To Drastically Lower Operations Costs In Contact Centers And The Enterprise

Nadji Tehrani (NT): Please tell us about your company. What is it that makes your company unique, and what is your vision of the contact center industry?

Ed Lauing (EL): We're in the simplicity business. Our company was created around doing something entirely new, from scratch. The infrastructure of older vendors and technologies is too complex, so we simplified there. The deployment is too complex, so we simplified there. Servicing customers is too complex, so we simplified there. The end result is a multimedia, multisite contact center technology on a converged IP network, but the driver was simplicity. We're trying to get a drastically lower cost of operation… good old TCO [total cost of ownership]…not to mention the cost of deployment, lower labor costs, hardware costs, CTI costs, middleware costs. We're just all about simplicity.

Some of our competitors would say they're in the ACD business, or some of them would say that they have a lot of products to serve the contact center. We just took a whole different approach. Something radically different that was going to translate to significantly different business benefits, not just cool technical benefits to the enterprise. And we've done that, around the simplicity mantra.

NT: And that really is the foundation of every business. We've all heard the old saying, "If you want to make the company go forward, 'KISS', or "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

EL: Right. We eliminated a lot of unnecessary infrastructure and that translates, particularly with VoIP/converged network, to a lot less need for hardware and middleware, and no CTI at all. That, in turn, translates to fewer bodies needed in the call center.

NT: What would you say is the greatest challenge that your company is facing?

EL: We're really quite revolutionary, and not in terms of the technology being "bleeding edge." We made the right call We're all about the business benefits of lower cost and higher service.on technology, but we're all about the business benefits of lower cost and higher service. So, the biggest challenge is the classic new company challenge: having fewer resources to get the word out on what we know is a better solution for businesses compared to the existing, established brands. It's just simple brand awareness: what we stand for, what our story really is, so that all those customers out there who are thinking about making a change in their call center include us as one of their top three. When they do, we win the customer, and they absolutely love the solution. Frankly, we'd just like to get in front of more opportunities.

Our customers are elaborate in their praise, from Associated Press to Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. They just really love what it does for them.

NT: In your opinion, what is the greatest need of our industry?

EL: I think the greatest need of our industry is to get rid of the "Frankenstein Infrastructure" created by a lot of stuff I think the greatest need of our industry is to get rid of the "Frankenstein Infrastructure." bolted together. The current solutions are just way too complex, and that translates to being way too costly to deploy. There's absolutely no reason for enterprises to be spending all this extra money — tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per enterprise. In some cases, they haven't been able to deploy applications because it's too expensive. The CTI just to get screen pop can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, only 25 percent of the call centers generally do it. One hundred percent of our customers deploy screen pops. Why? Because it's so simple to do.

NT: You mentioned you wanted to get the word out and create brand awareness. How do you plan to do that?

EL: I want to get our customers’ stories out about how successful they've been in reducing complexity, but most important, deploying screen pops that they've never had before and saving a lot of money. I was at one of our new customers just last Friday. They removed their old system, and I talked to the CEO and CFO, and they're ecstatic about it. They said, "We've already reduced costs by 25 percent, which is more than you promised, and the payback period is better. The deployment was a slam-dunk. We turned off the old system one day, and we turned on Nuasis, and we've been running happily ever since."

NT: What are some of the new developments coming out of Nuasis, and what will be the impact on your bottom line?

EL: Starting with our announcement with 3Com about a month ago, we're looking at partnerships to expand our reach in a way a young company with limited resources can't. So, that’s a way to rapidly grow our business and expand our reach. With this 3Com agreement, we get into new worldwide markets and expand our salesforce.

Also, we continue to improve the integration with multiple kinds of databases for customers to access any data they have anywhere in their organization. We've also integrated with any number of workforce management products, call recording products, etc. To do that, we don't use CTI (software or hardware), and no APIs. We let the customer decide which of those products they want, and we integrate with it using simple standards-based tools. Telling that story is helping us gain more customers, which drives our top line and, therefore, our bottom line.

NT: How would you describe the current status of the customer interaction/CRM/teleservices industry as a whole?

EL: In many ways, it’s stuck. It’s difficult for companies to move their call center applications forward because their legacy infrastructure doesn’t permit them the flexibility. There is the opportunity for great change with IP that can support tremendous growth for the industry.

NT: In one of my recent editorials, I discussed how the people who benefit from these technologies such as IP are the early adopters. We're trying to push these people to wake up and do something.

EL: People are understanding VoIP. They start with the enterprise. And that's fine, but actually, the contact center is really the "killer app" for VoIP. You get a lot more cost benefits there first. The call center could drive the VoIP revolution.The contact center is really the "killer app" for VoIP.

NT: We need to do a better job of waking people up in this industry, and the only way we're going to market IP telephony is through education. Next question, what is your vision of the trends for the future of this industry?

EL: The mantra should be simplify, simplify, simplify. I would translate that to software, software, software. The call center is about software now, that's the simplicity. The technical complexity that is definitely there in a product like ours should be kept under the hood. That shouldn't be the dashboard that the call center people or IT people see. The IT people should be able to turn this system on, and it runs.

NT: What is the significance of the following industries to your business? VoIP we know, but also speech technologies, home agents, offshore outsourcing and hosted solutions delivery?

EL: First, when we decided to create a new company, we didn't decide to create a new VoIP company, we decided to create a new contact center company. It turned out that VoIP was the best enabler of simplicity and cost reduction. It becomes the delivery mechanism for all our business benefits, so we think it's huge for the contact center.

NT: And speech technology?

EL: Speech technology… IVR is increasingly important to contact centers because it's another place you can offload "bodies" and offload costs, and the ROI is quite remarkable. In our case, we have IVR built in. We also have a close partnership with Voice Genie. I think [speech technology] is going to get more sophisticated and companies…enterprises…are getting much more comfortable with it.

NT: What about home agents? Are you doing anything for these people?

EL: Yes. First of all, it's an important trend. A lot of our customers and prospects are talking about it. There are some classic business issues around it: productivity and management. With an IP solution, you can deploy all of that to the home just as easily and cheaply as you can within the enterprise. We're very much behind it. Customers are asking to do it.

NT: What would you say is your company's greatest core competency?

EL: We have domain expertise in the call center application. Coupled with that, we have a vision for innovations to take the call center forward. We're not "technology bigots," we're not a company that has 16 products in a sales person's briefcase and, oh yeah, one of them is the call center. So we are differentiated by our understanding of the business process of the call center, and our customers have said that to us. With some of the big, everyday street brands, [customers] are shocked by their lack of expertise and they're stunned at our core expertise in that area.

NT: What would you say is your company's positioning statement?

EL: We simplify the contact center performance, with the result being the lowest total cost of ownership of any vendor and the highest service level of any vendor.

NT: How do you differentiate your company from competition?

EL: We really pride ourselves on being able to show [customers] that they can have the lowest total cost of ownership. They can simplify call center systems, from deployment to changes they want to make in the business process later. It's very quick, it's very simple and it's very cheap. There is no CTI implementation at all, because the single network takes that away. Without going into a lot of details, we have a slew of features for agent productivity which translates to their satisfaction, and their longevity in the call center.