Blogs

To educate, illuminate and challenge the contact center industry

Sytel lives day by day at the coalface of contact center software design.

We take on the hard tasks that many other companies balk at. We invent from the ground up, working to bring you the best contact center software solutions to the toughest challenges, resulting in world-class, best-of-breed contact center software.

With this blog, we aim to educate, illuminate and also challenge the contact center industry. Expect us to talk about contact center technology, but technology is just a means to an end. What matters ultimately is the quality of the service that technology can provide for customers. So expect the blog to be wide-ranging. And expect us to shed new light on received contact center industry wisdom.

You may not agree with everything we say. Great! Informed debate lies at the heart of innovation. So feel free to give us your feedback and if you argue your case well, we may post your ideas on the blog.

Enjoy!

Some of the Sytel Bloggers from over the years- blogs

Some of the Sytel Bloggers from over the years…

Navigating the Evolving CCaaS Landscape: 3 Considerations

Navigating the Evolving CCaaS Landscape: 3 Considerations

A candid examination by our CEO, Michael McKinlay, of some of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the realm of Contact ... Read on

Forecast vs. Actual Demand – Resolve the Dilemma in Your Contact Center

Forecast vs. Actual Demand – Resolve the Dilemma in Your Contact Center

Sytel Real-Time Automation (SRA) assigns agents automatically to serve where they are most needed and balances all service levels, ... Read on

Providing Excellent Customer Service During the Festive Season – 10 Tips and Strategies

Providing Excellent Customer Service During the Festive Season – 10 Tips and Strategies

To ensure a smooth and satisfying customer experience during the bustling festive period, leveraging advanced contact center software ... Read on

Automation in the Contact Center: Telling it How it is

Automation in the Contact Center: Telling it How it is

Manage CCaaS service levels automatically with a stateful cloud ACD. Supervisors? Go get a refill... and move up the value chain. Read on

Contact Center Reporting: The Challenge of Change

Contact Center Reporting: The Challenge of Change

A transition from one contact center vendor to another can present a significant challenge when it comes to contact centre reporting ... Read on

Intraday Automation – Real-Time Workforce Management

Intraday Automation – Real-Time Workforce Management

"We are currently experiencing unusually high demand. Please try again later". Not exactly an excellent customer experience, but there ... Read on

Real-Time Automation for Workforce Management (WFM)

Real-Time Automation for Workforce Management (WFM)

In order to get sessions to the right or best agent, deploy resources optimally and deliver the best possible service to customers, ... Read on

AI and Automation in the Contact Center – Part 2

AI and Automation in the Contact Center – Part 2

Inside the AI automation revolution - how to make AI work for you in the contact center Read on

AI and Automation in the Contact Center – Part 1

AI and Automation in the Contact Center – Part 1

Inside the AI automation revolution - a look at the AI terrain in the contact center Read on

Predictive Dialing and Cell Phones – A Way Forward

Predictive Dialing and Cell Phones – A Way Forward

In the US, predictive dialing (of a sort) has made a comeback for calling cell phones. But will the regulator, the Federal Trade ... Read on

5 Ways to Personalise Customer Engagement with Contact Center Technology

5 Ways to Personalise Customer Engagement with Contact Center Technology

For the contact center, every conversation with a customer is an opportunity to generate loyalty and a positive outcome. Read on

Predictive Dialing and Vendors

Predictive Dialing and Vendors

Most predictive vendors have an uneasy relationship with issues of compliance and performance. In this 'potted history', we explore ... Read on

5 Operational Benefits of the CCaaS Subscription Model

5 Operational Benefits of the CCaaS Subscription Model

Considering moving to CCaaS? We look at the operational benefits of the CCaaS subscription model and how moving can set you up for the ... Read on

7 Financial Benefits of the CCaaS Subscription Model

7 Financial Benefits of the CCaaS Subscription Model

For the contact center industry, the CCaaS subscription model just makes sense – organisations now have more choice, more agility and ... Read on

4 Strategies to Lower Customer Wait Times

4 Strategies to Lower Customer Wait Times

According to most surveys, what do consumers hate most about calling a company contact center? You guessed it! Here's how to enhance ... Read on

Predictive Dialers – The Measurement that Matters Most

Predictive Dialers – The Measurement that Matters Most

Did you ever hear the story about predictive gain? Hands up, please, those who know what it means. Read on

CCaaS for Enterprise – Is it Time to Jump?

CCaaS for Enterprise – Is it Time to Jump?

