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November 2009 | Volume 28 / Number 6
Special Focus

Short Message Service (SMS)

Unifying the Headset


By Brendan B. Read


There is a unification beginning to happen in contact centers. This is a coming together of voice, written, and video channels, of care and sales to deliver quality customer-retaining service, focusing on retention, and office, mobile, and home workplaces.


This unification is now affecting contact centers’ single most critical appliance: the headset. There are new features, options, and application considerations that must be looked into so you can optimize the functionality of this vital tool in this new unifying environment.

The IP/UC revolution


IP telephony, replacing old-fashioned TDM is enabling voice/data and video communications integration into a single pipe to the terminals: be they desktops, laptops, or smartphones. The benefits include an easier enabling of a single view of customers, greater flexibility, and lower capital and operating costs.


IP can allow you to do away with bulky, expensive, separate real-estate-chewing handsets and replace them with less costly – by 60 percent or more – and much more flexible softphone applications connected to headsets. With softphone/headset combinations calls are quicker and much more accurate: one on-screen radial button to push instead of 10 buttons to press. There are fewer wires to install, and to worry about. Moreover softphones can be easily accessed anywhere: from other agents’ desks, home offices, or mobile via Web-based applications.


Equally if not more importantly IP can also permit via wideband a.k.a. HD voice that enables greater voice range hence more natural sounding acoustics compared with that delivered over TDM. A Wikipedia article explains that the range of the human voice extends from 80 Hz to 14,000 Hz. While traditional TDM calls is limited to 300 to 3,400 Hz, IP-enabled wideband covers from 30 Hz to 7,000+ Hz.


The benefits of wideband/HD voice are tangible. For example it enables agents to distinguish between similar-sounding names and syllables much easier, thereby cutting down on the instances where callers asked to repeat themselves. This reduces talk time and call costs and boosts customer satisfaction.


To enable wideband companies must ensure that their phone systems recognize it via codecs such as G.722 and G.722.2 AMR-WB, explains Mohamed Alaa Saayed, an industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan. Most major IP PBX vendors already incorporate G.722 into the list of allowed voice codecs in their systems. Firms must check and see that their LANs and WANs are capable of managing G.722 data transmission rates. Lastly they need to make sure that the IP phones or headsets purchased are compatible with and adequate for wideband voice.


“Just as with HDTV, the ultimate goal is a better end-user experience,” says Saayed. “As applications such as audio conferencing, speech recognition and CRM apps grow more enterprises are expected to consider deploying HD voice technologies.”


Sennheiser is launching a wideband-enabled series of products. The new single-earpiece SH 330 iP and its dual-ear-cupped partner SH 350 iP features wideband-capable microphones and speakers housed in a contact center-tested chassis that can withstand the abuse of a grueling shift.


“The quality is so good with wideband,” reports Eric Palonen, product manager, Sennheiser Consumer Electronics, “that you sound like you’re in the same room with a customer rather than on the phone with them.”


Voice, written, and video channels delivered by IP are becoming integrated with presence tools, such as unified communications. UC solutions gives agents and supervisors one-screen-click access to callers, and if need be and by using presence transferring calls to the right available individuals regardless of their location. UC also permits one-click outbound calls to names in databases and lists. Softphone/headset combinations via IP especially enable integrated connectivity into UC applications.


“The role of headsets in the UC space is going to be vital to not only enhance voice quality and standardize it across multiple UC applications and devices, but also to integrate the different types of voice deliveries,” explains Saayed.


Headsets that are to be used with UC applications need to be optimized via drivers for particular vendors’ software to take full advantage of specific features such as click to call or transfer on the screens that saves seconds compared with looking up and dialing the numbers. Otherwise when headsets designed for one UC solution is used for another supplier’s product contact centers must hook up adaptors which add to costs. The need for such tools is diminishing, though as more sets become optimized for specific UC applications; their software recognizes the tools and adjusts the appliances automatically.


For example the Jabra PC Suite includes drivers for a range of softphones, including Cisco IP Communicator version 2.0.1.1 or above, SKYPE Version 3.2.or above, and IBM Lotus Sametime, version 8.0.1 or above (not version 8.0.2). The solution enables remote call control with Jabra wireless headsets and IP softphones; users can answer and end calls up to 300 feet away from their desks.


The chief downside is that UC sets are still viewed as quite expensive in comparison to traditional units. This can be as high as a factor of five.


“Yet as more firms buy UC solutions they will dig a little deeper to acquire the sets so that they can obtain maximum benefit from their investments,” says Saayed.

Improving Quality


To provide customer-retaining service at lower costs more contact centers are seeking higher quality more durable and wearer-comfortable sets reports suppliers. Buyers are now realizing they have been spending more on hardware and support by purchasing cheaper but less robust and marginally-performing products compared if they had bought more rugged better-sounding if more expensive units. They are also getting it that user comfort enhances productivity.


Suppliers say that sending broken headsets to be repaired adds costs by requiring buying adequate numbers of spare units or risk losing agent output; they need the sets to work. And if sound quality is just average users may find themselves repeating themselves like credit card number, which extends calls, annoys customers, spelling names and numbers out adds significant time.


“Companies are seeking and seeing an ROI in quality,” says Sennheiser’s Palonen. “They’re looking for those that they can maintain efficiently, that will deliver superior sound quality and which will last them awhile. No more ‘a headset is a ‘headset.”


