For years, call centers have been the primary method for customers to interface with a company. All of us have used call centers, whether for ordering shoes, disputing a cable bill or pleading with a credit card company for a lower interest rate.

1. GUIDE TO PURCHASING A PHONE
SYSTEM FOR YOUR CALL CENTER
A STEP-BY-STEP PRIMER TO HELP YOU SELECT THE RIGHT SOLUTION
FOR YOUR SMALL TO MIDSIZE BUSINESS

2. GUIDE TO PURCHASING THE RIGHT PHONE SYSTEM FOR YOUR CUSTOMER CONTACT CENTER
2 | MITEL WHITEPAPER
Today, the presence of contact centers in the marketplace
is vast and horizontal in nature. Products and services are
more complex and customer expectations are greater than
ever before.
Contact centers exist in all shapes and sizes, from small and
informal, to large, multisite, sophisticated enterprises.They
span numerous industries, including hospitality, education,
government, financial, manufacturing, retail and healthcare.
As a result, the ability to manage operational efficiencies
while ensuring high-quality customer service has become a
tremendous challenge. But do you need specialized contact
center software? Will it be worth the money? In short,
yes. Every company has something to gain by enhancing
customer interactions through the use of contact center
software. Once seen as cost centers, contact centers are
now viewed as revenue centers where superior customer
service can greatly influence buying decisions, maintain
customer loyalty and directly affect a company’s bottom line.
Consider the perils of not having the right system in place.
With today’s prevalence of social media, one bad experience
with your contact center could yield detrimental results
in a matter of hours. But customers who have positive
experiences with your call center are much more likely to
choose your company again and again.
Regardless of size, any contact center can benefit from the
proper call-handling solution with:
• Enhanced customer satisfaction. By delivering
higher-caliber service through the medium of their
choice, you bolster customer relationships and mitigate
dissatisfaction.
• Improved retention. The cost of agent turnover is
staggering; the average cost to recruit and train an
agent ranges between $8,000 and $12,000, depending
on the industry. Most studies report annual turnover of
25 to 40 percent.
• Increased agent productivity. By allowing
representatives to have relevant customer data at their
fingertips, call times are reduced and sales opportunities
can be maximized.
If your contact center communications platform doesn’t
have sophisticated call handling features or offer the
ability for customers to contact you in the method of
their choosing, you should consider upgrading in order to
maximize your business potential.This primer will help you
navigate the products on the market so you can select the
one that will best suit your needs.
STEP 1: UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE
RIGHT CONTACT CENTER SOLUTION
For years, call centers have been the primary method for customers to interface with a company. All of us have
used call centers, whether for ordering shoes, disputing a cable bill or pleading with a credit card company for
a lower interest rate.
And while the types of requests haven’t changed much in the past several years, contact centers themselves have.
Choosing the right contact center solution is critical to your
firm’s profitability because it lets you strengthen customer
relationships and boost operational efficiency while
protecting the bottom line.
Your contact center doesn’t have to be huge to have
sophisticated requirements. Many contact centers are
relatively small, yet still handle a high number of calls.
They need comprehensive tools that facilitate customer
relationships beyond call-handling times and abandon rates.
No matter your size or industry, it’s important that your
contact center solution help you:
• Spot call trends by cataloguing what is happening
during calls and reporting it in such a way that you can
maximize operations.
• Build an effective team by equipping employees
with the tools they need to deliver efficient and effective
customer service.
• Empower your customers by serving them through
the communication method of their choice, managing
their expectations and delivering on promises.
• Optimize contact center productivity by

