Businesses are becoming increasingly distributed - more virtual. With a growing number of contact centers, remote agents, and branch locations, companies are challenged to ensure that agents and supervisors maintain productivity, quality, and the ability to collaborate - even if they are not co-located.

Some products optimize the way agents and supervisors interact regardless of location. Architected to take specific and full advantage of VoIP, agent and supervisor desktop products provide the features of highly-customized team productivity applications in an easily deployed and simply managed package. And typically, no programming resources are required.

As agents receive calls, the agent desktop unifies the tools the agents need to manage the contact more efficiently:

• Caller information is presented instantly;
• Integrated business applications provide for easy access and updates to customer information;
• Performance reports provide a snapshot against key metrics; and
• A tool bar delivers one-click automation for routine tasks.

When customers call agents, supervisors are behind the scenes, managing processes and monitoring quality. The supervisor desktop lets them monitor call information in real time, and provides the collaboration and management tools they need to meet their team objectives. Following are benefits of the right supervisor desktop:

• Supervisors can monitor agent calls and intercept a call when necessary;
• Supervisors can interact with agents through presence-enabled chat sessions, which promote team collaboration and coaching, without delays or putting the customer on hold;
• Integrated broadcast messaging acts as a wallboard to communicate and enforce behaviors for entire teams; and
• Supervisors can manage agent states without leaving their desk.

State-of-the-art quality management products include a highly-scalable voice and screen recording and evaluation solution that supports agents and supervisors at any physical location. Software uniquely uses the processing power of the agent's PC to record and process the voice and screen transactions for performance evaluation or compliance. The application architecture minimizes hardware and bandwidth utilization in a distributed or virtual environment.

With quality management products, supervisors can:

• Select and process transactions of interest, and processed if they meet established business criteria;
• Review and score the transactions against key performance metrics, which drives initiatives for quality improvements and training; and
• Create individual and team performance reports that show trends that drive initiatives for quality improvements and training.

The right products will transform the way teams interact with customers, and with each other.