A guide to choosing CCaaS for enterprise that delivers performance at scale Read on

The Enterprise ACD as a Cloud Service: Facing the Challenge

The Enterprise ACD as a Cloud Service: Facing the Challenge

Sytel's CTO Garry Pearson shares his extensive contact center software architecting experience in this in-depth article about the ... Read on

Is Your CCaaS Platform Architecture Fit for Purpose?

Is Your CCaaS Platform Architecture Fit for Purpose?

In his article for the No Jitter website, Sytel’s CEO Michael McKinlay draws an insightful analogy between buying a house and software ... Read on

Moving to Cloud-Based CCaaS – 5 Must-Haves

Moving to Cloud-Based CCaaS – 5 Must-Haves

There are lots of challenges and upsides in moving to cloud-based CCaaS; for both service providers and end users. Here is a checklist ... Read on

4 Persistent CX Fails and How to Fix Them

4 Persistent CX Fails and How to Fix Them

With customers now in the driving seat, and with the rich technology that is currently available, we ask: why are so many customer ... Read on

The Enterprise CCaaS Challenge: Architecting for the Cloud

The Enterprise CCaaS Challenge: Architecting for the Cloud

Sytel CEO Michael McKinlay wrote an article, kindly published at No Jitter recently, asking ‘Is there a workable enterprise CCaaS solution?’ Read on

The Evolution Of The Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)

The Evolution Of The Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)

With the varied mix of voice, digital and video sessions between agents and customers, we say goodbye to the ACD and hello to the ... Read on

A Day in the Life of an Oyster Catcher

A Day in the Life of an Oyster Catcher

It's not always about contact center software development, you know! So we present to you a tale, written by one of our management ... Read on

The Road Ahead – 5 Challenges for Contact Center Software in 2022

The Road Ahead – 5 Challenges for Contact Center Software in 2022

Whether you are a  CCaaS provider or an end user, the  keyword when adopting a contact center software platform with longevity in ... Read on

Do You Know What Your Predictive Dialer is Doing?

Do You Know What Your Predictive Dialer is Doing?

How many senior managers, responsible for their contact centre operations, actually know what their predictive dialer is doing? Read on

UK Petrol Crisis: Life Imitates Art

UK Petrol Crisis: Life Imitates Art

The UK petrol crisis is pretty much an exact parallel with the predictive dialer pacing problem. Are you a game theorist, a modeller ... Read on

The Joy of CX: One Prospect’s Tale

The Joy of CX: One Prospect’s Tale

A visitor at Sytel HQ recently talked about their experiences with a variety of companies around the world, as a new customer. Do any ... Read on

Automating your Outreach

Automating your Outreach

In today’s complicated multimedia and multisession landscape, the execution of your outreach strategy needs an intelligent, automated ... Read on

The Nature of ACDs

The Nature of ACDs

It used to be that the ACD did one job; distributing calls in queues to agents. As the contact center industry evolved, so did the job ... Read on

The Changing Role of the Contact Center Supervisor

The Changing Role of the Contact Center Supervisor

Supervisors are slowly moving away from manual management of technology and adapting their skills to become Team Leaders, focusing on ... Read on

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #6 – Mitigating Failure

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #6 – Mitigating Failure

The universal law of communications is that things go wrong. Every formal signalling protocol has this fact built into its design. But ... Read on

Some Sensible Thoughts About Customer Journeys

Some Sensible Thoughts About Customer Journeys

Most of us have a pretty good idea what a good customer journey is, but what happens when a contact center is driven by cost control ... Read on

The Persistence of Memes

The Persistence of Memes

As we move into 2021 and the contact center world gets to grip with the realities of a home-based workforce and the changing nature of ... Read on

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #5 – Designing for Scale

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #5 – Designing for Scale

Designing for scale is the holy grail of cloud contact center design. We take a look at the different approaches to the problem & the ... Read on

Omnichannel, Customer Journeys And Contact Center Performance

Omnichannel, Customer Journeys And Contact Center Performance

In this mega blog, we are going to look at omnichannel's health and relevance. And if it is in a mortal state, what comes next and ... Read on

Getting The Best From Conversational AI

Getting The Best From Conversational AI

Whether you are using conversational AI for voice or text chat, there are two big challenges that you face in the real world. Read on

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #4 – Footprint Cost

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #4 – Footprint Cost

A cloud-based contact center running the full range of services has many other components that generate large compute and storage ... Read on

Is Omnichannel Dead?

Is Omnichannel Dead?

Omnichannel first showed its face when software vendors for contact centers started deploying digital channels such as chat and email. ... Read on

Does Sytel’s Cloud Architecture Support Containers?

