Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) recently concluded its annual partner conference, which was held October 7–9. At the event, the Indianapolis-based provider of unified IP business communications solutions honored a group of resellers and awarded the Vision Award to one deserving honoree.

 

The award is designed to take note of a company’s visionary use of the Interactive Intelligence software solution.

 

The Vision Award winner was a company by the name of EDCi, an Appleton, Wisconsin-based voice and data communications solutions provider. The firm took home the honor based on a deployment of Interactive Intelligence’s Customer Interaction Center (CIC) at Wisconsin Public Service, a natural gas and electric utility serving northeastern and central Wisconsin and an adjacent portion of Upper Michigan. The solution featured a multi-channel queuing application capable of prioritizing and routing e-mail, Web chats and other interactions based on key words. Other features included screen-pop, IVR self-service with speech recognition, voice callback option, and multiple integrations to the customer’s existing communications systems.

 

According to Interactive Intelligence North America Sales VP, Paul Weber, “The EDCi deployment at Wisconsin Public Service resulted in the customer’s busy rates reduced to less than 1 percent without adding staff, while its call volume increased about 10 percent. In addition, the customer’s abandoned call rate dropped by 50 percent and response time to e-mails dropped from 24 hours to just two to four hours. These impressive metrics, along with a higher than expected return on investment that was realized 10 months faster than projected, were a direct result of EDCi’s pioneering use of our software.”

 

Joe Staples, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing at Interactive Intelligence, believes the event was a success.

 

“It was our best attended partner conference ever. We had over 200 attendees. Over the three days, we had six different tracks with 93 total sessions on subjects such as VoIP security, OCS integration, enterprise messaging, workforce management, SIP monitoring, contact center reporting, and a lot more. The feedback was very positive,” said Staples.

 

Among the other partners nominated for the Vision Award, Minnesota-based telecom solutions provider, AVTEX, stood out for its CIC and Messaging Interaction Center (MIC) deployments at Western & Southern Financial Group.

 

“The AVTEX multi-channel contact center and enterprise messaging deployment resulted in overall savings for the customer of about $70,000, and a 25 percent net increase in contact rates,” Weber said.

 

He also said that AVTEX’ creative use of the Interactive Intelligence software suite, “…made it a very deserving Vision Award nominee.”

 

Advanced Information Systems of Nevada was also nominates. The company integrated the Interactive Intelligence software with a digital signage product resulting in a centralized “video receptionist” that provides presence management and security functions.

 

In addition, 19 resellers were honored this year for their 10-year partnerships with Interactive Intelligence.

 

The Interactive Intelligence Partner program is a global effort designed to help partners grow their business by offering the company’s suite of contact center automation, enterprise IP telephony, enterprise messaging, self-service automation and SIP-supported VoIP solutions. Three key areas that Interactive Intelligence focuses on are:

 

·         The contact center;

·         Enterprise IP telephony; and

·         Voicemail and unified messaging.

 

Staples spoke of a major new initiative surrounding the company’s efforts on business process automation. The product has not been officially announced yet, but as Staples said, “Don Brown, our CEO, demoed the product. We are making great progress with it, and if the reaction from the crowd is any indication, this will be a huge hit. The ROI is so tangible.”