It was fascinating to see a couple of things that were new to them that seemed commonplace to me, having been in this cloud business for so long. It's nice to have a reminder of all the benefits of the cloud...

• First, the different line of thinking that the cloud brings to the table vs. the premise model of having the box in the call center, having to maintain it, and having to provision for peak periods all year long for trunking and hardware. 
• Second, the ease of use in the cloud model with the ability to scale up and scale down easily to accommodate for peak seasons and slow periods. 
• Third, concept of queuing calls in the cloud vs. at the premise allowed for better use of the customer’s facilities to be solely for taking calls by agents vs. queue time or IVR interactions.

On Wednesday, I hosted our 22nd inContact Problem Solved roadshow in Louisville, Kentucky. Aside from the discussions of Kentucky basketball, bourbon and horse racing, we had some terrific presentations from customers Ray Valentine from KM² and Mike Miller from Corrisoft. While their businesses are radically different - Ray's company provides outsourced contact center services and Mike's company is in the correctional market - what was remarkably similar about them was... it's all about growth.

KM² continues to add new customers, agents, campaigns and geographies in order to service their growing base of financial services, insurance and telecom customers. Corrisoft is doing some truly innovative stuff around services for correctional institutions and their populations. Both these organizations are laser focused on fast growth - and they look to the cloud to enable their expansion.  As Mike Miller so eloquently said, "I don't want to worry about building call centers... I just want to be able to communicate with my customers and grow my business."   Read more»

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore is an interesting marketing book on the study of how new technologies, in particular disruptive technologies or products, successfully make their way into a market.  It discusses how to move a technology from  the ‘Early Adopters’, those brave souls who are willing to take a risk with a new technology,  to the rest of us who want the benefits of the new technology without the risks.  A few years ago, one could say that the use of the cloud was largely the domain of the Early Adopters.  That is not so true today.  Not only are private and public companies moving to the cloud, (See the eWeek story about how SMBs are leading in the adoption of cloud services), but now even the federal government is looking at the cloud, as is evidenced by the recently released details on the government's new FedRAMP Program, aimed at developing a standardized approach to assessing the security of a cloud solution.   Read more»

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) or “on-demand software” is becoming a fast growing, common software delivery model that provides tools that can reduce time-to-market and cost of converting a traditional on-premise software product, making implementation easier and more cost effective.    Read more»

If you've ever wondered what cloud computing is, or how it (and inContact) can improve your contact center's profitability and operations, we've laid it all out for you in a two minute, thirty-one second video. Sit back and enjoy!