Business Challenges

Two major trends have emerged in Contact Centers over the last few years. One is the advent of standards-based IP telephony to consolidate/centralize infrastructure and applications, reduce management costs and reduce the dependency on a single equipment vendor. The other is the increased reliance on home and remote agents to benefit from a more cost effective and flexible workforce, which can contribute at fl exible hours, without incurring difficulties associated with commuting time and costs.

The migration of a Contact Center to an IP infrastructure is often a project that occurs over multiple phases. Typically, one or two sites are identified to be converted first, and then the roll-out progresses slowly toward the smaller remote sites and home agents. The business case for integrating the smaller sites with existing key systems as well as home agents into the general IP infrastructure is very compelling, but the logistics of deploying quality VoIP networks or endpoints to these locations make it very difficult to move quickly, reliably and cost effectively.

Solution

NetBorder Agent Bridge solution enables remote agents, whether they would be at a remote site behind a legacy PBX or at home using their regular phone service, to place a call into the IP Contact Center in order to be registered into the local IP agent pool. NetBorder keeps the agents on a dedicated connection to their remote location on one end while presenting the agent as an IP endpoint on the local network. Agents are then bridged in and out of conversations with end customers as calls get routed to them. The NetBorder Agent Bridge solution includes agent login/authentication capabilities, as well as talk and hold support from desktop clients. The Agent Bridge solution can also be used in conjunction with the NetBorder Call Analyzer for high performance outbound contact centers.