We are looking into developing an internet-based call centre management product, which will consist of a centralised service which call centres subscribe to. This is in different to the usual approach because there would be no need for customers to maintain their own central computers (which is expensive and difficult to find the staff)

The service would run on computers that we would operate, and call centres would subscribe. It would be possible to create call centre scripts and management tools using an easy to use rules based system. Reporting would be quick and easy, and operator loads would be managed by supervisors or by automatic rules (eg. if operator 1 is more efficient than 2 allocate some of 2's pending calls to 1, etc)

The benefits for call centre owners would be that we would be quite a bit cheaper than the competition, and that as the product would be web based there would be less deployment costs involved. Also the proiduct would integrate better with the call centre's telephony systems by means of a small downloadable program.

We would like to know if any other company's out there offer a product or service like this already, and if so how successful it would be. Also please reply if you think this idea has merit. Were trying to get feedback to work out if it's worth investing our (small) company's time and money into/

Thanks for your time,

Jim

Hi Jim

Just popped in to have a read and noticed that no-one had posted a reply to you yet. You are talking about something I am in the process of setting up at present. Rather than give everything away here, I would rather you email me and I will gladly discuss some ideas with you! Please send your email to fazz@powerup.com.au

Regards

Jon

Hi Jon.

Thanks for the reply but sorry I took so long to respond. What kind of things is your service going to have?

I'll email you privately if you like but it would be good for others if you list your service's facilities.

Jim

Hi Jim

I am in the process of setting up such a solution for contact center market.
I agree to Jon, you could possibly be in touch with me on my hotmail account : manojkpatel@hotmail.com. I would be delighted to share with you some info on the same.

Kind Regards

Manoj Patel.

Have you put all of the pieces you need together. I represent a vendor for call processing ( IVR, conferencing, text to speech ) and I would be interested to learn more about the progress of your project.

I have been making contacts with carriers and affinity groups to promote the idea to offer outsourced voice processing apps in an integrated value added package. Since we're both on limited capital, I would welcome any contact leading towards co-marketing and lead sharing.

Hi Jim,, I think that this idea is pretty decent. We are currently looking for a small scale solution for our (small) inhouse information and advice line which wouldn't involve a huge outlay. How big does your requirement have to be to use your proposed service (eg. number of seats, etc.) ?

WW

Hi there

I too have recently got involved in this, and find it difficult to find customers who might be interested in investing in an ASP. What market in particular may buy into this service? Has this really taken off in the UK? and how does this compare to the USA. Are there any market stats/predictions available?

If anyone is interested in this UK based ASP I can put you in touch

Adelle

I'd imagine that the market for such a thing would be any firm who wants to outsource the infrastructure but not the personnel element of their contact centre - in other words, reduce the investment in technology by minimising the use of expensive, dedicated hardware and maximising the use of conventional PC hardware, and also leave the hard work of 'keeping the show on the road' to the ASP.

Such a solution I'd imagine could be pretty successful for any firm wishing to dip in and out of customer-contact centre campaigns without the commitment and investment that in-house solutions require. Also it could be a hit for smaller companies who would otherwise use an ad-hoc in-house solution without the flexibility and extendability of a rigorously designed generic system.

John

I am not here to push product. But, I work for a company called White Pajama. We were awarded Call-Center Magazine's product of the year. We are a well established ASP Call Center. Please feel free to take a look at our site www.whitepajama.com . There, you can take a quick tour of our product (5 minutes). Email me if you have any questions.

Jack Hill
jackh@whitepj.com

We deliver call centre functionality from a centralised platform in the PSTN network. Our platform has been gradually developed since 1998 (first launched Nov 99) and we are currently covering the Scandinavian markets and the UK (recently launched). Currently we are closing in on 200 corporate customers ranging from small to very large. Functionality (agent/supervisor, queue, real-time management, skills, MIS, etc) is made available through a standard browser. No HW/SW is needed at customer premise. The only requirement is a DDI for each agent (could even be mobile phone roaming) and web access if you want the interface to queue status, etc. There are also some major cost benefits on the routing of calls from the network (i.e. removal of call forwarding costs and line capacity for queueing and call forwarding).

Ivar
ivar.sagemo@consorte.co.uk