Call centers throughout the world are examining options for expanding their capacity, while also controlling costs. As a result, many are looking to hosted solutions that help to complement their proprietary systems, enhancing capability with a smaller capital investment than on-premise solutions offer.

While such complementary systems can provide a quick fix to the inherent growing pains, they may not be adequate to provide the center with the scalable solutions they need to drive long term effectiveness. The industry in which the call center operates plays a significant role in the effectiveness of the integrations.

Those call centers that are operating in the credit and collections vertical have found that the slowing economy has not only increased the demand for their services, it has also decreased the consumer’s overall ability to pay. What’s more, consumers are becoming harder to reach, requiring multiple number attempts before live interaction is possible.

In essence, these call centers need more capacity, yet the capacity is not necessarily supported by increased revenues. LiveVox (News - Alert) has announced that it can offer a hosted solution that addresses both issues with VoIP technology that delivers carrier class quality.

With the launch of its carrier-grade, hosted-VoIP-dialer solution, LiveVox is the first to deliver a VoIP dialer that does not rely on the public Internet to transmit information. The solution directly accesses the carrier backbone using a Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) interface to ensure unlimited capacity, higher quality and lower cost when compared with premise-based or other hosted dialing solutions.

While LiveVox has taken an innovative approach to providing a solution that will address the major concerns within the outbound call center, the company has created a challenge of its own: to educate the customer. LiveVox CEO Louis Summe (News - Alert) noted that the common thread within the industry is a distrust of the Internet. Clients are also nervous about moving all of their operations in a hosted environment as it creates a feeling of losing control.

In reality, what LiveVox is offering its clients is the opportunity to add more capacity and ultimately increase the number of right party contacts per agent per hour. In fact, Summe highlights that LiveVox’s goal is to help customers to get this number just north of eight, while many are currently struggling to attain three right party contacts per agent per hour.

When call centers strive for the minimum amount of capacity out of the gate in order to control upfront costs, they are ill-equipped to handle an influx. Many collections call centers are facing this struggle right now as their accounts have more than doubled, but they don’t have the capacity necessary to reach out to these customers.

There a variety of benefits to the LiveVox solution. For one, it is hosted in an on-demand platform, allowing the call center to scale as needed. Second, it does not require significant capital investment in on-premise equipment that will financially strain the organization. Third, it simplifies the agent desktop, making sure the agent has access to the applications he or she needs to do their job efficiently.

LiveVox has taken the challenges facing the outbound call center today and developed a patented solution that will overcome these obstacles to success. The first in the industry to offer such a solution, they likely will not be the last. Their position in the market does provide LiveVox will the opportunity to set the standard and drive demand.