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By Tracey E. Schelmetic, Editorial Director, Customer Inter@ction Solutions

Interactive Intelligence Releases Enhanced Multisite Call Routing Software
Interactive Intelligence Inc. (news - alert) has made available a new version of its multisite call routing software, Interaction Director, which adds “generic object routing” to enable distributed contact centers and enterprises to more effectively route and process virtually any type of work task — from customer service trouble tickets and loan applications, to catalog orders and address updates.

Interactive Intelligence customers with distributed operations were key drivers in the decision to add generic object routing, according to the company’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Joseph A. Staples. “We already had a large number of customers using our contact center automation software’s remote agent and supervisory features, so based on their feedback, the logical next step for us was to create even more effective add-on options for the virtual contact center,” Staples said.

Interaction Director was first released in 1999 as a network-based pre- and post-call routing product designed to work with the company’s contact center automation software, Customer Interaction Center (CIC). Interaction Director helps organizations improve operational efficiencies by more evenly distributing calls across sites based on realtime information, such as agent availability, skill-sets and other pre-configured rules. This includes the ability to route faxes, e-mails and other multimedia interactions from ACD queues across multiple sites and groups.
http://www.inin.com

Nortel Introduces Communications Solutions For The SMB Market
Nortel (quote - news - alert) has announced a new portfolio of voice, data and wireless products designed to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) boost employee productivity and satisfaction, streamline business operations and costs, and deliver improved customer service. In addition to expanding its SMB portfolio, the company is increasing its focus on programs, training and tools to support channel partners and to ultimately drive revenue in this growing market segment.

Nortel’s expanded SMB portfolio brings the power of wireless LAN, Ethernet switching, security and converged voice and data to the SMB market. The portfolio will be available in August 2006 and consists of four new products that address unique requirements, challenges and budgets of smaller businesses. The new SMB portfolio also includes enhancements to Nortel’s BCM.

According to a recent Nortel survey of more than 1,000 small and medium- sized businesses around the world, data networking, wireless LAN and security software and devices are the top three technologies SMBs are most likely to purchase in 2006. With the launch of the new SMB portfolio, Nortel is introducing new SMB-specific sales training and on-demand marketing tools to assist its North American channel partners. New channel programs include the SMB Connection Partner Community, an online community established to facilitate communication between Nortel and its SMB channel partners, and Blueprints for Success, a tool developed with input from Nortel channel partners to identify best practices used when selling Nortel solutions to SMBs.
http://www.nortel.com

Witness Systems Announces Enhancements To Impact 360
Witness Systems, (news - alert) a provider of workforce optimization software and services, has announced enhanced functionality to its next-generation workforce management solution. Impact 360 Workforce Management features new business integrations, along with capabilities that allow organizations to enhance scheduling, streamline management and gain efficiencies as they coordinate their in-house and outsourced contact center operations. Other additions to the software include advancements in partial shift swapping, reporting, planning and administration.

New to Impact 360 Workforce Management are features designed to help contact center management more effectively schedule and better coordinate with outsourcers. For organizations that share calls across internal and outsourced centers that may be using other workforce management solutions, making decisions with a complete picture of the workload and available resources presents a significant challenge.

For more comprehensive coordination, Impact 360 Workforce Management enables users to share the forecasted workload and/or required staffing with outsourced centers, as well as load the outsourcer’s planned staffing back into Impact 360. With the added outsourcer staffing information, accurate service-level forecasts are based on a complete model that quickly identifies intervals of under- or over-staffing. Such information can then be used in a variety of planning and intra-day schedule management decisions such as the placement of meetings and training, the authorization of overtime and the decision to offer voluntary time off.
http://www.witness.com

Amae Software Joins Solution Made Easy
Amae Software (news - alert) has announced it is joining with three other contact center industry solutions providers to extend Solution Made Easy, an integrated, modular suite of contact center solutions developed by Voice Print, Syntora and Pipkins. Solution Made Easy is comprised of seven components essential for workforce optimization: call recording, quality monitoring, workforce management, performance management, speech analytics, agent coaching and customer surveying. Billed by the companies involved as a “mix and match, onestop- shop” where organizations can design their own workforce optimization solutions for their specific environment at their own pace, Solution Made Easy offers a selection of applications from which clients can choose.

