Telrex (News - Alert) Announces CallRex Release 3.5
Telrex developer of VoIP call recording and monitoring software for businesses using IP-PBXs or hosted VoIP services, recently announced the release of CallRex Professional 3.5 featuring an advanced distributed services software architecture. According to the company, CallRex 3.5 was created to deliver greater scalability, high reliability and additional security, plus new features for multi-site deployments including enhanced multisite call recording and monitoring, advanced file transfers, flexible storage and streamlined archiving. CallRex was the first VoIP call recording solution verified to record encrypted VoIP calls for Cisco CallManager 5.0, and CallRex version 3.5 now provides additional security to ensure that call recording files cannot be secretly altered. The CallRex 3.5 distributed-services software architecture features separate services for status, control, recording and conversion of VoIP phone calls. CallRex 3.5 services operate independently and are deployed on industry-standard Windows servers in single- or multi-server configurations. Together, the CallRex 3.5 services enable the recording, monitoring, retrieval, playback and utilization of call recordings from any location. The design provides high reliability and enables virtually unlimited scalability across multiple servers and multiple office locations.
www.telrex.com

InfoCision Challenges Telemarketing Competitors
InfoCision Management Corporation has openly invited all firms that could benefit from telemarketing programs to take what the company refers to as “a split test,” which would pit InfoCision against any other teleservices firm. If InfoCision’s program is not more effective and more productive than the opponent’s, there will be no charge for their services, according to the company. InfoCision is confident that no other firm will able to match the results it can achieve. InfoCision states that, to date, it has never lost a split test. The challenge comes in conjunction with the release of the Ohio-based telemarketing firm’s new and comprehensive Web site, which provides the details of the split test offer and presents case studies that detail how InfoCision’s programs have worked for current clients. To take advantage of the split test, contact InfoCision at 866-341-1411.
www.infocision.com

Nuance (News - Alert) Launches IP-Based Voice Dialer For Employee-to-Employee Communications
Nuance Communications, Inc. has introduced its SpeechAttendant Internal Dialer, a turnkey, IP-based speech-enabled auto-attendant solution for employee-to-employee communications. Following rising corporate investment in VoIP and IP telephony, and the resulting demand for IP-based communication tools, Nuance has designed the new SpeechAttendant Internal Dialer to help organizations derive additional value and productivity from their IP infrastructures. With support for IP standards such as session initiation protocol (SIP), Nuance’s auto-attendant solution can eliminate the need for custom IP-based deployments. The solution is compatible out of the box with IP-based infrastructures from vendors such as Avaya (News - Alert), Cisco, Genesys and more, enabling customers to immediately benefit from employee productivity improvements. Designed specifically for intra-company communications, the SpeechAttendant Internal Dialer enables employees to reach any person, department or location across the organization by simply dialing one number and saying a name. Organizations maintain a single inbound phone number powered by automated, speech-driven call routing to increase employee productivity and decrease telecommunications costs. The solution also allows employees to forward calls to their current location (such as a cell phone, home or remote office) for added convenience and efficiency.
www.nuance.com

Call Center Experts Launch Site Selection Group
King R. White, former principal of Trammell Crow Company, has spun-off its Call Center Site Selection Group to form Dallas-based Site Selection Group, a global location strategies company. Site Selection Group, LLC is a full-service location advisory firm that delivers comprehensive global site selection services for office and industrial projects, such as call centers, business processing functions, headquarters, R&D, distribution centers and manufacturing operations. Site Selection Groups services include strategic planning, site-selection consulting, economic incentive services, brokerage services, portfolio administration, construction management and economic development services for a wide variety of audiences. To provide optimal solutions for customers around the world, Site Selection Group is building a comprehensive, global site selection database. Additionally, the organization is entering into formal alliances, partnerships and/or partial ownership with real estate and site-selection firms across the world to deliver seamless, full-service solutions to any geographic region.
www.siteselectiongroup

LiveOps Develops Secure Exchange
LiveOps, a provider of distributed contact center solutions, has announced the immediate availability of Secure Exchange, a patent-pending system that allows callers to provide and receive sensitive personal information while restricting the call center agent from hearing or accessing those data. The system protects callers from exposing their credit card numbers or personal data that could leave them at risk for identity theft or other fraud. Contracting with over 9,000 home agents, LiveOps is the largest distributed contact center in the U.S. According to the company, Secure Exchange is the first call center technology that meets data privacy regulations impacting a variety of industries such as financial services and healthcare. Sensitive caller information, such as credit card and social security numbers, financial information or medical history, is captured within a secure environment: The agent cannot hear or see any of the input, but can track the caller’s progress in real time in case the caller needs assistance. In addition, Secure Exchange assures that captured data are encrypted whenever they are stored or transferred. As a result, sensitive customer information can never be accessed by agents or any non-approved personnel. Secure Exchange will be an integrated feature within the LiveOps platform, which can be easily configured anywhere within the call flow. It has bi-directional potential, so callers can both input or collect sensitive information within the secure environment. Secure Exchange has been fully implemented and is available immediately to LiveOps customers.
www.liveops.com

Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) Announces New Workforce Management Software
Interactive Intelligence Inc. has made generally available its new contact center workforce management software module, Interaction Optimizer. The company designed Interaction Optimizer to offer affordable forecasting, scheduling and real-time adherence capabilities to contact centers of all sizes. By more effectively matching a workforce to its workload, these capabilities can help contact centers lower costs, increase agent productivity, improve customer service and ensure regulatory compliance. Interaction Optimizer will be offered as an optional, pre-integrated component of the Interactive Intelligence contact center automation software suite, Customer Interaction Center (CIC). As a pre-integrated component of the company’s software suite, Interaction Optimizer makes use of CIC’s automatic call distribution data, which includes multichannel routing, thus giving customers an easy-to-use and accurate method for planning schedules and making changes on-the-fly. Interaction Optimizer’s demand forecasting feature includes the ability to create schedule simulations based on virtually unlimited scenarios, such as variances due to seasonal effects and promotional campaigns. This flexibility is intended to help contact centers effectively identify staffing shortages and overages for maximum operational efficiency. Interaction Optimizer’s real-time adherence functionality offers instant notification of compliance with scheduled activities — no lag time between notification and event.
www.inin.com/products/optimizer/optimizer.asp

Data Collection Resources Releases CEMS Version 6.0
Data Collection Resources, a provider of quality monitoring, call center recording and e-learning management solutions for call centers in North America, has announced the general availability of CEMS Release 6.0. CEMS 6.0 offers new features designed to strengthen performance and data management. New features include the evaluator performance dashboard, coaching activities management, real-time agent desktop global view and two new data management tools, an archive wizard and an auto delete function. DCR offers mid-market solutions that provide customers with affordable, flexible and reliable alternatives to enhance and improve the customer’s experience without the high cost of owning a legacy quality monitoring and call center recording system. CEMS is DCR’s core offering for organizations requiring a complete quality monitoring and call center recording solution that is collectively more affordable and budget friendly. CEMS can be cost-effectively configured and implemented for total recording, random recording, record-on-demand, customized agent evaluation, real-time monitors for agent screens, synchronized audio video, e-learning management and management analysis and reporting.
www.monitoringmadeeasy.com

Sales Progress Launches New Sales Coaching Software
Sales Progress LLC has announced the availability of its updated Sales Progress Coaching System. The software was designed to provide resources for sales/customer service staff to advance their knowledge, enable managers to improve employee performance and also allow the director to oversee that their managers are “coaching” their staff effectively. The system comes with two primary functions. First, the system teaches a specific coaching methodology that comes with software to help monitor employee development. One feature is a scoring application in which a manager can create custom scoring tools that help define both graphically and statistically where an employee needs additional coaching. If the manager does not know what to do, he or she is provided a helpful tool called The Coach’s Corner where that manager can search over 250 coaching activities to address specific employee challenges. Second, there are learning tools for staff such as pod casts, over 25 Web-based courses and quick audio help files for various topics (getting past gatekeepers, closing ideas, etc.). In addition, managers and staff members are provided “Help Tickets” where they can ask for help online within the system and Sales Progress will provide custom feedback in the form of coaching or sales advice.
www.salesprogress.com

Persay And YeSpeech Build Centralized, Cross-Channel Speaker Verification System
Persay Ltd., a provider of biometric speaker verification technology, has announced that it will participate in an extensive project with Korean-based YeSpeech (formerly YesTechnology) to provide a multichannel, centralized speaker verification system. The system proposed will be exposed as a Web service for authenticating phone, Internet and mobile users performing risky transactions by introducing independent double/triple layered authentication processes employing biometric speaker verification technology. The solution will enable financial services, government agencies, healthcare organizations, home networking and distant learning application providers to securely authenticate users and protect themselves from financial fraud, identity theft and privacy breaches. The centralized, multichannel voice authentication system will include the following four modes: Web user authentication using callback mechanism (out of band); Web user authentication using a local microphone (in band); mobile user authentication using data channel (WIPI/BREW based); and mobile\landline user authentication using standard voice (telephony) channel. The solution proposed is based on Persay’s VocalPassword and on a VoiceXML platform and will include easy-to-use tools and interfaces, enabling enterprises to use biometric speaker verification as a second authentication factor across all communication channels.
www.persay.com.