Suppliers are making their offerings even more rugged and wearable. Jabra’s new BIZ 2400 has gold-plated microphone contacts which are five times thicker than most headsets, which eliminates deterioration over time and minimizes distortion for optimum voice transmission. It also has a 360-degree-rotation boom arm that eliminates breakage. The set is made with a surgical steel finish that gives maximum strength and durability. The cords are Kevlar-reinforced to protect against kinking, damage, and breakage.


The BIZ 2400 offers more wearing choices for greater comfort. Three flexible wearing styles: earhook, neckband, and headband lets users adapt them to their preference including right or left ear. There is also a new T-bar designed to avoid hair entanglement.


‘We want to enable our customers to lower their total cost of ownership and maximize their IT investments through reduced support and replacement costs, “ says David Grazio, Director of Channel Marketing at GN Netcom, owners of the Jabra line. “We’ve backed this up with a three year warranty standard with the BIZ 2400 model whereas other products have only two years.”

Wireless Unification


Most contact center agents will likely continue to use corded headsets for the time being, though, because there is little reason for most of them to leave their workstations. For those who do need to be mobile: to reach file cabinets, meet others and attend meetings, or who work from home – and for their supervisors who are wanted everywhere – there are new-feature-rich cordless sets.


UC has led headset firms to develop what Frost & Sullivan’s Saayed calls “one-headset-fits-all” wireless sets that integrate voice modes: conventional line, cell and recorded messages, and laptops and VoIP-enabled computers into a single device. These hybrid or multiuse headsets are equipped with toggles to let users switch between these channels and boxes.


Jabra has unified wireless with corded sets that provides for a more complete service experience. The BIZ 2400 features built-in Bluetooth connectivity that allows users to selectively switch between PC softphone and mobile phone calls. Here’s an example how this tool can work. A caller dials in with a tough-to-resolve issue that the agent then IMs a subject matter expert on. That individual then calls the agent back on their cellphone. The agent places the customer on hold, gets the information from the expert, then relays the solution that resolves the problem.





More firms are buying cordless sets are being built to the digital enhanced cordless telephone, pushing away Bluetooth-enabled devices. The reasons include less interference with in high-density configurations like offices. Headsetplus.com explains that Bluetooth hops through some 70 available channels looking for Wi-Fi which can lead to users colliding on the same channel. DECT systems in contrast perform well in such environments.


DECT also provides greater range: 300 feet to 400 feet compared with 40 to 60 feet with standard Bluetooth. That bigger radius enables a manager to go to another office, meeting, or to lunch anywhere in an office and still stay connected.


“There will still be a large room, though, for Bluetooth headsets in terms of connectivity,” Saayed points out. “A Bluetooth headset can connect with up to seven different devices, while DECT headsets can only connect to their own base stations. You can’t switch between calls coming in through the ACD and that through a cell with DECT set but you can do that with a Bluetooth set.”


Plantronics offers the best of all worlds including desktop phones with its designed-for UC Savi series that features two wireless headset systems: Savi Office and Savi Go that mix and match DECT and Bluetooth. Savi Office provides a single wireless headset for mixing PC audio and softphone calls with traditional desk phones; users can switch at a touch of a button. It uses DECT to give it 350 feet of range.


Savi Go’s wireless headset connects to PC and mobile phone communications via a plug-and-play Bluetooth adapter that provides life-like, wideband calling through any UC application. The Class 1 Bluetooth solution provides up to 200 feet of range. The Savi Go headset includes multipoint technology that allows users to switch between their mobile phones and PC calls with the touch of a button.

Home Applications


The IP/UC, quality, and wireless feature benefits in these new headsets are literally brought home for at-home agents and supervisors, and more work is being done at home thanks in part to IP that lowers communications costs. Home offices do not have the general high roar in busy contact centers that require noise-cancelling mikes. Yet they have their own unique noises that are often sharp, distinct, and noticeable, like dogs barking, children crying, family members yelling, cars starting, and lawnmowers and leafblowers roaring. That requires headsets that can mute these sharp sounds.


The quality design, and comfort with headsets come into play even more so with home agents. If the appliances break down or the users are not happy with the units they cannot as readily obtain another professional set with equal features without long drives to specialized dealers.


Headset manufacturers have responded with features that are especially helpful in home environments. Jabra’s sets are equipped with PeakStop, an electronic peak control gateway transistor that does not allow sudden excessively loud sounds to pass to the wearer’s ear and in doing so limits sharp background noises to customers. It also helps lower average noise levels. A too high level of noise from machines – and even from high volume speech through headsets – can over time lead to inconveniences such as hearing fatigue and stress, jeopardizing employee productivity and commitment.


“The need for quality, reliability, and durability in the headset itself comes into play even more so in a home office environment because you don’t have the IT support there,” explains Jabra’s Grazio. “So it had to be a product that the home agents feel confident in and which should be user-friendly, easy to use and easy to manage over time.”


Contact centers should consider equipping their home staff with wireless headsets to utilize their unique environments. At-home workers are just steps from their dining areas, which means with them they can stay in touch with their colleagues and supervisors. Wireless headsets also permits them to stay connected when they have to handle the unavoidables of home work such as signing packages and letting in and paying contractors. Bluetooth is ideal for home environments because headsets equipped for it provide multiple connectivity while interference issues are practically nonexistent.


“At-home agents need to be hands-free much more so than those in bricks-and-mortar centers,” Grazio points out. “They need high-quality wireless headsets to permit them to be just as effective at home as they are on site.”


The following companies participated in the preparation of this article:


Jabra
www.jabra.com


Plantronics (News - Alert)
www.plantronics.com


Sennheiser
www.sennheiser.com

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