Video calling is hardly news. Products like Facetime for the iPhone have been around since 2011 and going back even further Microsoft Netmeeting provided video calling in 1998 – almost 20 years ago!
Until recently, the contact center industry has not made much effort to incorporate video calling. There are a number of reasons for this delay. Firstly, video calling creates significant bandwidth requirements – the bandwidth required for a good quality video call can be five to ten times more than a voice call. Secondly, video calling software has been proprietary. For example, you cannot talk from Skype to Facetime, or from Google to Whatsapp. Standards exist for voice calling but not video calling, so understandably, contact centers have stuck with voice.
Bandwidth problems are being overcome. Clever encoding of the video stream means that the bandwidth required for a video call is now less, and the ever-expanding Internet is bringing ever broader internet connections to call centres. As for the challenge of differing systems being integrated; the rise of WebRTC has made this less complicated. A simple web browser has become the means to send and receive a stream of video between two computers regardless of platform.
However, these have not been the only barriers to adoption. There is also a cultural one. Many people are uncomfortable with video calls, for some it feels a bit too intrusive. Others may feel a bit shy and they don’t like to be caught on camera unawares. This cultural challenge is unlikely to last long thanks to social media. In particular, those that utilise video such as Snapchat have made us more comfortable with appearing on other people’s screens. For those who are still shy; there’s no need for video to flow in both directions, it could just be the contact center agent that is visible to the customer, not vice versa.
Video calling is definitely coming and in some industries it is already here. Industries such as healthcare and insurance have been quick to realise the benefits of seeing a video of the other party on a call. For example, healthcare providers are using video to look at bodily afflictions and insurers to view dents in the paintwork of a car. It’s easy to see other benefits too. A friendly face appearing on the screen can help the caller establish stronger rapport with an agent, and also give that agent more credibility. Providing visual cues in a call makes for much better communication between two parties.
In our next blog we will explore how video can help build up trust.
What We Offer
Sytel Limited develops and supplies Softdial Contact Center® (SCC) – multimedia, multichannel, fully blended cloud contact center solutions.
Available by subscription as CCaaS, fully managed and supported by Sytel, or for quick and easy deployment by partners and enterprise users.
All Sytel cloud components are secure, resilient and scale seamlessly from 10 agents to 10,000+, whether local, mobile or remote.
Flexible Contact Center Software
Softdial Contact Center™ – rich functionality, all-in-one, designed to deliver at scale
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Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)
CCaaS for subscribers – global service, with no upfront costs
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Contact Center Platform – CCaaS Partners
Build your own CCaaS business using the power and flexibility of Sytel software
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Contact Center Platform – Enterprise
High performance platform to drive contact center productivity – cloud, on-premise or hybrid
Blended Media Desktop
Fully customisable, multi-channel, multi-session workspace
Work Anywhere
Browser-based tools, no software installation required
Customise, Localise, White Label
Design all user interfaces to individual requirements
Integration via APIs
‘Swap out’ components and integrate with 3rd party apps
World Class Development
Continuous evolution pushing technical boundaries
Capabilities
Softdial Contact Center™ (SCC) is designed to be flexible, extensible and scalable, integrating with any legacy equipment, and meeting the most complex of requirements.
All Media Channels
Voice, chat, email, social, etc – fully integrated and blended
Agent Multi-Tasking
Work with multiple live contact sessions of any media channel
Dynamic Workforce Management
Optimise agent usage and balance workloads in real-time without human intervention, across all media channels
Predictive Dialing
Best-of-breed performance under compliance
Optimised Inbound Routing
Smart rules and ‘best-available’ decisions to drive great customer service
Agent Scripts
Help agents achieve and maintain excellence
Voice and Screen Recording
See and hear exactly how agents are interacting
Analytics and Data Feeds
Measure and evaluate performance at every level
IVR, Bots & Conversational AI
Design effective automated flows or integrate with 3rd party providers
Customer Journey Tracking
Stored customer contact history, to aid routing and add context to conversations
Modules
Drive operational efficiency, increase customer satisfaction & improve agent performance
Softdial One™
Highly flexible unified web UI for agents, supervisors and administrators
Softdial Scripter™
Create complex process flow scripts for agents, IVR, chatbots and other applications
Sytel AI Dialer™
Maximum predictive dialing performance, under any compliance rules
Softdial Pathfinder™
Precise routing rules for ‘best available’ connection
Softdial Media Server™
Core telephony functions to manage all inbound/outbound SIP calls
Softdial Reporter™ 5
Fully customisable performance stats, charts and reports, across all channels
Softdial Publisher™
Comprehensive data output to build your own reports
Softdial Recording Monitor™
Audio and screen recording of agent activity to ensure the highest standards
Softdial Campaign Manager™
Automation to optimise any outreach strategy
Softdial Repository™
Central storage and configuration of common resources
Sytel Global Compliance™
Flexible ‘no contact’ rules to protect contact center and consumer
Solutions
Performance and efficiency for a wide range of business applications
By Business Type
Enterprise
A full featured contact center software solution, designed for optimum performance at scale
Small/ Medium Business
Options for SMBs to subscribe to our full-featured cloud service managed and hosted by either one of our partners or by Sytel themselves
By Industry
Customer Service
Connect quickly to well equipped agents
Market Research
Best-of-breed predictive dialing with CATI integration
Debt Collection
Automated inbound/ outbound blending integrated with any debt management app
Sales & Telemarketing
Maximise agent productivity with best-of-breed predictive dialing
Healthcare
Secure, highly-configurable multichannel communications for excellence in patient care