CosmoCom, a provider of Unified Customer Communications, recently announced Version 5, its major upgrade to CosmoCom’s CosmoCall Universe (CCU), the company's IP-based contact center software platform. CosmoCom has dubbed the new version the Unified Customer Communications (UCC) release, because the platform has been enhanced to support key elements of UCC. Among the significant enhancements in CCU 5 are a completely redesigned e-mail and voice mail environment, rich call transfer capabilities, a customizable rich security model, new reporting features and further enhancements to its video call center and video self-service capabilities.
The solution is the fifth generation of IP-based contact center technology first patented and introduced by CosmoCom in 1995 and now in use at many of the world’s telecommunication companies and enterprises. CCU was designed to leverage emerging IP-based convergence to unify customer communications across all channels, including voice, video, e-mail and Web sessions, across all locations, and across all knowledge workers in the enterprise.
CosmoCall Universe 5 expands on its innovative roots, introducing a number of new tools that simplify contact center operations and provide significant enhancements to messaging infrastructure, call flow, reporting, and security. “CosmoCom helps organizations succeed in Unified Customer Communication by constantly improving the capabilities of our rich media platform as it reaches every part of the organization,” said Ari Sonesh, CosmoCom CEO and Chairman.
I spoke recently with both CEO Ari Sonesh and Steve Kowarsky, executive vice president and one of the founders of the company.
Said Kowarsky, “The theme of unified customer communications has become very important to us. We think in all the [industry] talk about unified communications, the most emphasis is going on internal communications, employee to employee. That’s great, but at the same time, we’re trying to encourage the industry to remember that unified communications need to be applied to customers, as well. Hence, the unified customer communications. This gives you all the productivity and cost benefits of UC internally, but will also have an impact on the top line. It’s going to improve customer experience and loyalty, and your ability to cross-sell, upsell and satisfy customers.”
Said Ari Sonesh, “We carry this flag of unified call center. One big trend today in call centers is actually consolidation. Framing ourselves as UCC has much more meaning. It's very good for us to create this kind of space.”
Kowarsky, speaking about the new enhancements in Version 5, said, “The user interface has been redesinged to look like Outlook — it’s our Outlook Web Access (OWA). But it also has all the features of the unified contact center. The transfer has been enriched; of course, transfer includes transfer, conference and consult.”
Kowarsky spoke briefly about the company's enthusiasm for the use of video in call centers. "We are big believers in video call centers. We think the 3G
mobile, which is already offering video call center in Europe, will catch up in the U.S. Eventually, call centers that don’t have video will start to feel 'quaint'. Nobody wants their primary touch-point, their call center, to seem 'quaint,' unless you're selling log cabins.”
That’s a very good point.
“We have a niche,” continued Kowarsky, expanding on the video call center. “A video relay application for the hearing impaired. Video relay is really cool. Let’s say you're hearing impaired and you’re calling me. You actually call the video relay service, and you get into a conversation with an interpreter who signs with you. That interpreter calls me, and as he's signing with you, he’s speaking to me. And he takes what I say and signs to you. We’re doing that for two major clients in the U.S. This is getting our whole video contact center a really good workout.”
Another “Call Center 2.0-worthy” theme came out of the discussion on CCU Version 5: video IVR
, a concept that is becoming less “next-gen” and more present day. Said Kowarsky, “One of the things we introduced in this version is video IVR. For the hearing impaired, it is an absolute necessity. With video IVR, a hearing impaired person can have a standard greeting, such as ‘Thank you for calling, your call will be answered in the order it was received’ signed to them.”
Additionally, Version 5 includes an enhanced e-mail component which offers the following features:
--“U or Q” reply control, which enables agents replying via e-mail to specify the “from” address of the reply using a context-sensitive list of possible senders, including the individual agent, or any of the e-mail queues to which the agent is connected;
--Automatic message history tracking to provide agents with immediate access to all previous messages in the current thread, even if they are not quoted in the current message;
--Unlimited message deferral with unlimited simultaneous message interactions, which allows agents to manage their own workload while maintaining management information, control and automatic time-based escalation to ensure prompt responses to every issue;
--Push-or-Pull message distribution options that allow improved flexibility in defining the message workflow for different agents and agent groups;
--Advanced message scripting to support intelligent automatic e-mail replies and intelligent message routing; and
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