Orange Business Services takes next step in its international customer contact strategy

– enhancing portfolio with Flexible Contact Center, a cloud-based, multichannel solution 
– supporting 360Buy’s expansion, the largest online retailer in China, with managed contact center

Paris, 25-10-2012 — /europawire.eu/ — Orange Business Services is accelerating its international customer contact strategy to help companies deliver an excellent experience at an operationally efficient cost. Orange Business Services has an ambition to double its international contact center revenues over the next three years.

“Profitable customer relationships are business critical,” said Vivek Badrinath, CEO, Orange Business Services. “New communications channels are emerging as a complement to voice. These new channels are expected by Generation Y, and companies have to reinvent the way they communicate with their customers in order to meet this expectation. Many companies face increasing cost pressures and need to limit investments while differentiating through best-in-class services. We believe that cloud-based contact center solutions provide a powerful business tool to accompany multinationals’ rapid expansion in new territories.”

With 550 experts supporting 90,000 contact center positions, Orange Business Services provides global network, infrastructure and services backed by its dual expertise as a leading network operator and technology integrator.

launch of Flexible Contact Center:  a response to new customer expectations and companies’ challenges

Orange Business Services is enhancing its contact center portfolio with a cloud-based solution called Flexible Contact Center. Available in 110 countries and territories, Flexible Contact Center is a scalable and secure multichannel contact center solution. Since this solution is cloud-based, CAPEX is minimal; companies pay as they grow; and there is no technical maintenance.
“Flexible Contact Center provides companies with all the benefits of a cloud-based contact center solution,” said Béatrice Felder, vice president, Customer Contact Solutions, Orange Business Services. “Our objective is to support companies’ expansion, from medium-sized companies to multinationals, both on domestic and international markets while providing a best-class and personalized customer experience.”

in addition to traditional cloud computing benefits, there are specific benefits when putting contact centers in the cloud

• personalized:  Flexible Contact Center includes a unique flexible workspace feature, based on drag-and-drop widgets, enabling companies to easily:
  – personalize agent’s desktops to adapt to day-to-day business evolution;
  – integrate company resources and especially CRM applications allowing agents to provide a personal welcome and support.
• multichannel:  Different customers want to communicate through different devices and media, and Flexible Contact Center supports live agent voice, Interactive Voice Response, e-mail and chat with other options planned.
• mobility & homeshoring:  Agents and supervisors can have access to their business desktop with relevant tools, anytime from anywhere.
• consistency:  All agents and supervisors have access to the same tools so that the customer experiences the same level of service anywhere in the world.
• integrated:  Flexible Contact Center can be integrated to complement traditional contact center solutions from Orange Business Services based on the needs of the customer. This allows for quick ramp-up of new agents to manage a rapid increase in contact volume.
• UC-compatible:  Since Flexible Contact Center is cloud-based and uses drag-and-drop widgets, agents and supervisors can integrate unified communications tools into their desktop including a PC-based softphone and instant messaging.

Orange Business Services supports 360buy’s business deploying a 5,000 position managed contact center

Orange Business Services is providing a managed contact center solution to 360buy.com, the leading Chinese online business-to-consumer (B2C) retailer, also known as Jingdong Mall, with 51 million registered users. The contact center solution supports 5,000 360buy agent positions located in China, the country’s largest B2C e-commerce Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) call center. The goal of this contact center solution is to use multimedia channels and text-to-speech in addition to traditional voice to sustain the business expansion and customer service excellence of 360buy.

Orange Business Services created a software-based contact center solution for 360buy that is flexible, scalable, feature rich, and easy and quick to deploy. As architected, this contact center can support more than 20,000 agents, which will be the largest SIP or software-based contact center in the world.
Jacky Cheng, senior vice president, Marketing Department, 360buy, said:  “A new agile contact center infrastructure was mandatory not only in order to meet today’s needs, but also for our future expansion plans. Customers do not only require the voice channel for customer support; they also want multimedia channels such as Web chat and e-mail. The reliability of the new system from Orange Business Services has been proven thanks to the successful processing of 150,000 calls in one day on 360buy’s anniversary date. In addition, the solution improved the first call resolution rate by transferring calls to suppliers’ agents directly, instead of requesting customers to call suppliers’ call centers.”

about Orange

France Telecom-Orange is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with sales of 45.3 billion euros for 2011 and has 170,000 employees worldwide at 30 June 2012, including 105,000 employees in France. Present in 33 countries, the Group has a total customer base of 224 million customers at 30 June 2012, including 166 million mobile customers and 15 million broadband internet (ADSL, fibre) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband internet services and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

With its industrial project, “conquests 2015”, Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group will build its future growth; through the Group’s ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development.

France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.
For more information (on the internet and on your mobile): www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.orange-innovation.tv or to follow us on Twitter: @presseorange.
Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Brand Services Limited, Orange France or France Telecom.

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