Hosted IVR

July 21, 2012

TMCnet Hosted IVR Week in Review

By Erin Harrison
Executive Editor, Cloud Computing

As the world of voice technology continues to expand and evolve from legacy to hosted systems, it’s essential to understand how you can optimize your business with voice recognition, speech analytics by applying hosted IVR to your call or contact center. Needless to say, businesses need to examine their IVR services for improved performance in this ever-changing CRM space.

A lot has been happening this week in the hosted IVR industry, so let’s jump right into it, shall we?

Voxware (News - Alert) has concluded a Series B round of funding, which consisted of an alternative for added investment in the future. Current investors have pledged additional funds in this round of investment – a testament to Voxware’s success and the expansion opportunities offered by the voice technology market, according to company officials. For details on this hosted IVR round of funding, click here.

With the proliferation of mobile devices and mobile applications, businesses continue to hone in on regulatory compliance concerns with CIOs looking to ensure accountability, first and foremost.

Authentication experts at StrikeForce Technologies, Inc. and software developers at TradeHarbor have teamed up to offer a “three-factor” voice verification service intended to meet compliance regulations by combining three critical factors – who you are, what you have and what you know – over a mobile device, TMCnet reported.

The three-factor voice verification is ideal for industries that are most vulnerable to hackers, including banking, financial services, healthcare, online retail, government agencies, pharmaceuticals, public sector organizations, education, energy and construction facilities. For more on this new product, click here.

Businesses of all sizes are increasingly looking to move their call center operations to the cloud, in a bid to take advantage of the increasingly large number of benefits associated with it. But what are these benefits, more specifically? There may be a substantial number of them, but can they be quantified, and reasonably expressed? They can indeed, and that's what we'll take a look at right now.

A cloud-based call center offers some substantial benefits in terms of costs. Not only does a hosted call center require little in the way of equipment – the service provider offers most of the equipment on their own premises – but this same stance also more easily allows users to upscale their cloud presence as needed.

Many cloud providers offer tiered pricing, which in turn allows businesses to select the package best commensurate with their needs and their budgets alike. To read about the benefits of cloud-based call centers and hosted IVR, click here.

For more Hosted IVR news, be sure to visit TMCnet again next week for all the latest developments.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.

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