Companies can now run their entire customer service business in the clouds using NewVoiceMedia’s solution integrated with the Service Cloud: No software, no hardware and no-hassles.

22 September, Basingstoke, UK – At Call Centre Expo 2009, NewVoiceMedia introduced a hosted contact centre solution that is integrated into the Service Cloud, the next generation customer service application from salesforce.com.

With this solution, SMEs can now deploy the same Caller-Centric capabilities in their contact centre that have only been available to the world’s largest organizations up to now.

All of this is delivered using cloud computing, a revolutionary new technology delivery model that allows companies to access applications over the Internet without having to buy, install or maintain hardware or software.

NewVoiceMedia’s telephony capabilities are embedded directly into the console that customer service agents use with the Service Cloud, giving agents a single, easy to use interface to manage their calls and cases. To help manage the contact centre, supervisors can set-up call plans and graphically review real-time statistics for individual agents and the contact centre as a whole.

When a call comes in, the agent is instantly presented with the caller’s contact details including their call history, purchasing profiles, and even any call recordings held on file. To help route the right call to the right agents, customer data held in salesforce.com is used to intelligently route inbound calls using skills-based routing scenarios. The intelligent routing rules can also route calls to the same agent to provide continuity of service; use value-based routing that recognises that callers are in different stages of a buying process; prioritise VIPs in any queue; or provide individual caller treatments such as targeted messaging to cross-sell and up-sell.

According to NewVoiceMedia CEO, Jonathan Grant, “This development enables contact centres of any size to take advantage of the advanced CTI capabilities that were only available to the largest call centres.” Surveys show that only 20% of companies currently take advantage of the benefits of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). Previously a company had to invest £50,000 or more in software and wait months for an army of system integrators to get everything to work. Now the same capability can be deployed in a matter of days for a low monthly fee starting from £25 per agent.

Tim Barker, EMEA Product Marketing Director at salesforce.com, added “Ten years ago, salesforce.com set out to transform the CRM market by using the power of the Internet to deliver business applications in the Cloud. Today, over 60,000 companies use Salesforce CRM to run their customer service, sales and marketing operations. This integration extends the 80+ CTI integrations available on the Force.com AppExchange, with a pure cloud-based offering that helps companies manage their costs and their customers.”