Software Streaming Delivers Cost and Utilization Breakthroughs for Call Centers

For many years the call center's primary focus had been on routine questions or transactions, both easily handled by an agent who almost always had a single-purpose function. More and more, these simple transactions are being handled by self-service functions such as interactive voice response (IVR), or on the Web site. Today's call center agents require instant access to more information at their desktops than ever before as they handle increasingly complex customer inquiries and a much broader range of issues. Breakthrough telephony advances--notably Voice over IP (VoIP)--make the delivery of sophisticated information to the desktop possible. However, until recently, fully leveraging VoIP's power wasn't possible without adding significant expense, or without increasing IT-management cost and complexity. Opportunistic call center executives are capitalizing on innovative technology to deliver better service faster, without breaking the bank. In fact, by combining VoIP and software-streaming capabilities, leading call centers are finding they can do both for less, while increasing agent utilization and managing their technology more effectively. Software streaming--on-demand delivery of applications and the operating system to a diskless desktop client from networked storage--enables call centers to give agents a desktop that can fully leverage the sophistication of VoIP, while making centralized IT management a reality. In short, software streaming delivers the speed, flexibility, and power of a fully loaded PC that is centrally managed, and it does so without a significant infrastructure upgrade and without overloading the network. Until now IT has relied on two fundamental architectures to support the call center--thin client, or managed PC. But software streaming is significantly reducing desktop support costs at call centers, compared to other approaches. For multiseat call centers, deploying a full-blown PC on every desktop is an expensive proposition, and sprawling clusters of "fat" PCs are difficult and costly to manage. This is the case because IT must (either physically or remotely) repair, patch, or manage the software for hundreds of PCs. Thin client architectures offer organizations some centralized management capabilities and a greater degree of control over PC deployments, but they cannot support the new and necessary technologies like CTI. The benefits delivered by software streaming sound similar to those promised by thin client computing, but the technologies are completely different. Conceptually, software streaming is similar to audio streaming. With audio streaming, songs are maintained on a central server and then streamed on-demand to a client PC. With software streaming, the actual operating system and applications are streamed to the desktop from a central server when the PC is booted up and when any applications or libraries are loaded. The full operating system is not downloaded to each desktop, but rather the software-streaming service sends only the files necessary for each desktop to execute the operating system and desired application. While the size of the operating system image might exceed 1GB, only a fraction of that (~100MB) is in the desktop computer's memory at any given time. Most important, with software streaming all programs execute locally on the desktop PC. This is absolutely critical to the success of the call center and ultimately the productivity of the agent because the rich multimedia functionality demands computing horsepower that only a desktop can provide. The challenge has been how to cost effectively deliver that rich multimedia experience in a centrally controlled manner. Software streaming meets that challenge. As with audio streaming, the desktop PC can choose from a variety of centrally managed images that contain different versions of the operating system, or are configured with different software. These golden images are delivered on-demand and require a simple reboot to change. This breakthrough is achievable only if the desktops can boot from the network and do not need their operating system stored on a locally attached bootable media; that is, no hard drive or compact flash is required to boot the computer. Continued customer care advances underscore the importance of the call center IT infrastructure. The call center desktops today are the equivalent of the telephone. Software streaming enables them to be just as reliable, just as useful, and just as easy to manage. Uniquely, software streaming lets call center agents be more productive by using sophisticated tools such as VoIP and screen pop-ups. And it allows centralized IT management while reducing IT management and support costs. Software streaming empowers call centers, making them more effective to enterprises as they seek ways to increase customer loyalty without increasing costs. About the Author Mr. Hibbard leads marketing initiatives, including strategy, product management, and strategic communications at Ardence, which he joined in November 2003. He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan, and a BS in industrial engineering from Stanford University. www.ardence.com