Does Sytel’s Cloud Architecture Support Containers?

We all know the customer is always right and the expected answer is ‘Heck Yes!’ but frankly, we try to avoid containers like the plague. Read on

Conversational AI and a New Role for Predictive Dialing

Conversational AI and a New Role for Predictive Dialing

The age of the bot and conversational AI brings new challenges in terms of how contact centers engage with potential customers. Here's ... Read on

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #3 – Ease and Speed of Troubleshooting

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #3 – Ease and Speed of Troubleshooting

How to make management of a functionally rich cloud contact center platform… well, manageable Read on

Connecting Home Workers to Business Applications

Connecting Home Workers to Business Applications

If you need your agents to work from home and want them interfacing with your business applications, then you need to have them ... Read on

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #2 – Ease of Provisioning

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #2 – Ease of Provisioning

SIP infrastructure for a cloud service provider is multi-faceted and its key functionality is complex, but Sytel enables service ... Read on

Safeguarding Your Contact Business

Safeguarding Your Contact Business

Compliance with outbound contact regulation is a given, but it is often made more difficult by layer upon layer of legislation. To ... Read on

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #1 – Extensibility

Designing for the Cloud – Challenge #1 – Extensibility

How do you provide a framework for this that is easy to use and mitigates the effects of misconfiguration and third-party integrations ... Read on

Designing for the Cloud – 6 Major Challenges

Designing for the Cloud – 6 Major Challenges

Developing a feature-rich contact center platform for the cloud has its challenges! At Sytel, our journey has taught us a lot - from ... Read on

Do You Know Your Predictive Gain?

Do You Know Your Predictive Gain?

Many users are still buying predictive dialers without looking under the cover. If you really care about getting the best performance ... Read on

Does the Customer Really Know Best?

Does the Customer Really Know Best?

Software suppliers like ourselves often need to practice proactive development; we need to think, plan and act ahead, reaching well ... Read on

Moving to the Cloud – 5 Features You Should Expect

Moving to the Cloud – 5 Features You Should Expect

There has never been a better time to move a contact center to the cloud. But not all cloud contact center platforms are created ... Read on

Mining Relationship History

Mining Relationship History

When two friends talk they will subconsciously reference all the moments they have shared. If an agent speaking to a customer can ... Read on

Using AI to Better Direct Customers

Using AI to Better Direct Customers

By asking open questions, a robot can identify the reason for the call and then either handle the call itself or transfer the call to ... Read on

Agents and Customers Fall in Love

Agents and Customers Fall in Love

There are two battles currently going on in the contact center. Here we discuss these battles and how they can result in harmony both ... Read on

Agent Optimization and the Customer Experience

Agent Optimization and the Customer Experience

This month is a monster blog. And for a change we look at how Sytel addresses two of the most important issues in the contact center. Enjoy! Read on

Joined-Up Systems, Joined-Up Journeys

Joined-Up Systems, Joined-Up Journeys

Great architecture is key. A solution that can maintain state for all agents and sessions, that can scale easily to handle thousands ... Read on

The Reality of Failure-Proof Systems in the Cloud

The Reality of Failure-Proof Systems in the Cloud

How often does the server/virtualisation stack fail? We take some examples from our own experience and identify 3 things you can do to ... Read on

Is your Chat Messaging System Fit for Purpose?

Is your Chat Messaging System Fit for Purpose?

In the days of push campaigns agents were trained and well briefed. Nowadays it seems little attempt is made to connect with corporate ... Read on

The Challenge of CX

The Challenge of CX

Customers can face challenges when trying to contact you. Let them contact you however they choose and turn their problem in to a ... Read on

Brazilian Call Centers in Transition

Brazilian Call Centers in Transition

Brazil fell off the cliff with bad outbound practices but is now focused on recovery. Read on

Cloud Contact Center Solutions – A Maturing Market

Cloud Contact Center Solutions – A Maturing Market

A fully functioning cloud contact center requires not only having the correct architecture but also services designed to best use the ... Read on

Cloud Contact Center Solutions – Early Innovation

Cloud Contact Center Solutions – Early Innovation

The concept of a contact center in the cloud is great, however reality shows there are some real challenges associated with this. Read on

The Magic of Scripter

The Magic of Scripter

A potted history of Sytel’s Scripter product and how it continues to grow and evolve. Read on

Pull Marketing

Pull Marketing

Social marketing is one of the newer forms of pull marketing. People trust information when it comes recommended in some way by ... Read on

