It will enable organisations to optimise their contact centre resources, responding immediately to peaks and troughs in consumer demand.
Businesses will no longer need to make a capital investment in premises-based contact centre infrastructure. Instead, the new hosted 'pay-as-you-go' service means capacity and geographic location can be flexed in a cost-efficient manner, with the necessary technology accessible as consumer demands change.
Tom Craig, President IP Networking, BT Global Services, said: "BT Avaya OnNet will be of particular benefit to financial services, retailers and utility companies, who experience significant seasonal demand. Outsourcers, as well, need to flex depending on the volume of contracts being managed at any one time. Organisations will be able to provide more resource at specific times, without the need for up-front capital expenditure.
"Historically, this has been a considerable problem for businesses, struggling to find a balance between having the right amount of contact centre resource and keeping the business cost-effective. You can bring in additional workers on contract when demand rises - but enabling them with additional necessary equipment has been another matter entirely. As contact centre strategies rapidly evolve from a model based on capital expenditure to one based on operational expenditure, the flexibility offered by OnNet is crucial."
The new service will play a key role in the 'virtual' future of contact centre strategy. Employees anywhere in the business can be tasked to help manage customer contact. Whether they work within the contact centre, the branch or at home, consistent levels of operation and service will be possible.
Morag Lucey, VP Marketing EMEA at Avaya, said: "This offering moves us one significant step further away from the view of contact centres being big buildings in isolated locations and towards one of networked, 'virtual' contact centres across smaller sites or even at home. Combinined with the rise of presence-based technology, intelligent routing is possible ensuring the person with the right expertise and language capabilities answers the call. This enables organisations to think more laterally about how they manage their customer service and helps them enhance it."
The solution is targeted at customers who have multiple sites or a distributed estate. The customer will typically have more than 750 seats across their operation and may have sites in different countries or regions.