The Legacy Ends Here

VirtualLogger yesterday launched a program to give contact centers achance to do some spring cleaning—and get paid. The contact centersolutions provider initiated a Trade-Up Program for new customers thatgives them cash in exchange for their legacy call recording and qualitymonitoring systems.

A few months ago, the company introduced a similar plan, called Universal Upgrade, but under that program, customers were only able to update their legacy systems for a Web-based system, when in fact, most of them wanted completely new operating systems .

The new plan is VirtualLogger's attempt to get rid of what its president, Jim Veilleux, calls a "forklift upgrade." In such an upgrade, customers are required to purchase new equipment and software every time they enhance their system's technological capabilities or features. Because VirtualLogger is available as a hosted service, Veilleux says the company can lower overall service costs.

Trade-Up gives users another incentive to make the switch. "Our pricing model is very different from the rest of the industry," Veilleux states. "We use a pay-as-you-go, software as a service model, which greatly reduces cost to clients switching to new technology. This upgrade program could eliminate that upfront cost altogether."

The amount VirtualLogger will pay for a company's legacy systems depends upon the equipment's current condition and functionality. Models that work well could yield $50 to $150 per agent or recorded line. Once the company receives the equipment, VirtualLogger will either use it for other customer installations, take it apart and analyze it, or send it to the scrap heap. Veilleux thinks that, on average, most customers' systems will be between four and six years old.

With their old system gone, new customers can take advantage of VirtualLogger's call recording and quality monitoring services, which are available on a hosted or ASP basis. The move toward hosted solutions also works to the company's benefit: With more businesses with multilocation contact centers, hosted solutions continue to grow in popularity. In addition, Veilleux claims that VirtualLogger's services help ease the transition to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), one of the company's biggest selling points. Traditionally, the transition to VoIP comes with a hefty price tag.

"Instead of having to buy a new system, [a customer] pays us a little bit of money associated with the engineering in switching from traditional phone service to VoIP," he says. "Effectively, their cost of switching is very close to nothing."