Push vs Pull and The Impact On CX

Push vs Pull and The Impact On CX

To deliver a good CX call centers need to smarten up their pulling power and temper their bot activities. Read on

Celebrating Our 100th Blog

Celebrating Our 100th Blog

Celebrating our 100th blog! Some of the Sytel bloggers gave their thoughts on the key changes they see happening in the industry. Read on

The Onward March of Internet of Things (IoT)

The Onward March of Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is being touted as becoming ubiquitous and the panacea for all known ills. Unfortunately, such a utopia ... Read on

Scripting For The Grown-Up Cloud Contact Center

Scripting For The Grown-Up Cloud Contact Center

This blog includes a shopping list of requirements that is applicable to both on premise and cloud solutions. Read on

Tearing Down The Silos

Tearing Down The Silos

Organizations need to tear down the silos and create a unified system, one where agents can handle communications regardless of type, ... Read on

The Changing Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) Landscape

The Changing Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) Landscape

The emergence of cloud players in speech recognition, notably Google and Amazon, brings about new applications for speech in the ... Read on

Video Calling Is Here

Video Calling Is Here

WebRTC makes it possible for customers to communicate with contact centers with video calls and younger generations are making it ... Read on

Combating The Decline In Answered Calls

Combating The Decline In Answered Calls

Organizations are starting to utilize social media to identify prospects and target them with specific messages using different media ... Read on

The Changing Face of Customer Service

The Changing Face of Customer Service

Websites are the shop windows for most companies. Chatbots, AI and WebRTC allow customers to develop a good relationship with ... Read on

How Sytel Approaches Development

How Sytel Approaches Development

Constant improvement and innovation is a necessary way of life in our industry. Find out how Sytel approaches development. Read on

Do Your Media Channels Blend Seamlessly?

Do Your Media Channels Blend Seamlessly?

When SLAs are breached agents need to be deployed accordingly, but what happens when the channels are handling different media channels? Read on

How Do You Cope When Everyone Calls At The Same Time?

How Do You Cope When Everyone Calls At The Same Time?

Avoid giving customers a poor experience, provide them with a soft landing and alternative ways to communicate with you. Read on

Will Robots Take Over?

Will Robots Take Over?

Can AI handle everything? Or, are there some instances where only a human will do? Read on

Video Calling: The Ultimate Trust-Builder

Video Calling: The Ultimate Trust-Builder

Showing your face can be a great way to build trust. However, there are some key points to take into consideration before you start. Read on

Video Calling

Video Calling

Video calling is definitely coming. The technological challenges and cultural barriers are disappearing and the benefits are already ... Read on

The Changing Shape Of The Contact Center Supply Chain

The Changing Shape Of The Contact Center Supply Chain

Things have changed considerably with contact center technology. As a result, the way in which procurement is carried out also needs ... Read on

Apps vs Chatbots

Apps vs Chatbots

As apps become more sophisticated so do some of their negative points. Whereas Chatbots are becoming more important for contact centers. Read on

All About Regulation

All About Regulation

As regulators scratch their heads as how to prevent abuse and establish markets that work for both consumers and businesses, there are ... Read on

Managing Emails Within Your Contact Center

Managing Emails Within Your Contact Center

Email may not be new or exciting but customers like it and use it heavily, so make sure it is given the priority it deserves. Read on

The Rise Of The Machines

The Rise Of The Machines

What is the future for contact center agents? Will they become redundant? Hardly! If anything, the contact center agent will have a ... Read on

5 Tips For Great Chat Reporting

5 Tips For Great Chat Reporting

If you can't measure it, you can't manage it - these 5 tips on chat reporting will help to deliver useful measurements. Read on

I Fought To Keep My Dialer – Thank Goodness I Failed!

I Fought To Keep My Dialer – Thank Goodness I Failed!

This month we welcome a guest contribution from an experienced telecoms manager, who has worked with several different predictive dialers. Read on

In Defense Of IVR

In Defense Of IVR

Badly designed IVR call flows give IVR a bad rap. We put forward a defence. Read on

5 Key Points To Get Right In Reporting

5 Key Points To Get Right In Reporting

Contact centers are awash with data. Here is our take on some fundamental points on how best to manage that data. Read on

Considerations In The Cloud

Considerations In The Cloud

The cloud has created a revolution in the way applications are provided to businesses both large and small. Read on

Use Of Dialers Around The World

Use Of Dialers Around The World

On a recent world tour we had a chance to see how different countries have been coping with changing trends. Read on

Keeping It Simple Again

Keeping It Simple Again

Maintaining effectiveness of both queues for individual agents and the overall campaign brings challenges. Read on

