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Recently, Enghouse Interactive (News - Alert) sponsored a study that highlights the multiple advantages of implementing virtual and cloud-based call centers, besides simply freeing up vital resources.

The latest research from contact center industry analysts at ContactBabel (News - Alert) and sponsored by Enghouse Interactive has established that joining multi-site contact center operations together into a single 'virtual' contact center in the cloud has reduced queue times and problems associated by call spikes.

Entitled "The US Contact Center Decision-Makers’ Guide 2012", findings show that 71 percent of virtualized contact centers reported a decrease in queue lengths, with almost two-thirds also seeing a smoothing of call spikes.

"The economic crisis of the past few years has translated into generally low levels of investment in contact center technology. The results from this year’s survey show an industry-wide acknowledgment that IT systems require urgent improvement,” said Steve Morrell, survey's author, in a statement.

Morrell said that most businesses are currently looking into cloud-based solutions as an option that can often provide increased functionality with a favorable cost-structure.

“The results of the ContactBabel research strongly correlate with our own primary research and our experience with customers and partners,” JR Sloan, director of product management at Enghouse Interactive added. “Overall, the facts support that our commitment to providing virtual and cloud-based contact center solutions is well-founded.”

Enghouse Interactive delivers technology and expertise to maximize the value of every customer interaction.

Further, according to the survey working from home was seen to have increased once again as 42 percent of survey respondents now allow some agents to work outside the confinements of an office, with the overall number of mobile agents more than tripling since 2007.

The survey also revealed that 27 percent of multi-site contact centers have not virtualized their operations. Moreover, 68 percent of the users of cloud-based call center solutions said that they now had more powerful and flexible functionality, 63 percent experienced a lower cost of ownership and 66 percent said it was easier to freely make changes to the system.