CONTACT CENTER CORNER: Towerstream’s VoIP Conversion

Broadband wireless carrier Towerstream has converted over its 130-agent call center from a legacy PBX to VoIP.

Towerstream's call center supports inbound and outbound sales, customer care, internal support and inbound engineering support for internal clients. Dimension Data got the call to perform the work and had the VoIP solution rolled out in eight weeks; it continues to manage the center from its NOC.

For the Towerstream installation, Cisco's Enterprise Call Center platform has been integrated with NetSuite's web-based business software suite. Outbound calls are made using progressive dialing technology included in the system. While the center is currently housed in two buildings, the technology was chosen based in part on the ability to scale across multiple locations supporting both centralized call centers and virtual at-home agents.

Cost savings with the new system have dropped Towerstream's phone bills from $25,000 to $8,000 a month while agent productivity has gone from 60 to 70 calls a day up to around 100 calls a day. Network upgrade expenses to support the new solution are cited as "minimal" with most upgrades already planned independent of the need to support the new call center functionality.

For more:
- Network World covers Towerstream's legacy to VoIP contact center conversion

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