Keeping Things Simple

Keeping Things Simple

Managing campaigns and setting up work queues; contact centers need to be mindful of the personal touch. Read on

WebRTC Can Bring Joy To The Agent

WebRTC Can Bring Joy To The Agent

WebRTC opens up options further for contact centers to employ the right agents who may be more nomadic. Read on

WebRTC Can Bring Joy To The Organisation

WebRTC Can Bring Joy To The Organisation

With WebRTC the agent can have detailed information about the customer's call before before a single word is spoken. Read on

WebRTC Can Bring Joy To The Customer

WebRTC Can Bring Joy To The Customer

Clicking a WebRTC link can quickly connect customers to agents who already know specifics about the call. Read on

What Does Software Development Have In Common With The All Blacks?

What Does Software Development Have In Common With The All Blacks?

Winning in business is a tough game; we've drawn some parallels between the lessons applied by the All Blacks and those required to be ... Read on

Hosted Architecture

Hosted Architecture

Hosted architecture options for contact centers appear to be currently divided between either multi-instance or multi-tenant. But ... Read on

Data Scaling

Data Scaling

Data scaling has its issues for large-scale contact center hosting. Read on

As Carriers Move Away From ISDN To SIP

As Carriers Move Away From ISDN To SIP

Carriers are starting to move away from ISDN in favour of SIP. Read on

Smartphones Taking Over As Contact Device Of Choice

Smartphones Taking Over As Contact Device Of Choice

Make sure your customers can do what they want using their smartphones. Read on

We Chose Fish

We Chose Fish

Sytel takes more of a hands-on approach to corporate responsibility. Read on

Impact Of Self Service On The Contact Center

Impact Of Self Service On The Contact Center

Times have changed; the majority of customers try to self serve their own solutions before ringing in to a contact center. Read on

Challenging Agents

Challenging Agents

Use technology to enable agents to become more effective and build their own portfolio of customers. Read on

Permission-Based Marketing

Permission-Based Marketing

Ensure your customers continue their permission for you to market them. Read on

Where Do You Want To Go Today? We Thank You Microsoft For That Gem.

Where Do You Want To Go Today? We Thank You Microsoft For That Gem.

The Microsoft slogan still resonates today, but now there are added complications. Read on

Joined-Up Vs Silos

Joined-Up Vs Silos

Some silos exist for valid reasons but others are costly and cause both customer and agent frustration. Read on

Agent Management – Single Skill or Multi Skill? The ongoing debate

Agent Management – Single Skill or Multi Skill? The ongoing debate

We all know that agent turnover is high in call centers. Is multi media providing a solution to this problem? Read on

Making SIP Your Standard

Making SIP Your Standard

So SIP is now mainstream. What of the claims about increased flexibility and lower costs? Well, in many cases it has been a ... Read on

Mobile Apps And Contact Centers

Mobile Apps And Contact Centers

Mobile apps are commonplace these days. But for businesses offering a mobile app, how joined up is it with their contact center, and ... Read on

Speed Vs Quality – Keeping Your Balance

Speed Vs Quality – Keeping Your Balance

A successful contact center sets and maintains an appropriate balance of speed and quality objectives, appropriate to their business ... Read on

Multichannel, Multimedia, Omnichannel, Universal Queue – Eh?

Multichannel, Multimedia, Omnichannel, Universal Queue – Eh?

These buzzwords all describe the same basic concept. The question here is: do these terms actually mean something useful, or are they ... Read on

Contact Queues Without Walls

Contact Queues Without Walls

The omnichannel/ multimedia/ multichannel approach has significant advantages in terms of keeping agent efficiency and customer ... Read on

Measuring Agent Effectiveness

Measuring Agent Effectiveness

To deliver the best value for the organisation and the highest satisfaction for customers, agents must be effective. But how do you ... Read on

Measuring Agent Productivity In A Multi-Channel World

Measuring Agent Productivity In A Multi-Channel World

Supervisors must monitor a range of KPIs to measure agent performance and productivity. But use of email, chat, SMS, etc throws up ... Read on

Dissecting The Customer Effort Score (CES)

Dissecting The Customer Effort Score (CES)

The Customer Effort Score (CES) has been found to be an accurate indicator of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Here we look at what ... Read on

Measuring Success In The Contact Center

Measuring Success In The Contact Center

A key process for growth in any business is that of measuring success against target. The challenge is to distill the vast sea of data ... Read on

SIP – The Challenge Of Virtualisation Management

SIP – The Challenge Of Virtualisation Management

With the rise of virtual machines (VMs) comes a responsibility to manage resources, especially for real-time, high-priority activities ... Read on

