Put Chrome OS to work in contact centers with new integrated solutions

Contact centers are getting new tools in their digital transformation toolbelt. Starting today, Chrome OS offers a fully integrated solution for contact centers. With Chrome OS and our partners you get:

1. Secure platform and remote management: Chrome OS is a cloud-first, easy-to-manage operating system that can secure and optimize your contact center while supporting remote agents

2. Validated contact center solutions: New contact center solutions optimized for Chrome OS through a new solution track for Chrome Enterprise Recommended

3. Access to virtualization desktop infrastructure: Assurance knowing Chrome OS and Citrix Workspace is now a Citrix Ready verified solution for contact center

4. Agent peripherals & devices: New certified Works With Chromebook headsets and a thriving Chrome OS device ecosystem

A new world of customer engagement with Chrome OS

With work-from-home programs advancing at top speed — 77% of service organizations are adopting or accelerating remote work options according to Deloitte¹ — more and more customer support agents are taking their calls from the home office. While businesses have adapted to this new way of work and quickly migrated many of their contact center solutions to the cloud, agent devices have been left behind. 

Chrome OS offers businesses a cloud-first OS for devices, remote management, and a productive agent experience that can secure and optimize contact centers: 

• Protect business and customer information: Chrome OS has built-in and proactive protection from viruses, ransomware, and employee negligence. Security features like automatic security updates, verified boot, sandboxing technology, blocked executables, a read-only OS, the Titan C security chip, and Google Safe Browsing ensure data stays in the right hands. In fact, there have been no reported ransomware attacks on a Chrome OS device, ever.

• Increase agent productivity: Agents can save up to 3 hours per week² in downtime from updates that happen in the background, devices that don’t slow down overtime, and the cloud-first approach to collaboration and work. Additionally, the intuitive, error-free user experience means agents can onboard quickly and have a clutter-free desktop so they can focus on providing better customer support.

• Deploy and manage stress-free: With zero-touch enrollment, IT can drop-ship devices directly to agents without IT configuration or imaging — users’ apps, settings, and policies download automatically. Chrome OS devices deploy 76% faster than Windows 10, and businesses can redeploy them 96% faster³ making dealing with high-turnover rates easier. The 500+ cloud-based policies allow IT to manage devices remotely from the Google Admin console.

• Integrate with your preferred solutions: Deploy verified contact center solutions from the Chrome Enterprise Recommended program or integrate with your existing virtualization infrastructure to access on-prem solutions. Businesses can choose from a wide range of high-performance Chrome OS devices and certified peripherals for agents. 

Introducing the Contact Center solution track for Chrome Enterprise Recommended

Last year, we introduced Chrome Enterprise Recommended, our partner program featuring best of breed, third party software validated for Chrome OS by Google’s own partner engineering team. This program ensures leading software developers work with Google to optimize their products’ quality, security and end user experience, and provides businesses with a catalog of applications they can count on. To ensure contact centers can provide a great support experience, we are excited to announce the Contact Center solution track for Chrome Enterprise Recommended.

As part of this Chrome Enterprise Recommended solution track launch, we have worked with seven contact center solution providers to validate their market leading solutions, including 8x8, Cisco, Edify, Five9, Genesys, RingCentral, and Vonage. These solution providers have worked closely with our partner engineering team to optimize their products for Chrome OS and are driving innovation within the contact center industry.

Chrome OS is now a Citrix Ready validated solution for contact center

Many contact centers still need to access legacy apps that exist on their infrastructure, and choose to access these applications through a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution, like Citrix Workspace, for business continuity or security reasons. Contact center leaders leveraging VDI need confidence their solutions will operate without interruption.

Today, we’re excited to announce Citrix Workspace on Chrome OS as a Citrix Ready validated solution for contact centers. This means that the Citrix and Chrome OS teams have validated leading contact center components including software, peripherals, and devices to work great together, ensuring contact centers get the best agent experience, simplified management, and shorter deployment times. For a complete list of what’s been validated, visit the Citrix Ready Marketplace page. Chrome OS and Citrix will continue to work together to validate more apps, endpoints, and peripherals. 

Together, Chrome OS and Citrix offer experiences designed for the end-user including strong product integrations that enhance audio and video passthrough, advanced security with built-in protection at the endpoint and in the cloud, and the ability to support any workload, from SaaS to legacy enterprise apps. 

New certified Works With Chromebook headsets and a thriving Chrome OS device ecosystem

For agents to provide superior customer service, they need the right tools to complement their devices including great mice, keyboards, monitors, webcams, docks, and headsets. The Works With Chromebook program certifies peripherals in all these categories to ensure seamless integration with Chrome OS devices. 

The program now includes 15+ certified headsets for contact centers from industry leading brands including EPOS, Jabra, and Poly. These headsets are tested & certified to work across all Chrome OS devices. See our device selectors to help you choose the best Chrome OS devices for your contact center and purchase verified peripherals here.

Start deploying Chrome OS today with customized solutions and offers

It’s easy to get started securing and optimizing your contact centers with Chrome OS today. You can explore customized solutions from CDW, deploy CloudReady to get a Chrome OS experience on your existing PCs and Macs, or start a Chrome Enterprise Upgrade trial if you already have Chrome OS devices. If you need Chrome OS devices, you can also contact us to get connected to a partner.

¹_{From cost center to experience hub, Deloitte Digital, June 2021}
²_{2018 Chrome OS Forrester TEI Reports}
³_{ESG Technical Review, Google Chromebook: Accelerating Device Lifecycle Management, June 2020}