CosmoCom Launches Version 5 Of CosmoCall Universe
CosmoCom, a provider of Unified Customer Communications, recently announced Version 5, its major upgrade to CosmoCom’s CosmoCall Universe (CCU), the company’s IP-based contact center software platform. CosmoCom has dubbed the new version the Unified Customer Communications (UCC) release, because the platform has been enhanced to support key elements of UCC. Among the significant enhancements in CCU 5 are a completely redesigned e-mail and voice mail environment, rich call transfer capabilities, a customizable rich security model, new reporting features and further enhancements to its video call center and video self-service capabilities. CCU was designed to leverage emerging IP-based convergence to unify customer communications across all channels, including voice, video, e-mail and Web sessions, across all locations and across all knowledge workers in the enterprise. CosmoCall Universe 5 expands on its innovative roots, introducing a number of new tools that simplify contact center operations and provide significant enhancements to messaging infrastructure, call flow, reporting
and security.
www.cosmocom.com

TARGUSinfo Announces Enhanced Call Detail
TARGUSinfo, a provider of caller name services, recently announced Enhanced Call Detail services for the telecommunications market. Available now, Enhanced Call Detail can increase the valuable call information telco providers can offer their subscribers, thereby increasing subscriber growth, reducing churn and curbing customer support costs. While most providers offer only bare-bones data about the name of an inbound caller, providers who use TARGUSinfo’s Enhanced Call Detail services can offer subscribers on-demand information about their calls, including full name of the caller and full address as well as business/consumer and landline/wireless status. Without TARGUSinfo’s Enhanced Call Detail service, providers can offer little more than a truncated name on a bill. In addition, TARGUSinfo users can now deliver improved caller information on the fly to any device, including PCs, cell phones and TVs. Whether by itself or in value-added applications, Enhanced Call Detail eliminates subscribers’ frustration with unrecognizable calls and simplifies allocation of long-distance charges within a business.
www.targusinfo.com

Telecom CRM, e-Commerce And Analytics Market To Reach $1.3 Billion In 2010
A new study from telecom market research and consulting firm Dittberner Associates predicts resurgent growth in the market for CRM and related customer assurance software. The report, entitled “Telecom Customer Assurance & Analytics,” sizes the telecom industry market for such software at $997 million in 2005 and forecasts healthy growth to $1.3 billion in 2010. While the CRM market has certainly declined since its dotcom heyday, the Dittberner report cites the complexity of pricing, promoting and personalizing next-generation telecom services as the main driver for telcos to pay greater attention to CRM-related issues. While the report sees CRM on the climb again, it cautions that the character of the CRM market has fundamentally changed. Most telecoms already own the desktop tools they need to efficiently capture and integrate customer behavioral and demographic data. Where Dittberner sees future growth is in the analysis of these data. In effect, telecoms have merely “scratched the surface of knowledge” that can be leveraged from their daily interaction with customers, operations, services, networks and salespeople. As a result, the report points to the opportunity — not for analytics software alone — but for a combination of analytics software, industry consulting and analytics experts who know how to build customized analytic apps.
www.technology-research.com/ca.html

Willow CSN Changes Name To Arise Incorporated
Home agent provider Willow CSN has announced that it has changed its name to Arise Incorporated. The renamed company will continue to offer virtual business services to companies in the consumer goods, retail, travel and financial services sectors with “a renewed focus on inspiring trust and creating results for both clients and Arise Certified Professionals,” according to the company. Arise states that it remains committed to providing thousands of home-based businesses with the freedom to answer calls, e-mail and provide interactive chat services. Arise offers certification courses needed to become an Arise Certified Professional in customer services, sales and technical support. Virtual Services Corporations employ Arise Certified Professionals, who have the freedom to choose how often they work and for which companies. All Virtual Services Corporations invest in the required equipment and certification, and receive compensation based on performance and results to ensure that only the most dedicated and motivated Arise Certified Professionals serve Arise clients.
www.arise.com

