November 2000

VOCALCOM
Paris, France
Ph: +33 55 37 30 50
Fx: +33 55 37 30 51

Price: With 48 agents (2 T1s), $2000 per seat for Herm�s Predator (predictive outbound or inbound ACD-IVR); $3500 per seat for Herm�s Pro (full-featured blended call center); $4000 per seat for Herm�s Ambassador (full-featured Internet blended call center)

RATINGS (0-5)
Installation: N/A
Documentation: 3.5
Features: 4.9
GUI: 4.25
Overall: A-

Installation
In most cases, the installation of the administrator, ACD, client and agent software is handled entirely by representatives of VOCALCOM for their customers. Since we only wanted to install the software in a lab environment, we set up the hardware requirements and watched as a representative from VOCALCOM installed their software onto Windows NT Server 4.0. We used a 333 MHz Mitac industrial computer with 320 megs of RAM to be assured we had enough memory to test the product (we found out that Herm�s Pro used only around 32 Megs of RAM memory for the initial installation). We also learned from the representatives that VOCALCOM gives a three-day training course on the Herm�s Pro for their new customers. This certainly helps agents, supervisors and administrators understand the system. Unfortunately, because VOCALCOM could not let us borrow the PC-PBX they had brought with them for an extended period of time, we could install the software onto our system, but could not test all of the features. While the installation process seemed simple enough, we did not obtain enough information to reasonably determine its ease and flexibility. Nevertheless, since installation is usually done by VOCALCOM, we will not grade this aspect of the product.

Documentation
If we rated the documentation strictly on the sheer bulk of the printed manuals, the Herm�s Pro documentation would receive high marks. There is a lot of information contained in the many manuals, some of which are somewhat thick. Thankfully, there are many screenshots highlighting the pages, which makes for easier reading since the screenshots are clear and understandable.

Undoubtedly due to the translation from French and English (VOCALCOM's headquarters are in France), there are some typos and grammatical errors in the documentation. There is also some untranslated material. But compared to some other companies' translated documentation we have seen in the past (which can border on being totally unreadable), these translations are not bad.

The biggest problem TMC� Labs had with the printed documentation was the cohesiveness of the manuals as a whole. We found ourselves searching through different manuals to find the proper information we wanted, if we found it at all, and occasionally we did not have much to go on other than the screenshot of the interface with little or no text associated with it. We understand that the French version of the documentation may be more cohesive, but as far as the English version is concerned, combining the manuals and adding some more understandable instructions about the features would help immensely. Providing detailed indexes at the end of the manuals would also be advantageous.

For a product of this magnitude, help files are very important so users can gain a better understanding of certain features. Currently, there is very little relevant information contained in the help files.

Features
Herm�s Pro is separated into many smaller components in a hierarchical type of format. We could almost draw it out in a tree diagram. Directly under the Herm�s Pro headline would be the outbound dialer, ACD functionality, Web call center, IVR application generator, administration, agent capabilities, supervisor applications and plug-ins categories. Under these categories would be the associated Herm�s names (as described in the brochures) and then the features associated with these names. While this type of hierarchical structure helps describe the many features of Herm�s Pro, we will not go into as much detail. However, the following list will briefly discuss the major features associated with the categories we specified above:

