There are many applications available for specific aspects of a call
center. These applications include workforce management, CRM solutions,
predictive dialers, ACD functionality and monitoring tools. VOCALCOM's
Herm�s Pro Interactive includes components of all of these and much more
in what they say is "the all-inclusive, full-featured, turnkey call
center solution." While one may quibble about what
"all-inclusive" entails, Herm�s Pro does offer almost
everything a call center may need and facilitates an agent's job in the
process. Serving from 4 to 600 agents, Herm�s Pro features a fully
functional PC-PBX, an application generator (app-gen), co-browsing, VoIP,
Web callthrough, interactive chat, skills-based routing and other,
high-level functionality.
Installation
In most cases, the installation of the administrator, ACD, client and
agent software is handled entirely by representatives of VOCALCOM for
their customers. Since we only wanted to install the software in a lab
environment, we set up the hardware requirements and watched as a
representative from VOCALCOM installed their software onto Windows NT
Server 4.0. We used a 333 MHz Mitac industrial computer with 320 megs of
RAM to be assured we had enough memory to test the product (we found out
that Herm�s Pro used only around 32 Megs of RAM memory for the initial
installation). We also learned from the representatives that VOCALCOM
gives a three-day training course on the Herm�s Pro for their new
customers. This certainly helps agents, supervisors and administrators
understand the system. Unfortunately, because VOCALCOM could not let us
borrow the PC-PBX they had brought with them for an extended period of
time, we could install the software onto our system, but could not test
all of the features. While the installation process seemed simple enough,
we did not obtain enough information to reasonably determine its ease and
flexibility. Nevertheless, since installation is usually done by VOCALCOM,
we will not grade this aspect of the product.
Documentation
If we rated the documentation strictly on the sheer bulk of the printed
manuals, the Herm�s Pro documentation would receive high marks. There is
a lot of information contained in the many manuals, some of which are
somewhat thick. Thankfully, there are many screenshots highlighting the
pages, which makes for easier reading since the screenshots are clear and
understandable.
Undoubtedly due to the translation from French and English (VOCALCOM's
headquarters are in France), there are some typos and grammatical errors
in the documentation. There is also some untranslated material. But
compared to some other companies' translated documentation we have seen in
the past (which can border on being totally unreadable), these
translations are not bad.
The biggest problem TMC� Labs had with the printed documentation was
the cohesiveness of the manuals as a whole. We found ourselves searching
through different manuals to find the proper information we wanted, if we
found it at all, and occasionally we did not have much to go on other than
the screenshot of the interface with little or no text associated with it.
We understand that the French version of the documentation may be more
cohesive, but as far as the English version is concerned, combining the
manuals and adding some more understandable instructions about the
features would help immensely. Providing detailed indexes at the end of
the manuals would also be advantageous.
For a product of this magnitude, help files are very important so users
can gain a better understanding of certain features. Currently, there is
very little relevant information contained in the help files.
Features
Herm�s Pro is separated into many smaller components in a hierarchical
type of format. We could almost draw it out in a tree diagram. Directly
under the Herm�s Pro headline would be the outbound dialer, ACD
functionality, Web call center, IVR application generator, administration,
agent capabilities, supervisor applications and plug-ins categories. Under
these categories would be the associated Herm�s names (as described in
the brochures) and then the features associated with these names. While
this type of hierarchical structure helps describe the many features of
Herm�s Pro, we will not go into as much detail. However, the following
list will briefly discuss the major features associated with the
categories we specified above:
- Outbound dialer -- contains preview dialing for receiving
information about the person or company an agent is calling,
progressive dialing for transferring a call to the agent as soon as
the agent is available, predictive dialing and scheduled recalls.
- ACD functionality -- includes ODBC compatibility, call
distribution, call routing, call blending and capabilities to lower
abandon rates.
- Web call center -- pop-up e-mail that is connected to a
company's mail server and ISP, co-browsing with the ability to push
Web pages, real-time chat, Web call through and Web callback.
- IVR application generator -- for creating a personalized IVR
system, the app-gen can be used to create better customer service
applications, perform text-to-speech in many different languages and
create traditional auto attendant functionality.
