This article originally appeared in the July issue of Internet Telephony magazine.

Grid computing has been around and debated for long enough for it to have earned the right to be a real and viable function, but what is the benefit of a Grid of people? It is probably safe to assume that people employed to act as processors of information in call centers are engineered to be working and productive 100% of the time, but that it is unlikely that it happens that way. The main reason why they would be engineered to do so is that they are an expense to the company, but also a key component in the revenue stream especially if there is a sales element to their daily functions. Therefore, productivity is directly related to keeping costs down, but also driving revenue.

 
Given that fact all previous efforts to maximize productivity of call center agents in a physical site have been limited to that site and its direct employees. The methods of improvement have been based largely on the voice and data system in the local site. The focus is on how it handles call flow and time spent on each interaction with reporting tools and tight integration between the voice and data systems that feed the information that drives the session. This approach does not take in to consideration other call center sites and agents that may be sitting idle and could potentially take on overflow traffic. That functionality would require some additional steps and expanded focus, but it would drive productivity, cost savings and revenue in a completely new and different way.
 
The first step in harnessing the power of people as processors is to connect a single company’s own centers. A common IP platform based on an Open Source program with a layer 2 network (preferably Ethernet, but clear-channel TDM will work) connecting the different locations is the cleanest and easiest architecture. Imagine Asterisk (News - Alert) for the call center. Behind the server and the standard operating system and application interface would be IP terminals consisting of phones and screens that could seamlessly tie the voice and data systems together. With this model nothing needs to be riding over the Internet which adds inherent security to the network for those organizations that need that level of quality and predictability for their clients.
 
This way builds better, more scalable systems for a single call center company, but also builds a path to the future interoperability and sharing of resources with other call centers. It is this method that will open up the potential for a grid of call center agents that could manage over flow and specialty services that are targeted for the perfect customer-agent pairings. Creating that capability would increase productivity and revenues in ways never before possible.
 

Hunter Newby, Chief Strategy Officer and Director of a special purpose acquisition corporation in the communications industry, writes the VoIPeering column for TMCnet To read more of Hunter’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Greg Galitzine


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