Telstra Global reveals virtual contact centre from IPscape

Telstra Global has expanded further into business cloud services, announcing a Virtual Contact Centre (VCC) powered by contact centre technology provider IPscape. The deal is for Asia, the company said. Rollout in Australia hasn't yet been announced.

The announcement follows a recent investment by Telstra’s Applications and Ventures Group in IPscape. The companies aren’t disclosing the exact amount of the investment, but IPscape CEO Simon Burke told Computerworld Australia that it’s “sub-$5 million.”

The partnership with Telstra Global lets IPscape “focus on being a software company,” said Burke. Telstra has “the leadership in voice and data and the provision of the underlying infrastructure,” he said. The agreement is not a resale agreement, but “the actual embedding of IPscape software into the Telstra Global network,” he said.

The alliance is separate to Telstra’s $800 million investment in cloud infrastructure. “But what this [announcement] is doing, which is in line with that same strategy, is providing customers the flexibility they need to maximise their assets with what they’re doing,” Telstra Global director global product and marketing, Nathan Bell, told us.

Exclusivity isn’t a term of the partnership “at this stage,” Burke said. “We are determined together to make VCC a raging success.” Bell and Burke predicted more cloud announcements to come from Telstra Global and IPscape. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Bell. “There are a lot of other things we are working on with IPscape and with other partners.”

Bell said Telstra’s advantage over competitors is “that we don’t have a legacy contact centre platform to have to try and replace, so we’re not cannibalising any revenue here for ourselves.” However, the telco recognizes that “while we are leading, others will follow,” Bell said.

The VCC service is the first enterprise-grade cloud application to be “fully integrated into a global telecommunications portfolio,” Telstra said. “Alongside Telstra Global’s world class voice and data networks, it offers companies of all sizes access to a global multi-channel customer service experience with a single service level agreement.”

Using the service, companies can “quickly scale their contact centre capabilities to accommodate initiatives such as new product launches, trials or peaks in customer demand, with no long term commitment or new license fees,” it said.

“Accessed via Telstra Global’s Secure IP VPN, the VCC software can be updated or changed within minutes to update campaign scripts, add agents to different campaigns or activate remote agents. It also offers real time CRM integration to direct customer calls to the right operator regardless of the contact channel used.”

Telstra said the Virtual Contact Centre only takes “weeks” to deploy and works with any legacy system. “It requires no material capital spend and organisations can pay for the service based on usage or flat fee, and can also be integrated into any cloud or on-premise Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system in a matter of days.”

Telstra has made a series of announcements related to the cloud recently, including alliances with SAP and the Australia Post.

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