There’s a lot of talk about merging traditional customer service channels with newer interaction channels, such as social media. Unfortunately, not many companies are doing this in a cost-effective way that leverages the cloud. However, inContact is one of the few that are.

As the cloud matures, so must cloud contact center software providers, says Mariann McDonagh, chief marketing officer at inContact. Since inContact’s founding in 1997, the Utah-based provider of on-demand contact center software has transformed from a long-distance carrier to a company focused on contact routing and agent management applications. Today, inContact prides itself on delivering top-notch multichannel communication software through innovative, low-maintenance technology and ensuring that its clients treat their customers “like stars,” McDonagh says.

“Customers don’t care what channels you support—they only care that you are in the ones they are in. People start with inContact because they realize how important it is to provide customer support across all channels,” Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, says.

Last year was a big year for inContact. In February, the company released version 13.1 of its cloud software, headlined by the addition of the universal queue. The new feature, which automatically assigns tasks to agents based on their skills, availability, and customer priority, also facilitates channel interlacing, determining when active modes of customer communication, such as voice, should take precedent over passive channels, such as email.  “When a high-priority communication comes in, the system can trigger an interruption of other activities and ensure that agents direct their attention to the high-priority item,” McDonagh explains. “The system is intelligent and actually knows where agents’ strengths lie, allowing it to route tasks accordingly,” she says. 

Within a month of its cloud software update, inContact announced that its universal queue will be expanded through a partnership with SoCoCare. The SoCoCare solution, which has been developed specifically for customer care agents, supervisors, and managers, will extend the universal queue capabilities to social interactions, enabling activity on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS feeds, blogs, and articles to be routed, skilled, and prioritized along with other contact center channel content. “The expanded multichannel queue creates an entirely unified flow of work,” McDonagh says. “This makes the support process more consistent for the agent, and amounts to a better experience for customers,” she adds. 

In its second major release of the year, inContact launched its Personal Connection outbound solution, which uses patented technology to eliminate greeting delays for callers. “There’s nothing more awkward than complete silence at the other end of a phone call, and it’s when most call abandons happen,” McDonagh says. The Personal Connection solution uses a pacing engine algorithm to eliminate the delay and connect agents more efficiently, she explains. 

As the company evolves, McDonagh says inContact will continue “cocreating” with customers, identifying customer-centric strategies aimed at helping growing businesses thrive. “Most of our customers are growing businesses. That’s why they choose the cloud,” McDonagh says, citing customer Teleflora, a floral delivery company that relies heavily on the flexibility of a cloud solution. During peak times such as Valentine’s Day, for example, Teleflora needs to scale up temporarily, and then scale back down. That’s not something that an on-premises solution can provide, according to McDonagh. “Cloud has gone primetime,” she says, “and as more and more companies turn to cloud-based solutions, we’ll be ready with new offerings and increased availability via new channels.”  —Maria Minsker