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If you've ever watched the process of equipping and launching a contact center, you will have noticed a few things: First, it was very expensive and required a lot of new hardware and software, mostly from different vendors. Second, it was a nightmare to integrate all those multi-vendor solutions. Third, it took a very long time. Finally, once the call center was equipped, it was cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive to manage and had all the flexibility of a steel girder.

But it generally did what you wanted it to, as long as you and a team of others put a great deal of time, effort and cash into it on an ongoing basis. Maybe, though, you found after the fact that you didn't like one component of the solution: perhaps the CRM component, or maybe the call recording. That was too bad: your organization had just spend five or six figures (or seven?) on the solution – on hardware, software, licenses, integration and professional services – so you were stuck with it for the rest of its useful life...or longer, if its life ended during a tight budget year. If your organization had multiple sites, you had to repeat these steps as many times as necessary...and then integrate all those systems across your multiple sites.

Is this a bad plot that sounds familiar? If it does, then it's likely you'll find many of today's cloud-based call center solutions to be an utter revelation. Not only are they flexible, scalable, affordable and immediately deployable, they are also customizable.

San Francisco-based LiveVox (News - Alert) offers a complete call center platform that integrates a number of core call center applications, such as ACD with screen pop, an easy to configure Web-based IVR, a dialer (with both state and federal compliance management built-in), customer relationship management and 100 percent call recording, both inbound and outbound. Best of all, it deploys all these functions from the cloud, leaving your call center with an easy-to-manage Web-based solution – minus the hardware, software and integration. Users can create custom data integration and screen pops, and generate on-demand IVR and reporting data. Best of all, cloud-based call center solutions can be deployed over multiple sites, and offer instant “warm” transfers between call center locations – brick and mortar or virtual – anywhere in the world.

In addition to saving time, money and frustration, contact centers can gain the following:

-A cut in capital outlay by about 90 percent compared to premise-based hardware/software solutions;

-A reduction of 95 percent in the time it takes to deploy the solution;

-A decrease in abandoned calls by 80 percent; and

-An increase in agent talk time by 30 to 50 percent.

Cloud-based call center solutions can also reduce operating expenses, reduce or eliminate the need for internal IT personnel (since there is no hardware or software required), do away with the headaches brought by difficult or impossible integration between multi-vendor solutions, eliminate the high costs of licenses and professional services, and increase cost efficiencies over TDM or hybrid VoIP solutions. In addition, call centers pay for only what they use, and can scale up or down as needed to meet cyclical call volumes.

Think of it as a cure for the common call center.

For more information about LiveVox's cloud-based call center solution, visit www.livevox.com.