Call centres lag behind on IP adoption

IP telephony, or voice over IP, is now commonplace in many large enterprises. So why has it not been successfully ported to an area where it can offer great benefit - the call centre? IP-based call centre systems have been widely available since the late 1990s. In the intervening years, the technology has matured significantly and there are a number of high-profile reference sites that prove its scalability and reliability. It doesn't lack support from the vendor community - Cisco, Avaya and Nortel among others have put their full weight behind the tech. Yet sales of IP contact centres have been much lower than vendors and analysts expected. A mere eight per cent of all contact centres in the UK have deployed a pure IP solution ...