SIP – The Challenge Of Voice Delay

SIP – The Challenge Of Voice Delay

This blog looks at the causes of delay in calls that travel fully or partially over SIP networks, and what can be done to minimise it. Read on

SIP – The Challenge Of Voice Break-Up

SIP – The Challenge Of Voice Break-Up

Voice communication is still a large part of a contact center’s business. To maintain quality, how do you give voice traffic VIP ... Read on

Fine-Tuning Your SIP Infrastructure

Fine-Tuning Your SIP Infrastructure

Sytel has considerable experience in configuring SIP services for a range of markets. Based on this, here are 3 potential issues that ... Read on

Voice Is Still King – Multimedia In The Contact Center

Voice Is Still King – Multimedia In The Contact Center

There is no denying that multimedia has a place in the contact center. But when the dust settles, voice will still be king for many ... Read on

Outbound Calling – Past, Present And Future – Part 3

Outbound Calling – Past, Present And Future – Part 3

Given the experience of predictive dialer regulation in the UK and US, what should regulators and contact centers in other countries do? Read on

Outbound Calling – Past, Present And Future – Part 2

Outbound Calling – Past, Present And Future – Part 2

How have UK and US telemarketeers responded to dialing rules and Do Not Call legislation? And what does this mean for countries that ... Read on

Outbound Calling – Past, Present And Future – Part 1

Outbound Calling – Past, Present And Future – Part 1

This blog looks at the regulations for predictive dialers in the UK and US have achieved and what lessons other countries can draw from them. Read on

Times Up! Call Center Practices That Are Past Their ‘Sell By’ Date

Times Up! Call Center Practices That Are Past Their ‘Sell By’ Date

A reflection on 5 call center practices that are past their 'sell by' date, or, if you like, where there is room for improvement over ... Read on

The Future Of Network Answering Machine Detection

The Future Of Network Answering Machine Detection

Answering Machine Detection (AMD) remains a hot topic in the UK. Sytel has been taking the technical lead on a working party to define ... Read on

Smart Call Routing For Smarter Customer Service

Smart Call Routing For Smarter Customer Service

In order to route an incoming call so as to achieve the fastest resolution/ greatest satisfaction, in the shortest time, involving the ... Read on

IVR Design – Best Practice

IVR Design – Best Practice

IVR should enable users to help themselves, or route users to the right agent. But largely because of bad design, many people’s ... Read on

Hosted IP PBX In The Cloud

Hosted IP PBX In The Cloud

Why take any contact center service from the cloud? Because you benefit from a high-end feature set without the hassle of purchasing ... Read on

Cross-Cultural Customer Service

Cross-Cultural Customer Service

Great customer engagement is a product of a thorough understanding not only of the customer’s values and needs, but also of their culture. Read on

Predictive Dialing Under Regulation – All Pain, Little Gain

Predictive Dialing Under Regulation – All Pain, Little Gain

Virtually no predictive dialers were designed to deliver good performance under Ofcom/ FTC rules for abandoned calls. This blog ... Read on

How To Juggle With 4 Balls (And A Chainsaw) – Part 2

How To Juggle With 4 Balls (And A Chainsaw) – Part 2

The tools that enable continual evaluation, training and improvement are standard for voice-only interactions, but how about web chat, ... Read on

5 Signposts On The Road To VoIP

5 Signposts On The Road To VoIP

Taking the plunge from TDM to IP can be a daunting prospect. Here are 5 often overlooked signposts to save a lot of headache and ... Read on

What Is A ‘Universal Queue’? (And Is It A Good Thing?)

What Is A ‘Universal Queue’? (And Is It A Good Thing?)

There are many definitions out there for the term 'universal queue'. They all sound great but are very agent-centric. Here we call for ... Read on

High Availability – Seeing The Bigger Picture

High Availability – Seeing The Bigger Picture

Some vendors' claims for very high uptime - maybe 99.999% - refer to software only. But for cloud-based contact centers, the vast ... Read on

Drinking From The Fire Hose – The Challenge Of ‘Big Data’ In The Contact Center

Drinking From The Fire Hose – The Challenge Of ‘Big Data’ In The Contact Center

Data produced by virtual/ cloud-based contact centers has the potential to grow massively in a short time, and is virtually unlimited. ... Read on

The Pain Of Separation – Call Flow Scripting For IVR And Live Agents

The Pain Of Separation – Call Flow Scripting For IVR And Live Agents

By and large, call center scripting tools are built either for IVR only, or for agent scripts only, and are entirely separate ... Read on

Closed Vs. Open – 2 Roads To Market

Closed Vs. Open – 2 Roads To Market

Most companies fit into one of two camps; closed architecture (promoting 'own brand' only) or open architecture (offering APIs to ... Read on

Network Answering Machine Detection – Myth Or Reality?

