Appia Sees Increased Adoption of Virtual Call Centers

Feb. 4, 2010 - PRLog -- TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Is the call center decentralizing?

Appia Communications believes it is. The provider of managed communication and networking services reports that its customers are increasingly deploying “virtual” call centers — in which agents are located at home or in small offices — rather than traditional centralized call centers.

“The ability to locate agents and supervisors anywhere results in significant savings in operating expenses,” said Victor von Schlegell, Appia’s president. “The most obvious savings are in office rent and in commuting time and costs, but there are both hard and soft advantages to the flexibility decentralization provides. It enables call center managers to hire the best people, regardless of where they are physically located, and makes it easier to schedule resources to meet time-of-day and day-of-week peaks and valleys.”

Von Schlegell noted that this flexibility is one of the natural advantages of a managed service.

“One of the reasons our customers are able to move in this direction is that they use a managed approach to their call center technology,” von Schlegell said. “By hosting that technology ‘in the cloud,’ it doesn’t matter where the agents and supervisors are located, as long as they have a reliable connection to the Internet.”

But von Schlegell warns against deploying a dispersed staff without robust internal communication capabilities.

“The challenge of decentralization is to keep everyone on the same page, which can be a serious problem without the right tools,” von Schlegell said. “With Appia’s managed call center service, remote workers have access to exactly the same real-time statistics, reporting and communication tools as office employees.”

For more information about Appia, including its full suite of communication and networking solutions, special call center offers, customer case studies and more, please visit http://www.appiaservices.com or call 877-277-4297.

Media Contact

Matt Cowall
Communications Manager
877-277-4297
matt@appiaservices.com

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About Appia Communications

Appia Communications is a leading provider of managed communication and networking services, with a focus on small and midsize companies and organizations. Appia’s solutions help customers minimize capital investments, reduce costs, enhance employee productivity, improve customer care, and compete more effectively against much larger enterprises.

Headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan, Appia serves markets nationwide, with operations in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

Appia has been recognized as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies (Inc., 2007, 2008 and 2009); one of the fastest-growing solution providers in the technology industry (CRN, 2009); and one of the top five managed service providers in the world (MSPmentor, 2008-09).

For more information, please visit http://www.appiaservices.com or call 877-277-4297.