Can someone explain what "virtual call center" software is?

Virtual contact center is not software or hardware. A virtual contact center is when you have agents working somewhere else (i.e. outside a traditional 4-walled contact center) -- either in remote offices or in their home. You can create a virtual contact center with on-premise or hosted contact center solutions. Some hosted (where someone else has responsibility for the actual technology) vendors use virtual contact center to describe their service but in my opinion the better term for that is hosted not virtual. Virtual is best used for describing the agent configuration. I hope this helps.

Michael Barbagallo
President and Principal
Shenandoah Analytics

The term virtual call center is an ambiguous term that can mean many things to different people. It can be defined as a group of call centers, linking premise centers together to form the 'virtual center' irrespective of the location of agents.

Virtual Call Centers can also be defined as and offered from the 'Cloud' whereby there is no infrastructure required on behalf of the Enterprise and again the agent can be based in a physical center, remote office or at home. The application is just as rich as it's premise based cousin and often offers scale, flexibility, speed of deployment and simplicity to use in addition.

In summary, the definition can be many and varied and should not be applied to any specific technology, deployment method or location.

Paul Lang
Senior Vice President
Products and Marketing
LiveOps
www.liveops.com

A 'call center' is generally understood to be a physical place - i.e. a building - where the agents sit and handle calls.

A 'virtual' call center allows for the same agent capabilities - and management - without the facility. In other words, the agents can be distributed, remote, at home, etc... - with the capabilities they'd have in a 'center' - and with management able to manage their activities in a similar fashion.

Virtual call center systems (which generally include software but also communication systems) provide the infrastructure for this. So to answer the original question, they complement at-home agents and provide infrastructure for them to use.

Mr. Barbagallo is correct. My company has "At Home Agents" that are able to collect on accounts through remote access. Basically, the agent is routed in the same way as if he or she were in a brick and mortar call center. The agent is able to make and receive calls, utilize the company system of record, etc.

A good example of this is Sitel Corporations Home Shore. We employ many agents who work from home and support our Clients just as well as in-house Agents. While there can be challenges to this, if it is managed properly it is very effective and profitable.

You can have a Virtual Assistant/Agent available on your website to answer questions and enquiries 24/7. There is an option to pass the enquiry to a live agent if required but the major benefits are the cost saving in call centre staff, the ability to be available 24/7 and the ease of interaction for your web users. www.selfservicecompany.co.uk

You can have a Virtual Assistant/Agent available on your website to answer questions and enquiries 24/7. There is an option to pass the enquiry to a live agent if required but the major benefits are the cost saving in call centre staff, the ability to be available 24/7 and the ease of interaction for your web users. www.selfservicecompany.co.uk