Leverage a Hosted Call Center Solution to Optimize Your Business

Hosted call centers have revolutionized the way businesses support their customers. If you’re still using a Iegacy call center with expensive hardware, software and office space investments required for your agents to serve consumers, you’re missing an opportunity to save money and  improve efficiency. Hosted contact centers eliminate costly infrastructure investments and maintenance fees while enabling you to serve your consumers better. 

Hosted contact centers are offsite call centers hosted by a third-party provider. Your team just needs an internet connection to remotely access the system to engage with customers.

Understanding Hosted Contact Centers

Consumers expect omnichannel support, meaning they want to reach your organization on their preferred channel—whether that’s by phone, social media, email or messenger apps. Hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) contact centers can help you meet this consumer demand without hassle or an extravagant upfront investment. Key components include:

• Cloud-based infrastructure: Cloud-based centers are solutions hosted in the cloud, offering your organization additional security, scalability and accessibility compared to traditional call center models. Cloud-based infrastructure also means you won’t need hardware and premises-based phone center resources. 
• Virtualized software solutions: Hosted contact center technology eliminates the need for your support agents to be at the same physical location to support customers. With virtualization, agents can work from anywhere with an internet connection. Physical infrastructure and copper wires are no longer required. 
• Scalable and flexible models: Hosted solutions are more scalable than traditional, on-premise systems. If your business is seasonal, you can seamlessly scale services up or down, adding or removing users to your subscription. With hosted contact centers enabling remote work, you can hire an unlimited number of agents from all over the world. 

Hosted contact centers and cloud-based contact centers are slightly different. Hosted contact center solutions can live in a traditional data center or the cloud. Cloud contact centers are exclusively cloud-based. 

The Advantages of a Hosted Contact Center

Hosted contact center service providers deliver innovative solutions, outperforming legacy systems on multiple fronts. The key benefits of a hosted center include: 

• Cost-efficiency: Hosted contact centers are more affordable than legacy systems. The total cost of ownership is significantly less than that of an on-site system that requires expensive hardware and system maintenance. With a hosted contact center, you can avoid upfront equipment and infrastructure costs. You can scale services with usage-based pricing as demand changes. You get access to the latest features and automatic software updates. These advantages add up to an affordable solution that yields a high return on your investment. 
• Accessibility: Hosted contact centers offer flexibility and accessibility. Your team can work securely, productively and remotely from anywhere without needing an on-site cubicle, desk or complicated hardware. Hosted contact centers also offer your business access to omnichannel capabilities, making support frictionless for your team and consumers. 
• Enhanced security: Data security is one of the best features of hosted contact centers. Service providers are specialists who can pinpoint any security concerns and protect consumer information. Hosted contact center solutions have built-in data compliance and disaster recovery features. They also offer real-time status updates to help you monitor your networks 24/7.

The Role of Technology in Hosted VoIP Call Centers

Hosted contact centers enable your organization to leverage the latest innovations and technology. You can benefit from:

• CRM system integration: Hosted call center solutions seamlessly integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) system, facilitating automated actions and omnichannel communication. This integration means that customer records are automatically displayed with incoming calls, providing context such as previous communications and purchase patterns. The integration also centralizes data across your system. 
• AI and automation: The hosted solution provides artificial intelligence (AI)-based automation. This automation optimizes team efficiency and helps you deliver exceptional customer support. Tools like conversational AI analyze interactions and learn from each encounter to improve operations. AI-powered automation reduces hold time, routes calls to the right agent every time and increases satisfaction ratings. 
• Analytics and reporting capabilities: Hosted call center solutions offer robust reporting capabilities. You can track and analyze performance over time and identify trends that will help you improve your customer support. You’ll be able to easily track call center metrics such as call volume and distribution, average handle time, average speed of answer, first call resolution and overall customer satisfaction. 

How Hosted Call Center Solutions Improve Customer Experience

Hosted solutions also outperform legacy systems in delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX). They provide:

• Personalized consumer interactions: A hosted call center solution lets your team deliver customized support. The system creates a unified profile for each customer so agents can see call history instantly. There’s no need for generic scripts—your agents can jump right into offering personalized service.
• Reduced wait times and boosted efficiency: Your team can handle calls more efficiently with a unified system. Hosted systems offer customers automated routing and self-service options, reducing your call queue length and the time users spend on hold.
• 24/7 accessibility and global reach: Hosted solutions are accessible to authorized team members from anywhere in the world at any time. All they need is internet and system access. Your contact centers don’t have to be restricted to local hours or time zones, giving customers anytime access to support.

Overcoming Challenges With Hosted Call Centers

Conventional call centers pose several challenges to your agents, customers and bottom line. Legacy technology can’t deal with disruption and growing consumer demands. To improve your contact center experience, you can:

• Choose a reputable hosted provider with a proven track record of reliability and first-rate data security.
• Maximize your channel capabilities with intent-based call routing, interactive voice response (IVR), AI-support tools and CRM integration.
• Train your teams on systems and policies.
• Monitor your hosted call center’s performance closely. 
• Review analytics and conduct quality reviews to improve systems and deliver feedback and training to agents.

Future Hosted Call Center Trends

When selecting a service provider, ensure the company leverages the latest technologies so you can remain competitive and agile. Trends suggest that contact centers must continue to:

• Integrate AI and machine learning.
• Expand virtual assistant capabilities.
• Evolve to meet consumer expectations.

See How Hosted Call Center Solutions From CSG Systems Can Help

CSG will empower your organization to improve its contact center experience through our award-winning solutions. We’re industry leaders, delivering the latest hosted call center solutions and technology to thousands of companies globally. We provide:

• Advanced routing and queuing: Our IVR system offers automated self-service options, using voice prompts or natural language interfaces to guide callers to the correct queue. This routing for simple queries frees live agents to address more complex support needs. CSG’s intelligent call routing can also direct callers to specific agents depending on configurable criteria. For example, you can route a caller who speaks a particular language to an agent who will understand. This advanced routing can help you segment voice traffic, improve response times and deliver delightful CX. 
• Multichannel support: Consumers want to communicate with you on the platform they prefer and be able to switch channels frictionlessly. They might get frustrated if they have to explain their problem (again!) every time they switch channels. This is where CSG comes in. Our host-based communication solution is flexible, automating multichannel support and offering self-service options to streamline assistance.
• Real-time monitoring and reporting: You can continuously optimize your contact center experience with live monitoring and reporting capabilities. You’ll gain insights you can use to enhance efficiency, implement operational improvements where necessary and deliver excellent customer and agent experiences.