“The Amae CI Suite brings customer-driven metrics and customer intelligence into the operations of your business and contact center,” said Gerald Wluka, VP of Products at Amae Software.
http://www.amaesoftware.com

Convergys Offering Its Testing Solution
A new suite of software testing solutions from Convergys Corporation (news - alert) combining consulting services with automated testing software is now available to businesses seeking to strengthen their software testing capabilities. Convergys Testing Solutions combine professional services offerings with Convergys Easy Test, an automated software application testing tool. Businesses using Convergys Testing Solutions can enhance the quality of their products and services by thoroughly testing and verifying changes to mission-critical systems such as billing and customer care.

Under a contract signed recently with Convergys, SunCom Wireless is using Convergys Testing Solutions to bring complex voice and data pricing plans to market quickly. Convergys is providing testing consulting services in the form of software configuration, customization, project management and system testing.

Convergys developed their suite of testing solutions to address their own needs, which according to the company were not being met by existing testing products on the marketplace. After client requests to make the solution commercially available, the company created “Convergys Testing Solutions.” Convergys has said it is offering businesses the experience and expertise gained over 20 years of developing and testing complex software applications to reduce costs and improve testing quality and time-to-market.
http://www.convergys.com

BSG Clearing Acquires VoiceLog, LLC
BSG Clearing Solutions North America, LLC, (news - alert) a wholly owned subsidiary of Billing Services Group Limited, a telecom clearing and settlement, payment and financial risk management solutions group, has announced the acquisition of VoiceLog, LLC’s third party verification (TPV) business. The all-cash deal values VoiceLog at US$15.63 million and will be financed from the existing resources and facilities of the Group. The transaction closed on June 30th.

Commenting on the acquisition, Roland J. Bopp, CEO of BSG, said: “VoiceLog’s third-party verification business has a great reputation in the industry and offers us considerable benefits of scale and market penetration. Their complementary services reinforce our business proposition, and for over five years, we’ve cultivated a relationship that makes this a very natural conclusion. I am delighted to welcome the VoiceLog team to BSG.”
http://www.bsgclearing.com

COPC Certifies Sutherland Global Services Chennai, India Location
Customer Operations Performance Center Inc. (COPC) has announced that the Chennai, India location of Sutherland Global Services, (news - alert) a global BPO firm, has earned the distinction of being the first organization in India to achieve certification for multiple services to the COPC-2000 CSP Standard Release 4.0. The COPC-2000 CSP Standard is the first and only certification process designed specifically for the needs of contact centers. As a world-class benchmark of productivity, efficiency and cost-effectiveness for customer contact operations, it ensures contact center excellence worldwide.

Dilip Vellodi, Chairman and CEO, Sutherland Global Services said, “We have always had a strong focus on process improvements at Sutherland. With this certification to the COPC-2000 CSP Standard, we believe we have established a best-inclass customer experience standard. The overall certification process has contributed significantly to improvement in efficiencies, forecasting and staffing and performance improvement, enabling us to better leverage our pay-for-performance model.”
http://www.suth.com

Melissa Data Announces Express Entry For Call Centers
Melissa Data (news - alert) has announced the release of Express Entry, a software program that allows call center and service center agents to improve the speed and accuracy of data entry. Powered by Melissa Data’s CASS Certified address correction engine, Express Entry works by reducing the number of keystrokes needed to input a mailing address and then validating the completed record to U.S. Postal Service specifications. Express Entry was designed to improve data quality and boost productivity in the call center or any other place where rapid address entry is required. Using a simple template, agents enter only a ZIP Code and full or partial street address. Express Entry fills in the city name, state abbreviation and verified ZIP + 4 Code.

Express Entry can eliminate up to 39 keystrokes for each record. Once the address is standardized, the record can then be transferred to any application running in the background including a form letter, spreadsheet, database or CRM program.
http://www.melissadata.com

AnswerNet Acquires Airpage, Expands Into Montana
The AnswerNet Network, (news - alert) a telemessaging provider and a contact center outsourcer, has announced it has acquired Airpage/Big Sky Beeper, a contact center, help desk, telemessaging and paging firm with operations in Billings and Helena, Montana, for an undisclosed sum. The transaction gives The AnswerNet Network additional capacity. The company now has 55 contact centers across the U.S. and Canada.

