They’re not in the board room, reviewing potential acquisitions at three-martini business lunches or jetting off to ITEXPO East with the rest of the IP communications world – but contact center agents often serve as the first company representative to interact with clients and potential clients, and statistics show that those interactions drive, and repel, new business.

 

In this down economy, the difference between driving and repelling new business could mean picking up market share or downsizing – worse yet, folding – amid this recession.

 

Certainly, the emphasis put on contact center agents in recent weeks reflects their growing importance.

 

We’ve read about one major airline’s decision to uproot its Indian operations because complaints from U.S. customers about the offshore outsourcing couldn’t be disguised by training the Indian agents to speak with American accents or giving them American names.

 

The United Kingdom’s leading energy supplier launched an effort to improve customer experience by deploying software that captures real-time feedback from callers – a technology that joins others – most notably interactive voice response, or “IVR” systems – as one cost-effective way to improve customer service.

 

Even with all that, other support models – such as online customer service communities – are emerging as contenders that some analysts say could replace the traditional contact center model.

 

Now, a new white paper from a Minneapolis-based provider of customer experience testing services for UC and contact center solutions touts the benefits of outsourced contact center solution testing.

 

In “Outsourced Contact Center Solution Testing: You Can’t Afford NOT to Do It” – available for download now in TMCnet’s White Paper Library – officials at Interactive Quality Services, Inc. – or IQ Services (News - Alert) – say that internal monitoring processes often are used to see if new technologies and components that make up their contact center solution are performing as expected.

 

“But if an issue shows up via internal monitoring, there is often no insight or evidence regarding the customer experience during the issue,” IQ Services says.

 

That’s where the company comes in.

 

The white paper discusses when is the right time to outsource the testing – and discusses specific criteria to help a company make its decision – and discusses benefits such as cost reduction, scalability and flexibility.

 

If you have a business where contact center success is important, download this white paper now.