All About Regulation

January, 2017

As regulators scratch their heads as how to prevent abuse and establish markets that work for both consumers and businesses, there are three clear lessons that history shows.

Writing from the UK, we have always been an admirer of Ofcom’s (the UK telecoms regulator) attempts to control outbound activities in the UK. But their latest policy announcement on their controls has prompted some reflection we would like to share with you..

As a manufacturer of call center software that we sell all over the world, we have a vested interest in seeing our software serve real business needs, whilst at the same time delivering value to consumers.

When we launched our predictive dialer some 20 years ago it was into a market that seemed to care little about consumers. The attitude was call whoever you like, whenever you like, keep them waiting on the phone, hang up if no agent available – then keep doing it.

In retrospect it was obvious; bring in a game-changing technology at low cost and don’t set reasonable rules as to how it impacts consumers. Expect chaos, and that is what we eventually got in outbound markets, everywhere.

And that is still the case today in many markets. But the chaos is arguably less in those countries who have brought in regulations.

Going back a decade or more, some countries experimented with self regulation. Great if you can make it work, but when there are no penalties for ignoring rules drawn up by say national marketing associations, then don’t expect wide compliance. It just doesn’t happen!

As Ofcom and other regulators around the world contemplate call center activities and scratch their heads as how to prevent abuse and establish markets that work for consumers as well as business, there seem to be three clear lessons from recent history.

  • The first is don’t be deceived into thinking that a free market, with no constraints on call center operators, will work well. It won’t.
  • The second is that regulation needs to be a proportionate response to both the needs and wishes of both consumers and business. If it is not, it will fail.
  • And the third is that regulation need to be measurable, unambiguous and enforceable. If this is not the case, then it regulation likely to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

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

Automated, ‘best available’ decisions to manage agents and balance work load, 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