CRM - June 2008 - (Page 34)

HOSTED CONTACT CENTERS of their business in-country, they can keep all activity primarily with one longdistance provider, which allows them to do a better job of controlling both the network and the application.” With analysts differing on just how mature the market is, how much longer before it really makes a splash? The problem with hype is that it sometimes ends up overselling itself, like the buildup (and rapid fall) of Snakes on a Plane or the 2007 New York Mets. But hype still needs an audience. As Kraus explains, “The largest obstacle for hosted contact center vendors right now is getting in the door to tell the story.” There is still an overall lack of education on the topic—and that’s shaping the story of the hosted contact center market. THE MARKET One benefit of the hosted model is that it can work basically anywhere.“There is no one particular vertical where the hosted contact center is gaining the most traction,” Kakodkar says.“We’re finding traction throughout all verticals.” While the market then won’t be pigeonholed into one niche vertical, the problem still lies in the size of the enterprise and the complexity of the contact center operation. SMBs seem to be picking up the hosted contact center much faster than large enterprises. Micky Thompson, chief information officer for Dawson McAllister Association, a nonprofit organization that deployed Interactive Intelligence’s hosted contact center automation solution, says there are benefits to SMBs going hard hosting decisions H aving any company take on a new CRM solution can be a potentially difficult undertaking, but in particular, convincing a company that it needs to switch from an on-premise contact center solution to a hosted model can get downright contentious, according to Chad Markle, a principal at Bridge Strategy Group, a Chicago-based consultancy. “The challenge in larger firms is taking into account the best interests of people who have staked their careers on a certain technology vendor’s premises equipment and software, and they come in every day to feed and care for it,” he explains. “Those people are being asked to make a decision regarding a hosted contact center, and you can imagine where their allegiances lie. As we get involved, we try to make sure all the facts are on the table and, in some cases, it is a bit of a challenge to make sure everybody looks at the decision as coldly and dispassionately as they need to.” The main point to keep in mind is that a hosted contact center will do nothing if it doesn’t fit within your business goals. “It’s like any decision executed well within a business,” Markle contends. “You have to understand fundamentally what your business strategy is and how you’re going to win in the marketplace. Once you’ve got that figured out as an organization, the next question will be ‘Is there a business case around hosted contact centers?’” Without a connection to your business model, the results could be disastrous. “We can’t emphasize the connection [to the business model] enough, because you won’t remember why you’re doing this when you get to implementation, which is tough,” Markle says. “You absolutely need to do that.” Once you’ve decided to implement a hosted offering, putting together the right team is essential. Markle suggests having the following: • adequate resources for the transition; • a clear connection to the vendor’s executive management in order to address any issues that arise; and • a common vision with the vendor for the deployment. Having these pieces in place is important for a successful implementation, Markle says. “It has to be a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship to be successful.” —CM hosted in the contact center, but the jury is still out for larger enterprises.“It works really great in small businesses, it’s almost a first go-to for [them],” he says. “Large companies have a benefit of scale, and it depends on whether that company is going to get enough scale so they can offset the opportunity cost that they’re going to lose by not going hosted.” While the SMB market for CRM applications and solutions is growing rapidly, it may take some large, marquee customers to really get the hosted contact center market off the ground as a widespread option. “There are opportunities here, but larger and more-complex contact centers that require a lot of customization and have to make regular changes to the systems—those aren’t really good candidates for hosted services,” Kraus says. “The truth is a lot of contact centers out there that have relatively low complexity and customization requirements, fairly stable environments, appear to be good matches for these kinds of services.” The verticals best served by a hosted model, he says, are those with fairly stable environments and low complexity, such as government and education. Complexity aside, large businesses may have other reservations about going with a hosted contact center—and that concern is translated into dollars, cents, and depreciation. “From the very large contact centers, we’ve been seeing some interest in hosted [models], but their legacy premise deployments can be a restraint for them to switch to hosted,” Kakodkar says. Chad Markle, a principal at Bridge Strategy Group, a consulting firm, says that for a large business that has already leveraged an on-premise contact center, the decision to switch to a hosted model can be a monumental one.“[Larger companies] that made a major investment in premises-based equipment [made] a major capital outlay,” Markle explains. “They had to develop skill sets and capabilities in IT, development, and customer service. It’s a big step to basically build up a call center—and so for those companies to consider a hosted contact center, it has to be a major change in the business model that would cause them to [switch], www.destinationCRM.com 34 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JUNE 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - June 2008

CRM - June 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Making Mashup Masterpieces Trouble in the Air CRM on Twitter Is SaaS Ready for Its Contact Center Close-up? CRM: In the Public Interest Required Reading Lollipop Loyalty Best Practices Series: CRM & eCommerce eGain NetSuite Infor Longwood Software Vovici The Second Coming of 2.0 Believe the Hype About Hosted Contact Centers All Talk So Hot It’s Cool Linksys Gets Shaken, a Community Is Stirred The Risky Risk Business Awana Hears a SaaS Sermon Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - June 2008

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