White Papers

2008 US Contact Center Operational Review (Full Report)

"The US Contact Center Operational Review" is 300 pages in length, and looks in depth at salaries, attrition, training, multimedia, IP, self-service, strategies, outsourcing, planning and many other elements that are key to understanding how contact centers can best be run. Results have been segmented by industry sector and contact center size, so that readers can compare their own operations with those that are most similar.

If the whole 300 page report is more than you need right now, please feel free to download select individual chapters:

Consolidation 2.0
Consolidation Trends in Contact Center Technologies and Operations

Consolidation 2.0 is the latest and most effective call center consolidation strategy. It offers a wider range of favorable impacts than any of its predecessors. Its core concept is simple: to consolidate the many, diverse activities of the enterprise contact center on a single virtual platform that supports the global distribution of contact center agents.

Contact Center Consolidation

Download Aberdeen's Contact Center Consolidation Report

Aberdeen surveyed over 175 companies on the subject of Contact Center Consolidation. According to their new fact-based study, laggard and Industry Average firms are struggling to standardize support processes and consolidate contact center resources while Best-in-Class firms have focused on the adoption of specific technologies. Can contact center infrastructure technologies can be consolidated to provide consistent and accurate information while supporting distributed agents and applications? Read the report and see...

2007 US Contact Center Operational Review - IP and Call Handling

"The US Contact Center Operational Review", is a study of over 200 contact center operations carried out by ContactBabel in association with the American Teleservices Association (ATA). Figures in the IP and Call Handling section of the survey point to the use of IP within the contact center as being very much a thing of the here-and-now, rather than another possibility for the future. Moving contact center operations to an open IP environment should be seen as a strategic enabler, rather than just an obvious cost-cutting exercise. It is very difficult to put a number on the really important pieces, which are the business functionality improvements, but over time these will be far more important than short-term costs or savings that are associated with IP.

The Virtual Call Center: Implementing a Distributed Agent Strategy

Download Aberdeen's Virtual Call Center Benchmark Report

In a recent Aberdeen survey of 150 companies, underwritten in part by CosmoCom, it was found that over 35% of Best in Class (BIC) companies currently have seen a greater than 10% improvement in customer satisfaction upon implementation of remote agents. BIC companies highlighted the need to increase efficiency and reduce costs as the top pressure for implementing remote agents.

Outbound Campaigns, Predictive Dialing, Agent Productivity, and Compliance

Legacy predictive dialers were designed when nuisance calls were unlimited. These dialers can comply with recent regulations limiting nuisance calls, but they cannot do so while maintaining the agent productivity gains that justify their existence in the first place. This white paper explains why lab tests and real life experience differ dramatically for legacy dialers, and why CosmoDialer, designed from the ground up for agent productivity with compliance, gives you more of what you are paying for in a predictive dialer.

Contact Center On-Demand for Service Providers
The Reasons Behind a Changing Industry
(3rd Edition - Abridged Version updated February 2006)

Many NSPs recognize that, in order to survive, they must transform their businesses from merely providing commodity transport services to providing more sophisticated telecom services that offer more value and create more differentiation. As on-demand delivery of software-based solutions (SaaS, or Software as a Service) gains favor, it makes sense for network service providers to offer their contact center customers on-demand solutions. After all, on-demand services are, in essence, network-based services. Who better than NSPs to offer them? And where better than contact centers to begin?

Contact Center On-Demand for Enterprises
Business is Changing. Can Your Contact Center Change With It?

The business world is adopting an on-demand model, and for a very good reason: the business environment is changing faster and becoming more unpredictable. And if the contact center is an important part of your business, it will have to fit the on-demand model of design for change. Whatever challenge you face: reorganization, spin-off, M&A, outsourcing or off-shoring, you need to build flexibility into your call center infrastructure. You need Contact Center On-Demand, or “CCOD”.

This white paper identifies winning strategies that will help the telecom customer care manager provide better and more consistent service, and reduce operating costs at the same time.

Using Microsoft Technology to Build Carrier Grade Call Centers.
(An independent white paper by Microsoft featuring CosmoCom technology - June 2004)

In this white paper, Microsoft holds up CosmoCall Universe as an example of a Carrier Grade platform implemented with MS technology. The paper describes how CosmoCom leverages Microsoft server technology, including network load balancing and cluster services, to architect a true carrier class, multi-tenant contact center platform designed from the ground up for the high capacity, high availability requirements of the service provider market. According to Microsoft, CosmoCom has implemented Carrier Grade technology with unprecedented cost-effectiveness, thus supporting a very compelling business case and ROI for the service provider.

Evolving To New Generation Call Centers
Strategies for Integrating IP-Based and Legacy Call Center Technologies

Integrating legacy and Internet call centers within a single new generation ACD system enables businesses to bridge the gap between circuit-switched call centers and new generation technology, capturing the benefits of multimedia contact and unified queuing, while leveraging prior investments in earlier technologies. Several alternative approaches exist, and each has its strengths and weaknesses as outlined in this paper. Among the alternatives outlined, one of them is probably the right fit for most situations. Thus, existing legacy call center operations need not hesitate to invest in new generation IP-based contact center platforms. Service Providers too can make benefits of these platforms available in ways that blend harmoniously with current technology and provide smooth evolution paths from today's largely circuit-based world to the predominant IP infrastructure of the future.

Modern, state-of-the-art, IP-based customer contact solutions, such as CosmoCall Universe, afford the Teleservices Outsourcer many advantages over traditional, circuit-switched telephony systems. This white paper details new areas of business made available to Teleservices Outsourcers by the adoption of IP-based, multimedia customer contact technology.

