Virtual Contact Centre and Call Handling Scenario

Virtual Technology replicates the Call Handling of Fixed Location Call Centres

A customer calls the company contact number and is connected to the virtual service hosted by a provider such as the PhonePresence Virtual Call Centre and is greeted with a recorded company message. The IVR then offers the customer a variety of options via the caller menus and the customer selects the accounts department either by keypad selection or via voice commands if the system incorporates speech recognition.

The hosted system then selects the next available member of the accounts group, whether they be on mobile, home or office landline, or voip softphone, and dials their number. The call recipient is warned with a brief whisper message, in this case, "accounts call" and the customer and accounts agent are then connected. The call can be recorded for later retrieval if needed for review or management assessment.

If no-one is available to take the call, or the customer has called out of office hours, the call can be placed in a call queue or be directed to voicemail where the customer can leave a message for the accounts department specifically. The message can be forwarded as an email attachment or a text message to a mobile phone.

Calls can be handled in this manner for all company departments with staff and agents being connected via the technology into a virtual call centre and with callers unaware they are being connected to a variety of locations.

Call Handling Features

All the extensive features of location based call centres and the associated hardware are available in the virtual solution. Features may include greeting messages, selection menus, automated attendant, inbound and outbound call recording, call transfer advice, call queuing and monitoring, acd distribution, skills based routing, agent status monitoring, SMS and email missed call alerts, transfer to landlines, mobiles and voip phones, call blending, screen popping, music on hold, call scripting, database integration. For more comprehensive information on available features visit the PhonePresence web site.

Hosted Telephony Benefits

The advantage of the hosted virtual offering over the real world solution is in cost and ease of setup. Call flows can be determined with the provider and setup via the hosted service with greatly reduced setup costs and with little need for maintenance. Management of the system is usually via a web interface making the task simple and flexible.

For a company considering implementing a call centre or PBX facility, or a call centre wishing to extend it's capabilities or seeking a call overflow handling mechanism, the virtual offering makes a great deal of sense and can provide a very cost effective solution.