3. GUIDE TO CHOOSING THE RIGHT PHONE SYSTEM FOR YOUR CUSTOMER CONTACT CENTER | 3
enabling agents to handle calls quickly and efficiently,
and enabling supervisors to monitor, maintain and
continually improve processes.
• Create flexibility by integrating seamlessly with
existing infrastructure and deploying reliably within a
single site or across multiple sites.
STEP 2: IDENTIFY WHICH TYPE OF CONTACT
CENTER YOU HAVE
STEP 3: ASSESS YOUR NEEDS
Before you can select a solution, you need to identify the
type of contact center your organization has.What was once
a small team of agents handling simple inbound phone calls
has now evolved into several different types of operations:
CALL CENTER
Departments that primarily focus on inbound phone calls,
though the role of the agents has changed dramatically
to include order taking, upselling and cross-selling.
Additionally, some call centers today are tasked with
outbound phone calls, such as telemarketing and lead
qualification.
CONTACT CENTER
Today, many customers prefer to communicate with the
companies they do business with through alternate, more
convenient channels. Multichannel contact centers, also
referred to as customer interaction centers, provide “self-
serve” mechanisms for customers via the Web, and make
agents available through multiple channels such as email,
Web chat, SMS texting and social media.
“VIRTUAL” CONTACT CENTER
Unlike traditional contact centers where a large team of
agents reside in the same location and are managed by
an on-site supervisor, virtual contact centers may consist
of smaller teams of geographically dispersed agents
working from headquarters, branch offices, remote offices
or from their homes.This type of contact center is typically
highly resilient, and has the advantage of being centrally
administered despite the distributed agent architecture.
A contact center solution is a critical investment that you,
your employees and your customers will rely upon every
day for years to come. Before you sign a contract, take the
necessary time to review your needs to ensure you make an
informed decision that will serve you now and in the future.
Here’s a checklist to guide you in assessing your needs
when it comes to a contact center solution:
• Ask yourself how your customers want to
interact with you. Your customers, especially the
tech-savvy ones, don’t necessarily want to talk to you
by phone.They would prefer to email, text or Web chat
you. Even if your current contact center only conducts
business by phone, make sure you choose a system with
these capabilities so you can evolve with the market.
• Choose a unified solution. In order to be most
effective, contact center software applications must
seamlessly link to existing telephony systems and to one
another.
• Go for virtual support. Virtual contact centers are
becoming increasingly popular because they have the
capability to support agents anywhere. If your call center
consists of agents who work in dispersed locations, or
if you plan to move to a virtual call center model in the
future, you’ll need contact center software that fully
supports your operations.
• Leverage workforce optimization. Does your
organization need to score agents after you have
recorded their phone calls? Would you like the option to

4. GUIDE TO PURCHASING THE RIGHT PHONE SYSTEM FOR YOUR CUSTOMER CONTACT CENTER
4 | MITEL WHITEPAPER
coach agents in real time during calls? Do you want the
ability to record calls and as well as what’s displaying
on agents’ screens during the calls? Then you’ll want
software that offers such functionality.
• Plan for growth. According to Forrester Research Inc.’s
Forrsights Q1 2013 Networks and Telecommunication
Survey, more than 51 percent of businesses with 50
current contact center seats plan to grow within the next
12 months.And 45 percent of firms are planning for
upgrades.You should, too.
• Gain comprehensive reporting. Organizations want
access to flexible, real-time and historical reporting that
provides contact center supervisors with the information
they need, when they need it, to manage more
effectively.
STEP 4: FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH AVAILABLE
FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY
There are a wide variety of applications on the market
today that enhance the myriad aspects of contact center
management. Some of the most common are:
INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE (IVR)
With an IVR system, companies can automate routine
inquiries, such as requests for account balances or questions
about the status of orders, so agents are free to address
more complex problems.
Customers use touch-tone phones to make a request such
as entering an account or order number, which is then sent
directly to a database where information is pulled and
spoken back to the customer using prerecorded phrases or
text-to-speech technology.
Many IVR systems also offer speech recognition capabilities
for additional convenience, as well as survey functionality
to gather feedback from customers after an interaction has
been completed.
COMPUTER TELEPHONY INTEGRATION (CTI)
CTI bridges the gap between IVR systems and contact
center agents. For example, let’s say a customer exits
your IVR system halfway through a transaction.As the
call is transferred to the appropriate live representative,
all the information previously provided travels with and
dynamically appears on the agent’s screen when he or she
picks up the phone.This accelerates handling and resolution
time and saves customers the frustration of having to repeat
themselves.
OUTBOUND TECHNOLOGY
Old school telemarketing was traditionally used for cold
calling and debt collection. But outbound technology has
been repurposed. Now it’s being used for proactive alerts
and notifications such as informing customers of a change
in airline flight status or irregular spending patterns on their
credit card. Companies leverage outbound technology as a
competitive advantage, a way to differentiate themselves
through superior customer service—all in the interest of
customer retention and loyalty.
WORKFORCE OPTIMIZATION
This technology category includes a variety of capabilities
aimed at improving operational efficiencies and agent
productivity.
These capabilities include:
• Call recording: “Your call is being monitored for
quality assurance.”Anyone who has heard that line has
experienced call-monitoring software in action. Calls
are recorded and can be played back at a later date
for a variety of purposes such as evaluating an agent’s
performance or settling a customer dispute.
• PC screen capture: Screen capture refers to the ability
to transfer current on-screen images to a clipboard or a
graphics file. Some applications, such as screen grabber,
offer capabilities such as extracting just the text from a
window or capturing the content in a scrolling window.

