Call centres ?need legacy makeover'

ORGANISATIONS building call centres face their biggest challenge over the integration of legacy applications, according to industry analyst Ovum, writes Steve Ranger.

Speaking at the Voice Europe 98 conference last week Ovum senior consultant David Bradshaw said the integration of legacy systems is a key need. But this is a task that has foxed most organisations, according to research published at the show.

Call centre consultancy Merchants Group said call centres are a rapidly growing area. The number of calls handled by call centres is growing by 35% a year, and the number of agents have risen by a quarter.

However, Merchants Group found few users had integrated old and new systems closely ? 69% of call centres agents must switch between different applications or screens.

Bradshaw said integration is vital if businesses are to offer a fast and smooth level of service. Call centre transactions must feed legacy databases so data can be used by other parts of an organisation.

Bradshaw said the next step for heavy users of call centres, such as banks, is to use staff in branches as call centre agents. They could help by taking calls when the branch is quiet but the call centre is busy.

Products launched at Voice Europe 98 include Siemens? Risumi-Routing, which creates a profile of each caller from its database and automatically routes the call to the appropriate agent .

Digi also unveiled Netblazer 8500 IP telephony gateway, which it claimed can provide cheaper calls because voice traffic can be run across data lines.