How many inboxes are there on your desk? A voice mailbox, an e-mail inbox, a folder to
hold incoming faxes, and even the standard inbox for U.S. postal mail - this means four
separate inboxes, and that's assuming you only have a single phone line and a single
e-mail address. And what response do messages from each of these inboxes require from you?
A voice message asking for an image to be e-mailed back, an e-mail containing a hyperlink
or an attached Word file, a fax asking for a phone call response - even messages that only
directly employ a single medium often require multimedia responses. The receiver must
change mediums, take notes, and transfer information before making a reply.
This is the argument for unified messaging. It's the same old argument - a single inbox
that accepts and allows responses to all forms of messages: fax, voice, e-mail. All three
of these media types have one thing in common: At one point, each of them is conveyed in
an electronic format. This commonality - which is the reason why standard postal mail is
excluded from the list - is what makes unified messaging not only possible, but as
inevitable as tape drive backups and dial-up Internet access (both of which use a
previously existing electronic medium in a manner for which it was not originally
intended).
So why hasn't unified messaging been the "killer app" that everyone has
promised?
The answer to this question explains why we have chosen Nortel's CallPilot for an
Editors' Choice award this issue. Bringing together such varied electronic formats as fax,
voice, and e-mail is a huge task, and that is only part of the challenge that unified
messaging faces. There are also the ever-present issues of ease-of-use, convenience, total
cost, and reliability.
In developing CallPilot, Nortel has sought to provide a truly complete unified
messaging service - they conform to e-mail standards like IMAP, MIME, and LDAP, as well as
using Voice Profile for Internet Mail (VPIM) for enabling Web-based fax and voice
messaging - and they have done it in a user-friendly, cost-effective package.
Among CallPilot's many features are the ability to leave intentional voice messages
(messages left intentionally and directly in voice mail, rather than going to voice mail
only after a phone wasn't answered), to deliver faxes with a voice attachment, and to
respond to many spoken commands using built-in speech recognition capabilities. Instead of
simply replicating current message retrieval abilities in a single medium, CallPilot
employs the attributes of each independent medium and makes them all essentially
interchangeable. This is truly unified messaging, or what might be termed
"amalgamated" messaging.
The message sender and recipient are no longer locked into standard formats. Instead,
the formats are melded together, so that a voice explanation might accompany a faxed
document, or an e-mail might provide more specifics to flesh out information mentioned
only in passing on a voice message. By combining the media types, and by doing so in a
very usable package, Nortel's CallPilot represents one of the most innovative and
promising unified messaging products we have seen.
Price, performance, and simplicity are probably the three most important attributes any
buyer considers when making a purchase. Like the sides of a triangle, these three
qualities are intimately connected to each other - change one, and the other two are going
to be affected as well.
If you visualize these three attributes as forming a triangle, the most appealing ratio
between the sides should form an equilateral triangle - one that balances ease-of-use with
performance and overall cost. An especially short side throws off this balance, and makes
the product described by this metaphorical triangle that much less stable. The sense of
balance between these three qualities explains why Intel's ProShare Video System is so
impressive. Each of the three sides has been designed to result in an overall appealing
product.
Video conferencing is one of those ideas that you know are good - after all, the
average person relies more heavily on visual information that information from all the
other senses combined. The ability to include visual material in long-distance conferences
would dramatically increase the effectiveness of such conferences. Whether the application
is long-distance learning, presenting, interviewing, or even just keeping in touch, the
visual element adds a sense of intimacy and personality that can be lacking in text-only
and audio-only interactions.
Until recently, however, the transmission of video information has required too much up
front from users, computers, and carriers to be readily usable. Additionally,
interoperability between various vendors' products has remained an issue.
Intel has directly addressed these concerns with its ProShare Video System 500. The
package is simple to install and use - it includes a single PCI ISDN/audio/video capture
card, a microphone/headset, a composite color video camera, a boom microphone, the
necessary cables, and supporting materials. Intel estimates that the average installation
should take about 30 minutes - providing you have an existing ISDN connection (requires
single BRI 2B+D, 112-128kbps ISDN phone line, certified IOC J and EZ ISDN 1).
Additionally, ProShare Video 500 can be deployed over a corporate LAN. Usage over either
ISDN or LAN allows up to 30 frames per second of H.320- and H.323-compliant video.
Intel has also kept ProShare 500 backward-compatible with previous business
conferencing products, including TeamStation System 4.0. TeamStation and ProShare
integrate fully, allowing for sharing of whiteboards, applications, and files.
In addition to being easy to install and use, ProShare Video System 500 is inexpensive:
the MSRP for the entire system 500 is only $799. The low cost completes the triangle of
features, adding up to an impressive video conferencing application that can be installed
and utilized immediately, but which also assures buyers of compatibility with future H.323
systems.
This issue of CTI� has several articles that deal with call center CTI
software and workforce management applications. With continued increase in the use of
e-mail, as well as the growth of the Internet and interest in its use as a commercial
medium, call centers are facing significant changes in the future in the way they do
business. Many people we have spoken with in the industry have suggested that the term
"call centers" no encompasses all aspects of how a business might contact its
customers, and new terms such as "customer interaction centers" or
"customer contact centers" have been suggested instead.
With all the attention on multimedia and multi-channel customer contact - essentially
redefining the call center, regardless of the name chosen - the call center of the future
will be significantly different from the call center of today. As with anything related to
the computer industry, the coming transition is likely to happen quickly, and the
industry's task will not be so much to make the change as to keep pace with the change
happening around it.
Appropriately enough, we have chosen a forward-looking, call center-related product to
receive an Editors' Choice award this month. IMA's AdvantEDGE 4.0 is the most recent
version of their "customer interaction software," and it takes a big step toward
the call center of the future with its focus on workflow, integration, and simplicity.
IMA has added many new features to its already well known software - a single data
repository, a powerful workflow engine, seamless CTI links. One new feature is the Agent
Work Center hub, which functions as a central screen for all call center agents to work
from. The hub brings together front and back office applications, allowing both sales and
service issues to be handled through a single call, and by a single agent. This provides
better and faster service to customers while also increasing the possibilities for
up-selling a customer to create more revenue.
Another interesting feature with AdvantEDGE 4.0 comes in the form of an add-on module:
SoftDial Plug-In. This is a software-based predictive dialer that links the inbound and
outbound campaigns in the call center, allowing the most appropriate agents to take part
in both while avoiding confusion or inefficiency. Resources are also used more
effectively, since the predictive dialer no longer requires a dedicated trunk, but instead
can utilize the common network resources and switching systems. Also, the software-based
predictive dialer gains access to AdvantEDGE's scripting and data integration features.
With these and other new features, AdvantEDGE 4.0 is a software suite that is ready for
the leap into the twenty-first century.
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