- Administration -- the graphical interface is mainly used by
the administrator to set up inbound and outbound campaigns, set up
agents and supervisors and for functionality such as skills-based
routing, scheduling, privileges and scripting.
- Agent capabilities -- agents can ask for new call, type
wrap-up information, transfer a call to another agent, access critical
information about the agent's queue, record conversations, contact
supervisor while on call, perform call qualification, obtain personal
information and history of the customer's interactions and provide
online fulfillment.
- Supervisor applications -- includes agent monitoring, voice
logging, entering a conference call, sending a message to selected
agents, access to reports and production statistics, alarm
functionality, validation of messages and various methods to control
the quality of service.
- Plug-ins -- options include the appointment manager for
optimizing appointment quotas, online telesales for taking orders
online, customer objection and hang-up analysis, and management of
surveys.
Operational Testing
Since we were unable to keep for more than one day the PC-PBX the
representatives from VOCALCOM had brought, we could not test some of the
features of the Herm�s Pro system. However, we were able to get a feel
for the graphical interface by reviewing each button and drop-down list
available. From these observations, we felt that the GUI was not difficult
to use, but it was not entirely intuitive either. At times, we really had
to search for the appropriate feature we wanted. The printed manuals were
beneficial to us with our review of the interface, but help files would
have been extremely useful.
In addition, we tried the Herm�s Pro live demo from VOCALCOM's Web
site. We just clicked on the demo, entered the information required of us,
waited a few moments for an agent to pick up our call and were then in the
chat session. We tested the chat functionality and had the agent push us
Web pages. We then pushed a different Web page back to the agent, which
showed the cobrowsing functionality. We could even see the agent we were
talking to through real-time video.
We also tested the VoIP functionality and ran into some problems with
our firewall. However, after opening up the UDP ports, we were able to
determine that the VoIP call's quality was easily understandable without
an overabundance of latency.
To be able to view Herm�s Pro's agent features, TMC� Labs set up PC
Anywhere and dialed up into VOCALCOM's headquarters. From there, we were
able to see how simple it was for agents to answer requests. The agents
either already had the background information and history of the customer
interactions given to them or could add that information without much of a
hassle. They were able to chat from customer to agent, push URLs to the
customer, search the Web, and write e-mail and attach files directly from
the agent's interface so that files can be sent to a customer.
In accordance with some of the other tools, the IVR application
generator is not difficult to use, but could be even simpler. When we
thought about an IVR system in logical terms by considering how an auto
attendant should react to certain caller situations, we could create
simple applications by dropping the correct icon in the appropriate
position on the interface. We first needed to fill out the appropriate
information, and then a button would form on the screen. To adjust the
settings of each button's features, you right-click on the button, choose
"Modify Action," and enter the appropriate information. It would
have also been helpful to be able to double-click the button to perform
this task. As it is configured now, you just add or delete specific
buttons in this way. In addition, some of the icons may confuse users who
haven't referred to the manual. Some of the more obvious icons used for
this app-gen are play message, fax, database, mail, goto, begin and end
loop, test and calculate variables, and a database icon.
Room For Improvement
Since the feature set for Herm�s Pro is excellent, there isn't much more
to suggest other than what we have already mentioned, but we would like to
reinforce our earlier comments and add a few more. The most significant
improvements that could be made for this system would be in the
organization of the documentation and in building a cleaner and more
intuitive graphical interface. Both of these issues could be greatly
improved with high-quality help files. Also, there should be the ability
for right-click options on every screen of all the Windows-based
interfaces, not just a few. In addition, application sharing between the
agent and customer could really help a campaign. Furthermore, the
inclusion of XML in addition to HTML for Web customer interaction would
greatly enhance the coding schematics.
Conclusion
We consider the Herm�s Pro Interactive solution as being a "PC-PBX
Call Center." It has PC-PBX functionality and is intended for the
call center. Certainly, there are PC-PBX products out there that invest
all of their features in just being a phone system, and there are products
that have specific functionality for particular call center needs, such as
workforce management software. However, Herm�s Pro is a fine product that
covers a very wide spectrum of features for the overall needs of call
centers. One would be hard-pressed to find a product with such
comprehensive functionality.
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