5. GUIDE TO CHOOSING THE RIGHT PHONE SYSTEM FOR YOUR CUSTOMER CONTACT CENTER | 5
As with any other voice application, you’ll need to decide
where to host your contact center software solution—on
premises on your own servers, in an off-site data center
(cloud) or a combination of the two.
If you already have server space on-premises and the staff
resources to manage the data and maintain the servers, you
might be interested in hosting your contact center software
on-site.
The cloud offers more flexibility than on-premises hosting,
providing you access to all of the features outlined in Step
4.The cost of a cloud deployment is typically lower than a
premises-based deployment, since you only need to rent
as much server space as you’ll use rather than having to
purchase servers that you may not fill on your own on-site.
Some companies insist on housing all of their data on-
premises for fear of security concerns. But cloud models are
quite secure. Plus, there are three options to choose from,
based on your comfort level, budget and needs:
Public clouds are owned and operated by third-party
service providers. Because infrastructure costs are shared
across all users, they are lower cost than private clouds. In
a public cloud model, your data will share server space with
other companies. But “public” does not mean viewable by
everyone.Your information will still be partitioned and secure.
Private clouds are custom built for individual enterprises.
Your data will be the only information housed on your
individual server. Private clouds essentially have all the same
properties as premises-based setups, but they’re located off-
site and managed and maintained by third-party network
administrators.
Hybrid clouds leverage the best of both models and store
the data of your choosing in a public cloud and other data
in a private cloud.
Cloud deployments, whether public, private or hybrid, offer
many benefits, including:
• Reduced capital investment and startup costs
• Improved ability to communicate and collaborate
• Functionality in a single virtual enterprise
• Enhanced capabilities, including CRM and automated
outbound options
• Pay-as-you-go scalability
• Customized applications
• Quality monitoring: An essential tool for any
call center, quality monitoring provides insight into
how agents are performing and what customers are
experiencing.A good monitoring tool allows you to spot
problems and deal with them proactively and effectively.
• Agent scorecarding: This feature provides a visual
dashboard of each agent’s performance so you can
monitor success at a glance.
• Speech analytics: Going beyond mere speech
recognition, this feature flags topics being discussed, the
agent’s tone of voice and the amount of speech versus
silence on a call.
• Workforce/agent management: The availability
and effectiveness of agents is what makes or breaks a
contact center.These solutions fully automate critical
workforce management-related processes such as
scheduling, performance assessments and training.
STEP 5: CONSIDER WHERE TO STORE YOUR
CONTACT CENTER DATA

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STEP 6: CHOOSE A VENDOR
GUIDE TO PURCHASING THE RIGHT PHONE SYSTEM FOR YOUR CUSTOMER CONTACT CENTER
Once you’ve carefully weighed your contact center system
requirements and ranked your priorities, you are now ready
to select a vendor. Here are the things to look for in your
partner:
• Relevant experience. Look for a vendor who
understands your industry and business processes.
• Range of technology services. In addition to their
technical expertise, it’s wise to explore additional
capabilities such as forecasting call center volumes and
delivering integrated CRM.
• Responsiveness. Can the vendor adapt to changing
needs and market conditions?
• Scalability. It’s important that your vendor be able to
provide additional capacity and new services as your
business grows.
• References. Ask to speak to current customers to get
different perspectives.And if you can locate and speak
with customers who aren’t on your vendor’s “approved
list of references,” all the better!
To find a vendor who can help you choose the right contact
center solution for your business, use the
Mitel partner locator.