AnswerNet, which is privately owned, is growing quickly. Earlier this year it made Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine’s “Top 50 Teleservices Agencies” industry ranking for the fourth straight year.

Airpage/Big Sky Beeper is now known as AnswerNet-Billings, where the local management is based. Airpage’s clientele now have access to AnswerNet’s full suite of capabilities. This includes additional workstations; Spanish, French and Chinese language support; product and literature fulfillment; and expertise in key areas such as business-to-business telesales.
http://www.answernet.com

Aspect CEO James Foy Named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year
Aspect Software, Inc. (news - alert) has announced that Aspect CEO James D. Foy has received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006 award in the software category in New England. According to Ernst & Young, the award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic, growing businesses. An independent panel of judges selected Foy for the award, which he accepted at an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 20th Anniversary gala event at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel on June 15.

Within a four-year period beginning in 2001, Foy successfully led the integration of six contact center technology providers, ultimately creating Aspect Software, a contact center solutions provider with more than 30 years of cumulative experience in automatic call distribution, workforce management, predictive dialing, voice portals and multichannel contact. His entrepreneurial mergerand- acquisition strategy created the largest company in the world solely focused on delivering products and services for in-house and outsourced contact centers.

“This is a tremendous honor,” said Foy. “I have had the privilege of working with many forward-thinking, dedicated and highly skilled people over the years who have helped to create a company that is technologically innovative and committed to delivering exceptional value to our customers. Aspect Software has a very bright future, and I am excited about what our customers and employees are going to accomplish together in the coming years.”
http://www.aspect.com

Nexidia Announces On Demand Solution
Nexidia, (news - alert) a provider of audio search and speech analytics solutions for government intelligence, contact center management and Internet media, has announced the availability of its Nexidia OnDemand solution. Nexidia OnDemand is a managed service offering enabling organizations to leverage Nexidia’s secure infrastructure to upload recorded audio for analysis and reporting. The intelligence gained can be easily managed and securely accessed through the Nexidia OnDemand portal.

Nexidia’s solution was designed to empower businesses to experience the benefits of speech analytics by enabling rapid access to critical business intelligence from recorded audio assets and quick responses to peak demand for intelligence within the enterprise. Nexidia’s scalable audio mining and speech analytics software is easy to deploy, according to the company, which also states that Nexidia OnDemand will make it even less complex by enabling users to quickly access intelligence locked away in recorded audio without mandating expensive upgrades to their recording infrastructure, additional investment in hardware or software or problematic installations on the agent desktop.
http://www.nexidia.com

ASC Releases New Version Of AGENTassistance Module
ASC, (news - alert) a provider of communications recording and quality monitoring solutions for contact centers, financial institutions and public-safety and government organizations, recently announced that contact centers are able to enhance e-coaching by purchasing a new release of its AGENTassistance module, an optional supplement to the quality monitoring software, INSPIRATIONpro. E-coaching refers to real-time online interactions between agents and their supervisors, especially during difficult phone calls. By providing the agent with on-the-job training through confidential communications, e-coaching achieves high quality service and increases productivity without alarming the customer about assistance from a new agent.

AGENTassistance works through agent and supervisor applications installed on their respective PCs. Supervisors monitor a list with the status of their subordinates (e.g., online, offline, needs help). To initiate assistance, the agent clicks a special icon to send a pop-up message to his or her assigned supervisor. Supervisors may respond through the online “e-coaching” window in several ways, including chat or predefined messages. In more extreme cases, they may initiate voice or screen monitoring or even assume control of the agent’s computer and customer interaction.
http://www.asctelecom.com

“It’s Verint’s Intention To Be Number One In This Market”
By Tracey E. Schelmetic, Editorial Director, Customer Interaction Solutions

Verint Systems (http://www.verint.com), (news - alert) a New York-based provider of analytic software-based solutions for communications interception, networked video security and enterprise business intelligence, has announced its plans to acquire New Jersey-based Mercom Systems (news - alert) (http://www.mercom.com), which provides recording and performance evaluation products for call centers. I recently got a chance to catch up with Mariann McDonagh, Vice President of Global Marketing for Verint, to get a little more in-depth information about the scope of the acquisition.