Alternatives To Intelligent Call Routing
A Critical Comparison of Multi-Location Call Center Methods

Over time, many enterprises have created multiple call centers in diverse locations, either as a result of deliberate decisions to decentralize, or through mergers and acquisitions. Now such organizations are realizing that there are substantial efficiencies to be gained from operating these distributed centers as a single logical call center. Historically, this requirement has been met through Intelligent Call Routing (ICR) products that leverage the telephone network and its advanced intelligent network features. This white paper describes in detail the driving requirements for unifying multi-location call centers, and presents an alternative to the ICR method. This alternative is now available in new IP-based contact centers such as CosmoCall Universe. Using the SEHC-C approach defined in another CosmoCom white paper, "Evolving to New Generation Call Centers" , the IP contact center can be configured to unify disparate legacy call centers in multiple locations around its new-generation technology, while simultaneously upgrading the capabilities of all agents to full universal access capabilities.

What can mobile operators do to stem the tide of margin erosion associated with selling commodity transport services? One important solution is to provide new high-margin value-added services to mobile business users, who have unique needs that are ideally served out of the mobile network. Value-added services help to attract lucrative business users by providing these customers with solutions that are differentiated on value, not on price. Such services increase customer loyalty and thereby reduce the churn that is endemic in the industry.

One group to target for such services is the mobile work group. Mobile workers operate in a workplace that is frequently “on the move” – hourly or daily. They often can provide coverage for one another to service their clients’ needs. A typical example is a group of field support specialists that services computers, appliances, or other products that are located on customer sites. Real estate agents comprise another group that can benefit from such a service. This paper explores the special needs of the mobile business, what a mobile carrier needs to do to meet these needs, and how the carrier can benefit greatly in the process.

Business Continuity in the Contact Center
How Cost-Effective, Reliable IP Technology Can Be the Answer

The tragic and unprecedented events of September 11, 2001 have forced us all to focus more on where our society and our businesses can be vulnerable. But business continuity planning is also important, to guard against the kind of smaller scale emergencies and incidents with which we have always been familiar. The inherent resiliency of IP technology makes it well suited to deal with network outages as well as sudden spikes in load, and should be a central part of any business continuity effort. The IP contact center, now more than six years old, has matured and come of age. Not only is it an excellent solution for business continuity in the contact center but over time, it is also expected to replace legacy circuit-switched call center technology altogether. This white paper explores how deploying IP technology for business continuity in the contact center now is an ideal way for contact center managers to begin the migration path to the IP contact center, while enjoying the cost savings and advancements in functionality that this technology brings in the meantime.

Network-based hosted call centers help businesses meet the growing demand for multi-media access to their call centers without the capital investment and operational challenges of building and operating their own system. For the service provider, this demand presents an excellent opportunity to offer revenue-generating applications that attract and retain customers to their other communication services. But how can service providers ensure their customers the flexibility, control, and security they need to run their businesses, while at the same time generating profits for themselves?

This white paper, by the Robert Frances Group, explores the new-generation contact center, based on Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity, as a solution poised for rapid success in the global call center marketplace. The IP Contact Center delivers immediate user benefits at a lower price point than traditional centers. IT executives looking to install a new center or upgrade an existing call center complex should give IP-based contact centers serious consideration.

The white papers below are archival in nature.

While some of the specific information within them may be somewhat dated, conceptually they still hold up today. The papers themselves are important references within the history of CosmoCom and the evolution of modern contact center technology in general. Even though some of the concepts and technologies described within have advanced beyond our expectations, they show how CosmoCom was, and still is, at the forefront of contact technology.

Industry Report: Are eTailers Ready for the 2000 Holiday Shopping Season?
…or Will the Grinch Steal Their Customers and Sales?

This second annual survey of 200 online retailers found that far too many websites have not recognized, much less met, the need for anything more than rudimentary customer service. Of the sites surveyed, only 24 had any real-time customer interaction capabilities. With their competition just one click away, eTailers have little margin for error in providing customers an effortless, integrated interaction. The authors contend that website customer service differentiation is a key competitive weapon in the growing eCommerce economy.
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Open Telecommunications - Replacing Today’s Proprietary Corporate Telecommunications Infrastructure With Open, Standards-Based Systems

The telecommunications infrastructure market represents the next major growth opportunity for the Computer Telephony industry. Consisting almost exclusively of closed, proprietary hardware and software solutions, this market is expected to be transformed as a result of two industry trends. First is the growing adoption of open, standards-based solutions, which bring interoperability, lower costs and the rich development environment of third-party software developers. Second is the evolving convergence of voice and data communications. Read this report by FAC Equities.
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The Evolution of Call Center Technology In the Internet Age

The Internet has emerged in a new wave of electronic commerce, one built on computer-based self-service. However, there is an increasing recognition that self-service alone is not enough -- that good old-fashioned personal customer service remains an important factor in the success of any business. If Internet-based business is going to provide such service on any scale, it is clear that something like today’s call center is an important part of the solution. But what is the technology to support this requirement?
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Customer Relationship Management in the Internet Age

Much of business today is conducted between people who have never met before and are likely never to meet again, and who experience each other only as disembodied telephone voices. Beginning with the development of Interactive Voice Response systems and specialized kiosks (mainly ATMs) as a means of self-service, and continuing now with the tremendous growth of Web-based self-service, there is a movement toward business without any live personal communication at all. What does the phrase "customer relationship" mean in this kind of a world?
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The Benefits to E-Business of Live Internet Customer Care

Everyone knows the Internet economy is big -- very big -- already, and expected to get much, much bigger. If we want to understand what is driving this growth, we have to examine at least two main factors. First, the Internet clearly provides a whole new medium of instant global communication at a cost we couldn’t have dreamt of a few years ago. But a second very important driver in this revolution is the whole concept of "self-service."
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