• Outbound dialer -- contains preview dialing for receiving information about the person or company an agent is calling, progressive dialing for transferring a call to the agent as soon as the agent is available, predictive dialing and scheduled recalls.
• ACD functionality -- includes ODBC compatibility, call distribution, call routing, call blending and capabilities to lower abandon rates.
• Web call center -- pop-up e-mail that is connected to a company's mail server and ISP, co-browsing with the ability to push Web pages, real-time chat, Web call through and Web callback.
• IVR application generator -- for creating a personalized IVR system, the app-gen can be used to create better customer service applications, perform text-to-speech in many different languages and create traditional auto attendant functionality.
• Administration -- the graphical interface is mainly used by the administrator to set up inbound and outbound campaigns, set up agents and supervisors and for functionality such as skills-based routing, scheduling, privileges and scripting.
• Agent capabilities -- agents can ask for new call, type wrap-up information, transfer a call to another agent, access critical information about the agent's queue, record conversations, contact supervisor while on call, perform call qualification, obtain personal information and history of the customer's interactions and provide online fulfillment.
• Supervisor applications -- includes agent monitoring, voice logging, entering a conference call, sending a message to selected agents, access to reports and production statistics, alarm functionality, validation of messages and various methods to control the quality of service.
• Plug-ins -- options include the appointment manager for optimizing appointment quotas, online telesales for taking orders online, customer objection and hang-up analysis, and management of surveys.

Operational Testing
Since we were unable to keep for more than one day the PC-PBX the representatives from VOCALCOM had brought, we could not test some of the features of the Herm�s Pro system. However, we were able to get a feel for the graphical interface by reviewing each button and drop-down list available. From these observations, we felt that the GUI was not difficult to use, but it was not entirely intuitive either. At times, we really had to search for the appropriate feature we wanted. The printed manuals were beneficial to us with our review of the interface, but help files would have been extremely useful.

In addition, we tried the Herm�s Pro live demo from VOCALCOM's Web site. We just clicked on the demo, entered the information required of us, waited a few moments for an agent to pick up our call and were then in the chat session. We tested the chat functionality and had the agent push us Web pages. We then pushed a different Web page back to the agent, which showed the cobrowsing functionality. We could even see the agent we were talking to through real-time video.

We also tested the VoIP functionality and ran into some problems with our firewall. However, after opening up the UDP ports, we were able to determine that the VoIP call's quality was easily understandable without an overabundance of latency.

To be able to view Herm�s Pro's agent features, TMC� Labs set up PC Anywhere and dialed up into VOCALCOM's headquarters. From there, we were able to see how simple it was for agents to answer requests. The agents either already had the background information and history of the customer interactions given to them or could add that information without much of a hassle. They were able to chat from customer to agent, push URLs to the customer, search the Web, and write e-mail and attach files directly from the agent's interface so that files can be sent to a customer.

In accordance with some of the other tools, the IVR application generator is not difficult to use, but could be even simpler. When we thought about an IVR system in logical terms by considering how an auto attendant should react to certain caller situations, we could create simple applications by dropping the correct icon in the appropriate position on the interface. We first needed to fill out the appropriate information, and then a button would form on the screen. To adjust the settings of each button's features, you right-click on the button, choose "Modify Action," and enter the appropriate information. It would have also been helpful to be able to double-click the button to perform this task. As it is configured now, you just add or delete specific buttons in this way. In addition, some of the icons may confuse users who haven't referred to the manual. Some of the more obvious icons used for this app-gen are play message, fax, database, mail, goto, begin and end loop, test and calculate variables, and a database icon.

Room For Improvement
Since the feature set for Herm�s Pro is excellent, there isn't much more to suggest other than what we have already mentioned, but we would like to reinforce our earlier comments and add a few more. The most significant improvements that could be made for this system would be in the organization of the documentation and in building a cleaner and more intuitive graphical interface. Both of these issues could be greatly improved with high-quality help files. Also, there should be the ability for right-click options on every screen of all the Windows-based interfaces, not just a few. In addition, application sharing between the agent and customer could really help a campaign. Furthermore, the inclusion of XML in addition to HTML for Web customer interaction would greatly enhance the coding schematics.

Conclusion
We consider the Herm�s Pro Interactive solution as being a "PC-PBX Call Center." It has PC-PBX functionality and is intended for the call center. Certainly, there are PC-PBX products out there that invest all of their features in just being a phone system, and there are products that have specific functionality for particular call center needs, such as workforce management software. However, Herm�s Pro is a fine product that covers a very wide spectrum of features for the overall needs of call centers. One would be hard-pressed to find a product with such comprehensive functionality.

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