Verizon partners with inContact

MANILA, Philippines - US communications and technology giant Verizon Communications Inc. has partnered with inContact, the leading provider of cloud contact center solutions, to offer an advanced suite of cloud-based virtual contact center services.

The innovative offering is expected to enable customers of businesses and government agencies to choose how they want to contact and interact with the organization. Its rich features provide customers an option of speaking with a live agent or requesting a call back if one is not immediately available. Customers could also use the Web for an online chat or to get answers to frequently asked questions.

Other features include:

• Special software that can recognize incoming callers and refer specific customers to agents with the appropriate level of expertise. This “first-call resolution” eliminates the need to transfer a customer from one agent to another, an often lengthy process that frustrates customers.

• Comprehensive agent desktop tools to help educate and prepare agents to field customer inquiries and resolve them quickly.

inContact, which built its Asia-Pacific headquarters at the Bonifacio Global City in the Philippines, provides the world’s largest cloud-based call center solutions, with over 800 call center deployments and is used by more than 60,000 agents globally.

The partnership between Verizon and inContact is expected to help accelerate the adoption of cloud-based customer contact solutions in the Philippines, India and other markets with strong contact center industries. Several technology research firms have already tagged 2012 as the year of cloud solutions.

Verizon, which is present in more than 100 countries including the Philippines, said that since virtual contact center solutions are cloud-based, there is no large upfront capital investment and they can be employed to augment and adjust existing customer service operations to more flexibly address changing business requirements.

Nine of the 10 largest banks in the US and many other world-class businesses rely on Verizon’s contact center solutions to strengthen their customer relationships.

“We’ve joined forces with inContact, after an extensive review of the players in the market, to build on our successful track record of developing and delivering innovative customer care solutions. This strategic agreement and latest offering are advancing Verizon’s strategy to deliver enterprise cloud solutions for multinational and government customers worldwide,” said Mike Palmer, vice president of enterprise strategy and marketing for Verizon.

Paul Jarman, inContact CEO, said bringing inContact’s award-winning cloud platform and deep experience with highly satisfied customers to Verizon’s world-class suite of Contact Center solutions will help accelerate cloud-based customer contact solution adoption.

“Together with Verizon’s global reach and world-class sales and service teams, we will be able to shape and meet the growing demand for these compelling and cost-effective customer-facing capabilities,” said Jarman.