Enterprises are continuously faced with challenging tasks while trying to effectively
manage their customer interactions, transactions and services. Their critical, and at the same time conflicting objectives range from cost reduction to increasing revenues and customer satisfaction, optimizing their labor intensive operation, integrating technologies from multiple vendors and effectively acquiring and utilizing customer intelligence.

A true solution to such complex challenges is an affordable, end-to-end and vertical integration of five major steps in managing customer interactions:

• Capturing - Employing voice, data and Internet communication technologies to capture inbound, outbound and blended interactions, while optimizing resources through unified messaging, auto-dialers and Interactive Voice Responses (IVR)
• Distribution - Utilizing historical and dynamic data regarding the availability and performance of the resources to effectively distribute interaction workload and increase throughput
• Fulfillment - Completing and fulfilling the objectives of customer's interaction and transaction, such as resolving customer service issues, order processing and campaign management through applications that are fully integrated with the rest of the overall process
• Management - Providing a single point of interaction for agents, supervisors and administration personnel; as well as facilitating a single point for configuration, provisioning, measurement, analytics, assessment and reporting for all resources, processes and functions involved in customer interactions and transactions
• Optimization - Increasing productivity of all resources and reducing costs through integration, automation and optimization tools; offering an end-to-end vertical integration of capabilities and functions with a closed-loop set of automation and optimization tools to significantly increase productivity at all vertical levels and throughout the process

Market trends, requirements and drivers in the past several years, summarized below
from reports published by industry analysts such as Raymond James and Associates, Pelorus Group, and others; further supported such affordable, end-to-end and vertically integrated software or outsourcing solution:

• Customer Interaction Management (CIM) has rapidly established a set of requirements, technologies and services that call centers and enterprises demand
  to effectively manage their customer interactions and transactions.
• Call centers and contact centers within various enterprises trend toward small to medium size sites. Studies have shown that they are currently the largest and fastest growing market segment. These sites demand highly affordable Integrated Customer Interaction Management (ICIM) solutions with flexible purchasing options.
• Typical customer interaction remains heavily labor intensive. Call center
  optimization technologies and services that can reduce labor costs are in high demand. Call recording is the largest market segment and first logical purchase, followed by workforce automation and optimization, performance optimization, analytics and e-learning.
• Customers increasingly require bundled solutions beyond recording and preferably from as few vendors as possible, further emphasizing vertically integrated
  solutions. Vertically Integrated Customer Interaction Management (VICIM) supplied by one vendor reduces costs by offering a vertical set of call center functional layers, ranging from capturing the interaction to distributing, fulfilling and managing while the required processes, functions and resources are integrated, automated
  and optimized.

Additional and related market drivers were considered by OnviSource to successfully deliver the VICIM solutions and expand its business to offer outsourcing services:

• Offering both products and outsourcing services creates market differentiation
  while building internal business diversification, financial strengths and cyclical synergies.
• A unique, sizable and growing target market is the enterprise with a large customer base in markets selling highly competitive commodity products, such as telecom, cable & utility companies. They are in need of cost effective and flexible customer interaction outsourcing, especially in telemarketing and sales campaigns, customer transaction and customer retention.