What is a Hosted Contact Center? Solutions, Benefits, and Pros & Cons

Oct 31, 2023

Photo from Unsplash

Originally Posted On: https://www.goanswer.io/hosted-contact-center/

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, customer service is a key differentiation factor in driving success. The ability to provide quick, efficient, and personalized support can make or break your company. That’s where hosted contact centers come in, offering a cloud-based solution that can revolutionize the way you handle customer interactions. Curious about what a hosted contact center can do for your business? Read on to discover the benefits and essential features of this innovative technology.

Short Summary

Hosted contact centers provide cost-effective, scalable solutions for customer service operations with features such as omnichannel support and intelligent call routing.
Benefits of hosted contact center solutions include cost savings, remote work capabilities, easy scalability & AI-powered analytics.
When selecting a vendor prioritize security/compliance + customization/integration capabilities plus customer support & bilingual agent availability to ensure seamless experience.

Understanding Hosted Contact Centers

Hosted contact centers are cloud-based solutions that handle inbound and outbound calls, providing a cost-effective and scalable alternative to traditional on-premise call centers. These virtual contact centers offer:

Increased productivity
Cost savings
Remote work capability
Scalability
Flexibility

With key features like omnichannel support, intelligent call routing, CRM integration, and real-time reporting and analytics, hosted contact center solutions are designed to cater to a wide range of industries, including retail/eCommerce, customer service, technical support, and independent contractors.

Key Components

Hosted call center solutions consist of primary components such as:

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems: automated telephone systems that route calls using voice recognition technology and keypad entries.
Call routing: directs incoming calls to the appropriate agent or department.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration: integrates call center data with customer information for a more personalized experience.
Real-time reporting: provides up-to-date analytics and metrics on call center performance.

Advanced IVR systems leverage conversational AI such as Natural Language Processing (NLP) to comprehend full sentences and responses to open-ended queries. This provides a more natural, efficient, and interactive experience for customers. These advanced systems enable customers to obtain their desired information faster and allow agents to be more productive.

Bypassing the middleman in call routing can enhance resolution times. Customers benefit from an IVR system by receiving rapid, comprehensive support from live agents. Utilizing a contact center platform can enable businesses to:

Run more effective sales and marketing campaigns
Provide access to the full customer journey
Facilitate the resolution of customer issues in a timelier manner due to the ease of access to previous interactions.

On-Premise vs. Hosted Contact Centers

Hosted contact centers differ from their on-premise counterparts in that they are cloud-based solutions, enabling businesses to externalize their contact center operations to a third-party provider. This eliminates the need for costly hardware and software acquisitions.

Hosted contact centers offer the following benefits:

No initial investment in hardware or software
Cost-efficient, as businesses only pay for the services they need
Scalable, allowing businesses to easily adjust their contact center capacity
Accessible from anywhere with an internet connection
Improved disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities

Overall, hosted contact centers provide a flexible and cost-effective solution for businesses looking to enhance their customer service operations.

On the other hand, on-premise contact centers are restricted in their scalability, as businesses must acquire extra hardware and software to manage increased call volumes. Hosted contact centers, however, are highly scalable, enabling businesses to quickly and conveniently add or remove services as required.

Benefits of Hosted Contact Center Solutions

Hosted contact centers offer numerous benefits, such as reduced costs, remote work capabilities, and easy scalability. Businesses can take advantage of the pay-as-you-go model to scale up operations without requiring additional live agents.

Hosted contact center solutions, empowered by AI, enable call analytics and real-time dashboards. This allows reps to gain insights on key call drivers, as well as access to customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores. One of the primary advantages of utilizing cloud contact center software is that it eliminates the need for data center management, including associated personnel and expenses.

Cost Savings

One of the primary advantages of hosted contact centers is the significant cost savings they offer. Here’s how:

They eliminate the necessity for costly hardware and infrastructure.
These cloud-based solutions reduce the need for physical office space, as they do not require on-premise hardware and infrastructure.
This enables businesses to save on both capital expenditures and operational costs.

The flexibility and accessibility provided by hosted contact centers, including virtual contact center solutions, enable agents to:

Access their workstation from any location with an internet connection
Eliminate the need for a physical office space, further reducing costs
Cut costs by removing the requirement for costly hardware and infrastructure

This makes hosted contact centers an ideal choice for businesses looking to streamline their operations and reduce expenses.

Remote Work Capability

Remote work capabilities enable agents to work from any location, creating flexibility and improved productivity. Hosted contact centers offer a great advantage to remote workers, as they can access their workstation from any location with an internet connection.

However, remote work can present challenges such as managing remote teams, an absence of face-to-face interaction, and potential security concerns. To overcome these challenges, businesses need to implement effective practices for remote work, such as setting explicit objectives, furnishing adequate instruction and assistance, and utilizing the appropriate tools and technologies.

Scalability and Flexibility

Hosted contact centers provide scalability, enabling businesses to expand and adjust to evolving requirements. These solutions offer scalability and are lean, eliminating the need for personnel and contractors for installation and maintenance.

