Call centers have traditionally been among the last to adopt new technology, and for good reason – their services are intimately tied to customer satisfaction and, therefore, to business success. They are often reluctant to risk upsetting the proverbial apple cart. However, as their customers – those individuals who reach out to their agents for assistance – migrate to the latest communications technologies, call centers must also adapt.

But, considering their direct impact on customer satisfaction, call centers have an even greater need than most businesses to secure the stability, reliability, and scalability of any new technology they deploy. They must be confident the solutions they choose to enhance their capabilities will also simplify their infrastructure and produce a verifiable ROI, without compromising their ability to interact effectively with customers.

Understanding that need, Genesys (News - Alert) SIP is designed specifically to allow call centers to leverage any SIP-based infrastructure and application and integrate the Genesys customer service suite into that environment. Its Genesys SIP Select partners offer a set of products that allow call centers to quickly and effectively deploy the latest technologies with the reassurance of tested compatibility, combining swift implementation and compatibility with existing technologies.

AudioCodes (News - Alert) is the latest vendor to have been named to the Genesys SIP Select program, specifically its Mediant 1000 and Mediant 2000 gateway products, which provide the interface between the PSTN and Genesys SIP Server.

“This is an important recognition of the close collaboration between AudioCodes and Genesys to build world-class contact center solutions,” says Alan Percy (News - Alert), director of market development at AudioCodes, of the relationship that began some eight years ago with VoiceGenie, which was acquired by the Alcatel-Lucent-owned Genesys back in 2006.

Particularly following the recent economic recession, businesses are more intent than ever on future-proofing their technology investments, which means, when they make their media gateway purchasing decisions, they are looking for interoperability with as wide a range of carriers and equipment vendors as possible, as well as for products that can perform a variety of functions (as opposed to single-purpose components).

The AudioCodes gateways are compatible with an exhaustive list of technology vendors, making it an ideal partner for Genesys, which is focused on ensuring its customers can fully leverage the value proposition of the SIP standard for connectivity.

“AudioCodes is really a vendor agnostic solution and has added a lot of bells and whistles, allowing call centers to distribute traffic across diverse locations with high availability,” notes Donald Huovinen, solutions architect at Genesys. 

In addition, AudioCodes more recent focus on adding Enterprise SBC functionality into its media gateways simplifies that value proposition, providing not only interoperability between carriers and technology vendors, but also security and survivability, which are critical to the success of any call center. The SBC functionality also delivers an increased ROI as contact centers continue to move from TDM to SIP Trunking.

“Virtually all contact center platforms are now IP-based, however a significant portion of contact centers remain based on TDM trunking,” says Percy.  

This fact, when combined Infonetics Research (News - Alert) claim that SIP Trunking is one of the two fastest growing segments of the VoIP services market, along with hosted UC, suggests the need for SIP interoperability will only continue to grow in the contact center environment.

“People are already making an investment in the media gateway, and many have a longer term roadmap and don’t want to make a stranded investment,” explains Huovinen. “With the AudioCodes E-SBC, the appliance becomes reusable.”