A recent Infonetics Research report found IPCCs (IP contact centers) resisting the economic downturn. According to Infonetics, IPCC sales will continue to rise modestly in 2009 after a big jump in 2008. One of the main reasons for this relatively good performance is the fact that IPCCs can help companies that are struggling to cope with the financial crisis. Infonetics projects that global IPCC sales will increase to $900 million in 2009, compared to a projected $851 million (based on actual first-half sales figures) in 2008 and $622 million in 2007.
Digium's strong 2008 year highlights the attractiveness of less expensive, easily customizable open source software in the current recession. Asterisk is the world's dominant open source telephony software. As the economic crisis worsened, Asterisk downloads rose by 32 percent from September through December, compared to a year ago.
It wasn’t uncommon for a company to pay half a million or more on a phone switch just 5 years ago. But new VoIP switches can cost just a few thousand dollars and allow for more flexibility, reporting, and integration. Open source switches such as Asterisk not only allow business to get a lot of features for very little money, they allow access to cheap SIP trunking contracts which replace their expensive TDM service and high maintenance phone switches. Though, more expensive options are still available, the sour economy is encouraging many companies to take a closer look at cheaper telecom solutions. The consensus in the industry is that everything will eventually be VoIP. The bad economy is just speeding up that process.
The reason for the relatively mild slowdown of IPCC sales lies largely in what the products have to offer struggling companies. Infonetics divided the category into three segments. ACD (automatic call distribution) systems, which ensure that incoming calls get routed to the right sales or service agents, account for some 75 percent of the category. CTI (computer telephony integration) products, which among other things gather relevant customer information from corporate databases and make it available to agents, represent 15 percent. And IVR (interactive voice response) systems, which provide prompts and information, route calls or take other actions according to the spoken or key-press responses of callers, account for 10 percent. ACD systems represent the core function of call centers, according to Infonetics directing analyst Matthias Machowinski.
The various capabilities that IPCC systems offer let companies deal with customers more effectively. They can route calls to agents based on criteria such as skills, past dealings with the caller and availability. They can also provide agents with better information for dealing with customers, including their history of transactions with the company. Such capabilities are invaluable for gaining or keeping customers, which is particularly important when customers are scarce.
IPCCs also let companies see how well their agents are performing. "One thing I've noticed is more work force management tools showing up in IP contact center schemes," said Machowinski. Using such tools, companies can see how long agents spend on calls, which indicates their efficiency. They can also measure how often agents transfer calls or put them on hold, a measure of their ability to resolve problems on their own rather than needing help from someone else.
Overall, the various IPCC products are "useful for collecting a lot of data so you have a better idea of how many people you need, with what skills, and when," said Machowinski. And they give companies new ways to cope with the economic crisis. "It definitely allows you to make decisions about your work force."
The decisions are up to the company, of course. "You can use it in good or bad ways," Machowinski noted. "You can identify those that need improvement or need to be fired. Or if you have a lot of agents that need help, maybe you don't want them all working at the same time. I think it fits into the overall story of running an efficient organization, especially on the contact center side. It's more difficult to know exactly how other employees are performing, but in the contact center it's possible."
Home