Network Answering Machine Detection – Myth Or Reality?

Sytel's contribution to the latest controversy over Network AMD, and some background on how we got here. Read on

Keeping Cloud Services On Tap

Keeping Cloud Services On Tap

How do providers of high availability cloud-based or hosted contact center services prevent failure and disaster from becoming loss of ... Read on

Can You Spare A Minute?

Can You Spare A Minute?

As delivery of cloud computing services threatens to become a way of life, it is timely to look at where vendors like ourselves should ... Read on

How To Juggle With 4 Balls (And A Chainsaw) – Part 1

How To Juggle With 4 Balls (And A Chainsaw) – Part 1

To keep the customer happy a contact center must manage voice, email, web chat, video, text (and others) successfully. Here we look at ... Read on

“Press *0 To Hear The Options Agai…”

“Press *0 To Hear The Options Agai…”

IVR systems can be both difficult to design and set up, and difficult to manage and update, resulting in low usability and user ... Read on

5 Must-Haves For Great Call Center Reporting

5 Must-Haves For Great Call Center Reporting

Call center managers should be armed with the crucial information that allows them to make the best business decisions. Here are 5 ... Read on

Top 5 Myths Of Outbound Calling

Top 5 Myths Of Outbound Calling

Here are the top 5 misconceptions about how predictive dialers actually work, along with some suggestions for better practice. Read on

Waking Up To Silent Calls

Waking Up To Silent Calls

As Turkey considers the impact of silent calls produced by predictive dialers, we point out some lessons that can be learned from the ... Read on

The Shifting Sands Of Social Media

The Shifting Sands Of Social Media

As the sands of social media shift at a fairly bewildering rate, prepare for an avalanche of social media analytics tools. But ... Read on

The Great Answering Machine Debate

The Great Answering Machine Debate

Tape-based answering machines have long been displaced by digital technology, rendering many answering machine detection (AMD) ... Read on

Beyond First Call Resolution

Beyond First Call Resolution

First call resolution has become the Holy Grail of customer service in recent years. But how has the advent of other media channels ... Read on

Joined-Up Customer Service

Joined-Up Customer Service

Customers expect first-class service, no matter what the channel of contact. To earn the label 'first-class', we believe customer ... Read on

SaaS Cloud Computing And Smart Phones

SaaS Cloud Computing And Smart Phones

Most of us use SaaS every hour of the day. If the hosted call center services model follows anything like the trajectory of the ... Read on

Flying A Plane Without Fear

Flying A Plane Without Fear

The needs of a call center supervisor are similar to those of a pilot in thick fog. In order to fly without fear of disaster, he must ... Read on

Don’t Let Snow Get You Down!

Don’t Let Snow Get You Down!

How well is your contact center set up to cope with the disruption of the winter season? Now is the time to review your technology ... Read on

Technical Support – Can You Help Me?

Technical Support – Can You Help Me?

When contact center software and hardware fails, what level of technical support and customer service do you expect? Read on

Mapping A Migration To IP

Mapping A Migration To IP

No call center in the world wants to be left out of the multimedia IP revolution. This blog maps a viable and graceful migration path ... Read on

The Evolution Of The New Agent Desktop

The Evolution Of The New Agent Desktop

This month’s blog looks at the current and forthcoming challenges faced by contact centers at the agent desktop, and outlines a way ... Read on

Seven Tips For Hosted Contact Center Success

Seven Tips For Hosted Contact Center Success

What makes a successful hosted contact center operation? If you are considering becoming a hosted call center supplier, consider these ... Read on

Is Your Customer Service Joined Up?

Is Your Customer Service Joined Up?

How should your technology be empowering your CSRs to deliver top class customer service? Here's a list of 10 must-haves. Read on

Next Generation Networks, Brought To You By The Call Center?

Next Generation Networks, Brought To You By The Call Center?

Could it be that the future of networking is currently being trialed in call centers across the world? Read on

Predictive Dialers and Call Progress Detection

Predictive Dialers and Call Progress Detection

Watch out for predictive dialer vendors claiming over 90% (sometimes over 95%) detection rates for answering machines. This is not ... Read on

Future-Proof Software Development?

Future-Proof Software Development?