TS: So tell me about this acquisition and what prompted it.

MM: About three years ago, Verint entered the SMB market with our ULTRA Express solution. Basically, we repackaged our enterprise solution and shrunk it down to serve call centers with 100 seats or fewer. That business has been growing at a steady, incremental pace. When we look at that SMB market, we’re seeing that it’s our greatest opportunity right now. It’s where the fastest growth is taking place. It’s an under-penetrated market that has few solutions and a great need. We were looking for an opportunity to accelerate our growth in that market. Mercom has 6,000 implementations, most of which are in that 100 seat range across a wide spectrum of industries: financial services, utilities, consumer goods and government customers.

Mercom did a great job in building a global channel for delivery of their solutions. They have about 100 partners in North America and the Asia/Pacific region, especially Japan and Korea, with some presence in Hong Kong. In fact, Mercom has 45 percent market share in Korea right now, which is impressive.

We think it’s a great synergistic move. We have a lot happening in the enterprise — many partners such as Nortel, British Telecom, Avaya, etc. Our business mode has been 100 percent direct, so there’s no overlap between existing channels.

TS: How are the product lines going to be combined, or are they? Is this going to become your ULTRA Express solution or something entirely different?

MM: It’s early in the process, but what I can tell you is this: we’re very focused on continuing to support the Mercom channel. After all, we paid $35 million for them. It’s important we continue to support those existing customers and that existing solution, then little by little we can begin to add some Verint capabilities to it, and grow and expand.

Right now, Mercom partners with CallMiner, since they don’t have any analytics capabilities of their own. Obviously, that’s where we’re going to be able to enhance their solution with Verint technology. Our overall objective is to provide our channel partners with a broad portfolio so they can increase their business in these markets.

TS: Since you’re targeting the SMB market, are there any plans to offer a hosted version?

MM: We’ve been working with hosted solutions for some time, and there’s a number of things afoot in development that I can’t specifically comment on, but we do have an interest in hosted solutions. Our existing ULTRA platform is very well designed to be a multitenant hosted solution. We find that in particular, there is a lot of interest for hosted solutions in Europe, primarily because it’s a driver of the large European telecoms like British Telecom (BT).

TS: Does Mercom have strength in any vertical markets that Verint doesn’t, perhaps creating an opportunity for Verint there?

MM: Yes, actually. Mercom has clients that provide 3-1-1 services: these new citizens’ service centers. That’s something we’re excited about. We see a lot of growth in these kinds of centers, and they have the same challenges as the commercial centers. They need to know why folks are calling and how they can improve their processes.

The capabilities they continue to add to 3-1-1 services in New York are amazing — you can call and find out about restaurants, movie theaters, etc. [Editor’s note: Callers to New York’s extensive multilingual 3-1-1 service can find out about an array of subjects such as city events, alternate side parking rules, the nearest day care centers, and can report non-emergency concerns such as pot holes or the neighbor’s barking dog. The 3-1-1 center reports that it takes a remarkable amount of calls on Thanksgiving Day from people looking for advice on how to cook their turkeys.] They started out as public safety services, and now they’re branching out into a broad mix of other citizen service centers.

TS: When do you expect the whole process to be complete?

MM: We did it in a slightly unusual way. The deal was actually closed today, so it’s all finished.

TS: What part will Mercom management play at Verint?

MM: The entire management team will be joining the Verint family. We’re retaining everybody.

TS: Will Mercom personnel work out of Verint’s Melville [New York] offices now?

MM: Decisions have not really been made about that yet. Mercom has a strong development team there [in New Jersey], so for the foreseeable future, I’m sure they will remain. As for combining the teams, we think there’s going to be a great cultural match here. We’ve been working with them already, and they are very excited about joining the Verint family. In the past, the lack of a strong brand identity has been a challenge for Mercom.

TS: So, you’ve now got analytics, performance management and recording. Are there any future plans to broaden the portfolio into a complete workforce optimization solution with features such as scheduling software or e-learning solutions?

MM: One of the things that we’re excited about is that we have people who are really focused on the requirements of this market. Those determinations will be driven by build-or-buy decisions down the road. It’s Verint’s intention to be number one in this market.

 

 

 
 
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