Hosted contact centers provide the advantage of easy scalability, enabling businesses to expand and adjust to changing requirements. This makes them an ideal choice for businesses looking for a solution that can grow with them and adapt to their needs.

Essential Features of Hosted Contact Center Software

A hosted contact center solution typically includes an integrated omnichannel approach, predictive dialers, IVR-based intelligent routing, CRM integration, and real-time reporting and analytics. These essential features allow businesses to provide a seamless customer experience across multiple communication channels, streamline call routing, and centralize customer data for easy access.

With these features, businesses can ensure that customers are connected with the right agent quickly and efficiently.

Omnichannel Support

Omnichannel support is a customer service approach that ensures a consistent experience across multiple communication channels, such as:

phone
email
chat
social media

An omnichannel hosted call center can provide enhanced customer satisfaction and a unified brand identity through consistent and personalized customer experiences.

By offering customers a variety of communication channels, businesses can cater to their preferences and deliver a more satisfying and efficient support experience through improved customer interactions.

Intelligent Call Routing

Intelligent call routing is a feature of contact center software that utilizes customer data to direct calls to the most suitable agents available to address customer inquiries. By directing calls to the most appropriate agent, intelligent call routing can:

Decrease wait times
Ensure that customers are connected with the most appropriate agent for their requirements
Result in improved customer satisfaction.

This feature allows businesses to optimize their call center operations and provide a more efficient and effective customer support experience.

CRM Integration

CRM integration facilitates the centralization of customer data, thus enabling agents to access pertinent information promptly and effortlessly. By consolidating customer data, agents can quickly access the information they need to address customer inquiries, resulting in more efficient service and a better overall customer experience.

CRM integration offers several benefits, including:

Streamlining the sharing of customer information between departments
Ensuring that all employees have access to the most up-to-date and accurate data
Improving decision-making
Enhancing customer support

Real-Time Reporting and Analytics

Real-time reporting and analytics in hosted contact center software offer valuable insights into call center performance and customer satisfaction. By monitoring key metrics in real-time, businesses can identify areas of improvement, optimize agent performance, and make data-driven decisions to enhance their customer support operations.

Real-time reporting and analytics can also help businesses identify trends and patterns in customer behavior, enabling them to proactively address potential issues and deliver a more personalized and satisfying customer experience.

Choosing the Right Hosted Contact Center Vendor

When selecting a hosted contact center vendor, it’s crucial to consider the following factors:

Security and compliance
Customization and integration capabilities
Customer support
Availability of bilingual agents

By evaluating these factors, businesses can ensure they choose a vendor that meets their unique needs and provides a seamless, secure, and efficient customer support experience.

Security and compliance should be a top priority when selecting a vendor. The vendor should have a proven product.

Security and Compliance

Security and compliance are essential for safeguarding customer data and adhering to regulatory requirements. Hosted contact center vendors typically utilize the following security measures:

Encryption
Authentication
Access control measures
Firewalls
Intrusion detection systems
Other security measures to protect their systems.

These measures are in place to protect customer data and ensure the security of the contact center systems.

In addition, hosted contact center vendors must comply with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS to ensure the protection of customer data and maintain legal compliance.

By selecting a vendor with robust security measures and a strong commitment to compliance, businesses can minimize the risk of data breaches and protect their customers’ sensitive information.

Customization and Integration Capabilities

Customization and integration capabilities are essential for guaranteeing that the contact center solution is tailored to your business’s specific requirements. Hosted contact center solutions offer the following features for customization and integration:

Omnichannel support
Intelligent call routing
CRM integration
Real-time reporting and analytics

These features allow the solution to be customized to meet the unique needs of each business.

In addition, integration capabilities allow businesses to seamlessly connect the contact center solution with existing tools and systems, streamlining workflows and ensuring a cohesive customer support experience.

Customer Support and Training

Customer support and training are indispensable for a successful implementation and ongoing success. Hosted contact center vendors typically provide a range of customer support and training services, including:

Onboarding and implementation assistance
Technical support
User training
Ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting

By offering comprehensive support and training, vendors can help businesses maximize the value of their hosted contact center solution, minimize downtime, and ensure a smooth transition to the new system.

Bilingual Agents

Bilingual agents can enable businesses to:

Better serve a varied clientele
Open up opportunities to venture into new markets
Provide support in multiple languages
Help businesses cater to a diverse customer base
Deliver a more satisfying support experience.

However, employing bilingual agents can also present challenges, such as the need for additional training and resources and potential language barriers. To overcome these challenges and successfully employ bilingual agents, businesses should seek out agents who possess fluency in both languages, have customer service experience, and are comfortable working virtually.

Industries that Benefit from Hosted Contact Center Solutions

Various industries can benefit from hosted contact center solutions, including retail/eCommerce, customer service, technical support, and independent contractors. These solutions can enable businesses in these industries to enhance customer service, boost customer satisfaction, and minimize costs. Ultimately, this can drive growth and success for the business.

