IVR provider Angel.com has deployed Empirix Inc.'s voice watch monitoring solution through a Software-as-a-Service, or "SaaS (News - Alert)," platform.

Angel.com, a provider of cloud based customer engagement solutions, also delivered the Hammer Test Engine for testing, monitoring and measuring network performance in real-time using a SaaS platform, said Empirix (News - Alert) company officials.

David Toliver, senior manager, marketing and communications, Angel.com, told TMCnet in a recent interview that the company has been using the hammer for over a year now, and that it became essential in its Caller First Analytics platform, as well as its IVR systems.

"Hammer - for Angel.com - is essentially a system that we can program to test out our customer applications before they go live," Toliver said. "So, we build an IVR or a front end to a call center, and before we make it live for our customer, to their customer, we test out the application and make sure the call flows and menu options work properly.

"Rather than having someone sit at a desk and try out each operation,  in lieu of a human based check of this, we use the hammer to do so; it can do a better job, provide more calls and can be programmed to act like a human and walk through the various call scenarios and call f lows in any given operation to test and make sure the call flows are working properly," he added.

"Angel.com has always put the caller first, highlighting the importance of reducing network downtime," said Prakash Durgani, vice president of engineering and operations, Angel.com. "We need a system that provides real-time reporting, enabling us to quickly identify a network or voice feature issue before it impacts the customer."

"By integrating the Empirix Voice Watch Monitoring solution and the Hammer Test Engine we can do exactly that and be confident that we are providing our customers with high quality service," Durgani added.

Toliver went on to tell TMCnet in the interview that they use the hammer for lots of things, but there are a couple of key things Angel.com uses the system for.

"There's a tie in with [the hammer] on one level with the Caller First Analytics - to populate data counts and live stats," Toliver said. "We built a demo application to showcase CFA and we set up the hammer to call into it 50 times a day and [the hammer] runs through the different scenarios and chooses different options and gives us live ongoing data, so we can show reports with real data in the [system]."

Angel.com serves several thousand enterprise focused customers catering to their marketing and sales needs through solutions that enable quick deployment of voice, SMS, chat and business intelligence applications. The optimized solutions are delivered via a SaaS platform, which offers customers an easy-to-use Web-based interface that allows them to build applications and call flows as needed. Also the SaaS delivery platform eliminates the need for customers to invest in any additional hardware, software or human resources.

Empirix's voice watch monitoring solution is a managed voice Customer Experience Monitoring service which helps users monitor the performance of voice applications and infrastructure across the network. Voice Watch measures carrier performance, host and database response times, correctness, data accuracy, call quality, call routing, queue times, screen pop accuracy and timeliness.

The monitoring and managing functionality from caller's perspective allows users like Angel.com to identify and resolve performance issues which will help them enhance customer experience besides reducing costs, said company sources.

According to Tim Moynihan (News - Alert), vice president of marketing, Enterprise business unit, Empirix, said that the company's solutions provide peace-of-mind as they assure end-to-end network quality.

"By emulating realistic end-user behavior, our reporting capabilities provide real-time data, helping organizations identify any issues that may exist before the end-user is ever affected," Moynihan said. "By using our solutions to ensure voice quality from end-to-end, Angel.com is demonstrating their commitment to customer satisfaction."

Also the Empirix Hammer Test Engine is an industry standard solution for testing contact center applications which includes performing features like regression and load testing of contact center applications. The test engine assures the suitability of a network and its capability to perform well when subjected to real-world loads and scenarios.