It is amazing to see how much VoIP has helped call centers evolve into the IP contact center and further allows organizations to dramatically improve customer service while reducing cost. VoIP is to the contact center in this decade what the ACD was in the eighties and the predictive dialer was in the nineties. As IP contact center technology evolves, low tech industries we don't associate with VoIP start to catch on to the notion of using packet based technology to allow their business to improve while lowering overhead.

The drive through window is something we don't associate with high tech and worse yet many of us associate ordering from a drive through as a necessary evil. Whenever you couple terrible sound quality with an immigrate accent and often mix that sound with the background noise of inclement weather, sirens and dogs barking, you make for poor conversation.

Keeping this in mind, you can imagine my excitement when I learned you can now order from a drive through window and have your order taken in an IP contact center. Telephone sales representatives in a central location are are more easily managed and can focus on customer service without having to worry about the harried environment of a fast food restaurant.

 The company behind this call center is Bronco Communications and they are now working on using IP contact centers to take orders from kiosks at airports. VoIP enabled kiosks with with or without video capability are the future of retail in my opinion. I am waiting for the day that car rental agencies will use these kiosks regularly to cut down on costs late at night at airports. There is a tremendous incentive to minimize counter representatives at airports during the slow hours. Customers would rather have a video VoIP conversation with an agent than have no agent at all which is often the case late at night.

It is important to point out that this is an application using voice over IP to change the way a business operates. I call this VoIP 2.0. VoIP isnt just about saving money anymore, it is about using IP to alter how your business operates for the better.