Hosted contact center solutions, including hosted call center software, can provide a range of features.

Retail/eCommerce

Retail/eCommerce businesses can benefit from hosted contact centers by enhancing customer support and optimizing order processing. By offering a variety of communication channels and streamlining the order processing experience, hosted contact centers can help retail/eCommerce businesses deliver a more satisfying customer experience and boost customer satisfaction.

In addition, automated order processing enabled by hosted contact centers can help businesses expedite order processing and minimize errors associated with manual processes.

Customer Service

Customer service organizations can leverage hosted contact centers to improve their support capabilities and enhance customer satisfaction. Hosted contact center solutions offer the following benefits:

Omnichannel support
Intelligent call routing
CRM integration
Real-time reporting and analytics

By utilizing these features, customer service teams can deliver improved customer service, augmenting customer satisfaction and reducing expenses.

Hosted contact centers provide a range of features that can help customer service teams improve their operations.

Technical Support

Hosted contact center solutions enable technical support teams to address issues in a more efficient and effective manner. They offer features such as:

Omnichannel support
Intelligent call routing
CRM integration
Real-time reporting and analytics

By utilizing these features, hosted contact center solutions can help technical support teams deliver improved customer service, heighten customer satisfaction, and decrease expenses.

These solutions can provide a range of benefits, including improved customer service, increased customer satisfaction, and more.

Independent Contractors

A hosted contact center can offer independent contractors the following benefits:

Cost efficiency
The ability to work remotely
Scalability and flexibility
Omnichannel support
Intelligent call routing
CRM integration
Real-time reporting and analytics.

These features can help independent contractors manage their client communications more effectively, allowing them to focus on their core services and grow their businesses.

Why Choose Go Answer as Your Hosted Contact Center

Go Answer is a distinguished provider of hosted contact center solutions, providing a comprehensive set of features, top-tier customer support, and a demonstrated history of accomplishment.

With features such as:

Omnichannel support
Intelligent call routing
CRM integration
Real-time reporting and analytics

Go Answer’s hosted contact center solution can help businesses in various industries deliver exceptional customer service and drive growth.

Trust Go Answer to provide the tools and support you need to take your customer support operations to the next level. With Go Answer, you can be sure that your customer service operations are running smoothly and efficiently.

Summary

In conclusion, hosted contact centers offer a powerful, cost-effective, and scalable solution for businesses to enhance their customer support capabilities. With essential features such as omnichannel support, intelligent call routing, CRM integration, and real-time reporting and analytics, hosted contact center solutions can help businesses in various industries improve customer satisfaction and drive growth. Choosing the right hosted contact center vendor is crucial to ensuring a seamless, secure, and efficient customer support experience. Consider factors such as security and compliance, customization and integration capabilities, customer support, and bilingual agent availability when selecting a vendor to meet your unique needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a hosted contact center?

A hosted contact center is a cost-effective solution for businesses to manage their customer interactions over the cloud, allowing them to take advantage of the service provider’s back-office systems at a lower cost. It provides a centralized point of inbound and outbound communications, as well as voice-based self-service interactions with minimal on-site equipment.

Hosted contact centers are a great way to reduce costs while still providing excellent customer service. They are easy to set up and maintain, and they provide a wide range of features and capabilities that can be tailored to meet the needs of any business. Additionally, hosted contact centers are highly scalable.

What is a cloud-based contact center?

A Cloud Contact Center is an all-in-one solution hosted on the internet that allows large organizations to handle customer interactions over multiple communications channels such as voice, email, social media and the web, providing sophisticated call routing, agent management and analytics.

It offers a range of features such as automated call routing, agent management, analytics, and reporting. It also provides a unified platform for customer service, allowing organizations to manage customer interactions across multiple channels from a single interface. This helps to improve customer service and reduce costs.

What is a contact center platform?

A contact center platform is a unified, cloud-based system that enables companies to manage customer communication across all channels and ensure the consumer is connected to the best-equipped person for their needs. It also provides agents with real-time insights into customer behavior and interactions to provide better support.

What is Verizon Virtual contact center?

Verizon Virtual Contact Center is a cloud-based contact center solution offering comprehensive tools, providing your customers with multiple options for connecting to you – by phone, email, chat or text.

These tools enable you to provide a seamless customer experience, no matter how your customers choose to reach out. You can customize the customer experience to meet their needs, while also ensuring that your team is equipped with the right tools to handle customer inquiries quickly and efficiently.

What are the benefits of hosted contact center solutions?

Hosted contact center solutions offer multiple benefits, such as increased productivity, cost savings, remote work capability, scalability, and flexibility, enabling businesses to keep up with ever-changing customer demands.

These benefits make hosted contact center solutions an attractive option for businesses looking to improve their customer service and increase their bottom line.

Hosted contact center solutions are easy to set up and manage, and they provide businesses with the tools they need to provide a superior customer experience.