In the software development business, 'change is inevitable, change is constant'. So how do you manage sustainable software ... Read on

Unified Communications In The Contact Center – Part Two

Unified Communications In The Contact Center – Part Two

The contact center industry should be asking its UC vendor community for detail on how their technology can provide solutions to ... Read on

VoIP – Hosted AND Premise-Based?

VoIP – Hosted AND Premise-Based?

If current trends are anything to go by, premise-based installations are losing favour and we are headed for hosted and cloud-based ... Read on

Unified Communications In The Contact Center – Part One

Unified Communications In The Contact Center – Part One

Unified communications has substantial business benefits for the contact center. But how do you separate the actual benefits from the ... Read on

Benchmarking Your Predictive Dialer

Benchmarking Your Predictive Dialer

Hands up who’s bought a predictive dialer on the basis of a manufacturer’s claims, without getting independent verification of ... Read on

What We Offer

Sytel Limited develops and supplies Softdial Contact Center® (SCC) – multimedia, multichannel, fully blended cloud contact center solutions.

Available by subscription as CCaaS, fully managed and supported by Sytel, or for quick and easy deployment by partners and enterprise users.

All Sytel cloud components are secure, resilient and scale seamlessly from 10 agents to 10,000+, whether local, mobile or remote.

Flexible Contact Center Software

Softdial Contact Center™ – rich functionality, all-in-one, designed to deliver at scale

  • Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)

    CCaaS for subscribers – global service​, with no upfront costs

  • Contact Center Platform – CCaaS Partners

    Build your own CCaaS business using the power and flexibility of Sytel software

  • Contact Center Platform – Enterprise

    High performance platform to drive contact center productivity – cloud, on-premise or hybrid

Blended Media Desktop

Fully customisable, multi-channel, multi-session workspace

Work Anywhere

Browser-based tools, no software installation required

Customise, Localise, White Label

Design all user interfaces to individual requirements

Integration via APIs

‘Swap out’ components and integrate with 3rd party apps

World Class Development

Continuous evolution pushing technical boundaries

Capabilities

Softdial Contact Center™ (SCC) is designed to be flexible, extensible and scalable, integrating with any legacy equipment, and meeting the most complex of requirements.

All Media Channels

Voice, chat, email, social, etc – fully integrated and blended

Agent Multi-Tasking

Work with multiple live contact sessions of any media channel

Dynamic Workforce Management

Optimise agent usage and balance workloads in real-time without human intervention, across all media channels

Predictive Dialing

Best-of-breed performance under compliance

Optimised Inbound Routing

Smart rules and ‘best-available’ decisions to drive great customer service

Agent Scripts

Help agents achieve and maintain excellence

Voice and Screen Recording

See and hear exactly how agents are interacting

Analytics and Data Feeds

Measure and evaluate performance at every level

IVR, Bots & Conversational AI

Design effective automated flows or integrate with 3rd party providers

Customer Journey Tracking

Stored customer contact history, to aid routing and add context to conversations

Modules

Drive operational efficiency, increase customer satisfaction & improve agent performance

Softdial One™

Highly flexible unified web UI for agents, supervisors and administrators

Softdial Scripter™

Create complex process flow scripts for agents, IVR, chatbots and other applications

Sytel AI Dialer™

Maximum predictive dialing performance, under any compliance rules

Softdial Pathfinder™

Precise routing rules for ‘best available’ connection

Softdial Media Server™

Core telephony functions to manage all inbound/outbound SIP calls

Softdial Reporter™ 5

Fully customisable performance stats, charts and reports, across all channels

Softdial Publisher™

Comprehensive data output to build your own reports

Softdial Recording Monitor™

Audio and screen recording of agent activity to ensure the highest standards

Softdial Campaign Manager™

Automation to optimise any outreach strategy

Softdial Repository™

Central storage and configuration of common resources

Sytel Global Compliance™

Flexible ‘no contact’ rules to protect contact center and consumer

Solutions

Performance and efficiency for a wide range of business applications

By Business Type

Enterprise

A full featured contact center software solution, designed for optimum performance at scale

Small/ Medium Business

Options for SMBs to subscribe to our full-featured cloud service managed and hosted by either one of our partners or by Sytel themselves

By Industry

Customer Service

Connect quickly to well equipped agents

Market Research

Best-of-breed predictive dialing with CATI integration

Debt Collection

Automated inbound/ outbound blending integrated with any debt management app

Sales & Telemarketing

Maximise agent productivity with best-of-breed predictive dialing

Healthcare

Secure, highly-configurable multichannel communications for excellence in patient care