Toshiba (News - Alert) Launches New IP Desk Telephone
Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. Telecommunication Systems Division has announced its new Toshiba IPT2010-SDC IP Desk Telephone, which includes an Analog CO line interface for local dialing, including emergency calls. It is compatible with Toshiba’s Strata CIX family of IP business communication systems for small to medium-sized enterprises, national accounts and government users. Toshiba’s new Strata IPT2010-SDC delivers all the features and functionality of Toshiba’s digital telephones in an IP format, including: 10 programmable feature buttons that enable users to customize the telephone’s use to meet their own unique needs; a two-line by 24-character LCD for at-a-glance information; full-duplex speakerphone; analog CO line interface for local dialing and emergency calls; handset/headset choice, off-hook dialing, hands-free use and ring tones (different for IP and analog lines); power provided via Power over Ethernet (PoE) or local AC adapter; compatibility with Toshiba’s entire family of Strata CIX IP business telephone systems, including CIX670, CIX200, CIX100, CIX40; and compatibility with Toshiba’s older Strata CTX systems that support IP interface units.
www.toshiba.com

Inter-Tel (News - Alert) Announces Release Of Unified Communicator v4.0
Inter-Tel, Incorporated, a provider of voice and data communications solutions for businesses, has announced the general release of its Unified Communicator version 4.0 software, a robust presence management and collaboration tool that enables users to project their status and availability to associates and prioritize how and where they receive incoming calls. In addition, Unified Communicator v4.0 combines these features with Web collaboration and conferencing into a single converged solution. One of the latest enhancements of the application is the integration of Inter-Tel Web Conferencing v4.5 into Unified Communicator v4.0, delivering tightly woven presence management, conferencing and collaboration functions into a single interface. With the addition of the optional Inter-Tel Remote Support v4.5 add-on, users can conduct remote support sessions through this same interface as well. Unified Communicator v4.0 offers users the ability to prioritize and route calls to specified colleagues or locations, project their status to associates, share documents and conduct Web conferences. Like previous versions, Unified Communicator v4.0 enables users to access features and functions through speech recognition technology and a variety of devices, such as desktop endpoints, PCs, PDAs and cell phones. Along with its expanded collaboration functionality, Unified Communicator v4.0 offers a new, user-friendly Web client interface, simplified call routing and a streamlined installation process. It provides voice mail capabilities, which deliver voice mail notification to all associated devices on a user’s account. Unified Communicator v4.0 also supports the latest release of the Inter-Tel Model 8602 IP soft phone.
www.inter-tel.com

ASC Releases Enhanced VoIPRecording Solution For Windows
ASC, a provider of communications recording and quality monitoring solutions for contact centers, financial institutions and public safety and government organizations, recently announced the release of an enhanced version of EVOip for Windows, a VoIP recording solution. The product captures telephone calls from the network and enables storage, playback and archiving of the entire interaction. It is entirely software-based and designed for maximum flexibility, scalability and ease of integration and installation. The new features now provide the same functionality as the company’s Linux product including recording of encrypted calls, keyword spotting (searching for spoken words), multilingual applications and adjustable modes for individual, bulk or selective recording on each IP phone. The solution works with SIP — a standard VoIP protocol common to all major IP vendors — to preserve call-index data, such as incoming phone numbers, without the need for CTI. EVOip for Windows is designed with an innovative layered architecture for passive and active VoIP recording. EVOip, as a passive VoIP solution, works by “sniffing” for audio packets in the network. It is built upon the common underlying protocols of VoIP communications and thus operates in a vendor-independent manner in any environment. ASC also offers certified, integrated, vendor-specific solutions for major IP vendors including Avaya, Cisco, Mitel (News - Alert) and Siemens. EVOip active, on the other hand, works as an integral part of the call flow within an IP switch. It is ideal for companies with multiple locations as only one recording facility will capture communications throughout the network. It also works well for selective recording, often used in quality monitoring situations.
www.asctelecom.com

M2M Holdings Inc. Acquires KNOVA Software Inc.
M2M Holdings Inc., the privately held holding company jointly owned by Battery Ventures VI L.P. and Thoma Cressey Equity Partners, recently announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire KNOVA Software Inc., a provider of intelligent customer experience applications, in an all-cash transaction valued at $5.00 per share, or approximately $47 million. The parties anticipate closing the transaction in the first calendar quarter of 2007. The closing is subject to approval by holders of a majority of KNOVA Software’s outstanding common stock and other customary regulatory and documentation closing conditions. As with each of its past acquisitions, M2M Holdings plans to apply its integration model to the acquisition of KNOVA Software. This model ensures that each acquired product line maintains its brand identity and is enhanced, maintained, supported and sold by dedicated sales, product management, development, customer support and professional services teams.
www.made2manage.com