What's new in the IVR world?

"IVR" stands for "Interactive Voice Response" and many of our customers utilize such systems to guide callers through all of the available options when they call. For more detailed information, visit the Answers.com page on IVR.

Once a week we are going to feature news links for call center solutions that compliment Virtual Observer. You can click on the title of this post above, and then bookmark it and come back anytime to see the latest, dynamically updated IVR news.

Note: email subscribers may not see the RSS feed embedded in this post. In this case, click here to view the entire article.

What's the biggest benefit of CTI integration with call recording?

We asked this question to our panel of experts and again we were able to gather a few very strong answers. Please comment if you have a definitive view on which of these benefits is more valuable to your call center.

* Integrating CTI with call recording provides the ability to perform "cradle to grave" recording - meaning if a call is passed internally from extension to extension, the recorded event will include every conversation.

* CTI Integration provides the ability to capture Private Data, Attached Data, or User Data linked from an IVR, ACD etc. This is good for enterprise data capture such as Claim-#, Account-#, Order-#.

* The call recording system gets all of the CTI events stored with a call and gets call start. With all of the CTI events stored with a call, you can see when a call goes on hold and know how many times a call was placed on hold, etc.

Creating a network of call center industry blogs

We're looking to find other company blogs to include in our new "blogroll" (a "blogroll" is a list of like-minded blogs) that we'll be debuting soon.

Virtually any company in the call center solutions market (who has an active blog) is encouraged to submit a link.

We'll review the quality of the blog and let you know if you've been included. We'll then ask for a link back and we'll make the entire blogroll available to include on your blog.

This will have positive effects on your blog traffic.

Segments of the call center industry we're seeking initially:

- CRM software companies
- IVR software companies
- VoIP systems companies
- Speech Analytics systems companies
- Call Center outsourcers
- Phone Systems integrators
- Call Center trade journals and news sites

If you are interested, please comment below.