New Verizon Business Web Center Voice Service Answers the Call for More Customer Communications Options

For customers who want the immediate benefits of a "cloud-based" customer contact solution without all the bells and whistles, Verizon Business now is offering its award-winning Web Center service in a voice-only package.

In today's challenging economic climate, Web Center Voice offers a cost-effective capability for businesses of all sizes to expand their customer contact operations without large capital investments. For example, small and mid-size businesses can quickly establish more customer interactions without having to invest in building out traditional call centers.  Large enterprises can also benefit from the ability to increase customer contact personnel as needed, without having to expand or construct call centers in specific locations.

"The phone is still the primary customer contact tool employed by businesses and their customers, and this voice-only Web Center provides a powerful option for companies that are considering a 'cloud'-, or network-based, approach," said Jim Tyrrell, vice president for global business voice solutions at Verizon.  "This new service offers the best of both worlds to businesses large and small: a traditional voice solution with the flexibility of Web Center. For businesses that are just starting out or don't currently require a broad suite of multimedia features, Web Center Voice hits the mark." 

This new offering complements the existing IP Web Center service introduced in 2004.  Unlike the original offering, which requires IP connectivity, customer contact agents using Web Center Voice can use a wired or mobile phone or Internet-connected PC to place and receive calls across the public switched telephone network or the Internet (voice over IP).

Web Center Voice Serves as a Springboard to Broad Multimedia Contact Center

"Web Center Voice is an ideal solution to meet companies where they are along their IP evolution path," said Blair Crump, group president of worldwide sales for Verizon Business.  "Companies can use the new offering to establish advanced customer service capabilities or make their existing operations more flexible.  In the process, this offering creates an IP stepping stone for companies to introduce chat and e-mail contact capabilities in the future. This service can easily match our customers' growth."

Web Center is a complete in-network solution that enables companies to quickly and cost-effectively serve their customers with agents working from dispersed locations.  The Web Center platform is highly resilient, helping businesses to remain "open" for their customers 24 x 7, even during unforeseen circumstances.

Both IP Web Center and Web Center Voice use automatic call distribution (ACD) to deliver communications to wherever agents are located.  This can help businesses meet their environmental objectives by enabling agents to telework, reducing employee travel to and from a central location.

The new service provides an affordable and value-based option by not including some of the IP-based instant message and e-mail customer contact options, which some businesses do not require. However, customers can easily add these options, without the need to purchase new hardware.

Both Web Center services work with other Verizon hosted solutions, such as Hosted IP Centrex for a hosted telephony infrastructure and Hosted Interactive Voice Response for even more advanced capabilities such as database routing or speech services.

"Although multimedia capabilities in the contact center continue to evolve with the increasing adoption of IP, voice is still the primary channel of communication between enterprise and customer," said Daniel Hong, lead analyst of customer interaction technologies at Datamonitor. "Web Center Voice provides small and mid-sized businesses with an economically palatable, scalable and quick-to-deploy hosted platform focused on core voice services for contact center operations."

Verizon's expert professional services team can assist customers in building or optimizing contact centers, developing effective business processes, training agents, and ensuring that contact centers have the best technology to suit their needs.  This team can provide hosted, managed and premises-based contact center solutions, as well as tailored combinations of all three.

Verizon Web Center has received several honors over the past few years, including two consecutive Frost & Sullivan North American Market Leadership Awards for Hosted Contact Center Services in 2007 and 2008.

For more information regarding Verizon Business contact center solutions, visit http://www.verizonbusiness.com/products/contactcenter/.

About Verizon Business
Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), is a global leader in communications and IT solutions. We combine professional expertise with the world's most connected IP network to deliver award-winning communications, IT, information security and network solutions. We securely connect today's extended enterprises of widespread and mobile customers, partners, suppliers and employees - enabling them to increase productivity and efficiency and help preserve the environment.  Many of the world's largest businesses and governments - including 96 percent of the Fortune 1000 and thousands of government agencies and educational institutions - rely on our professional and managed services and network technologies to accelerate their business. Find out more at www.verizonbusiness.com.

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