[October
11, 2000]
Third Party Call Center Applications Easily
Distributed Over Shoreline's IP Voice Communications Platform
Shoreline Communications, a
provider of enterprise-class IP voice communications, has completed
interoperability testing with several leading call center vendors,
enabling customers to easily extend the boundaries of their call centers
and distribute functionality over the Shoreline platform to agents located
virtually anywhere on the customer's IP network.
Vendors completing interoperability testing and certification on the
Shoreline platform thus far include: Apropos, CellIT, Interactive
Intelligence, Rockwell, Sonant, N-Soft, and Lightning Rod Software. All
vendor applications were put through a series of tests to ensure that
Shoreline customers can easily deploy these applications and fully
leverage their features in conjunction with the capabilities of
Shoreline's distributed IP voice platform.
"In the new economy, the responsibility for customer care
ultimately belongs to everyone in the organization," said Franklyn
Jones, VP of Marketing at Shoreline Communications. "Unfortunately,
the inherent limitations of outdated PBX technology have locked companies
into the old world model of a centralized `sweat shop' call center
environment where best-available agents are drawn from the local labor
pool. This model no longer works because it focuses on quantity of
customer interactions versus quality of customer care."
Shoreline is solving this problem by enabling companies to leverage the
skill set of knowledge workers throughout the organization, and deliver
voice-enabled customer care capabilities to those users. This is
accomplished through Shoreline's Distributed Internet Voice Architecture
(DIVA), which distributes a consistent set of integrated voice services to
all users on the IP network, regardless of their physical location. The
Shoreline system will support up to 5,000 users across virtually any
number of locations -- all managed as a single integrated voice network.
"This announcement is very significant for a couple of
reasons," said Blair Pleasant, Managing Director and Principal
Analyst with COMMfusion. "First, it allows businesses deploying the
Shoreline IP voice communications system to leverage their call center
application investments. Secondly, Shoreline's solution makes it possible
to replace the traditional call center with a new e-contact center,
consisting not of dedicated agents, but of a variety of functional groups,
distributed throughout the organization -- such as sales, service, support
-- all collaborating to manage and grow customer relationships."
Pricing for call center applications varies with each vendor. All
applications are available immediately.
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