KCOM Tests Nortel Contact Center 7.0 Integrated with MS Office Communications Server

KCOM, a supplier of business communication solutions in the U.K., announced the completion of the live trial of Nortel’s Contact Center 7.0 (CC7) demonstrating successful integration with Microsoft’s (News - Alert) Office Communications Server.

 

 The trial helped test the compatibility between the two solutions by indicating that the two products can improve service and efficiency for contact centers.

 

The trial was conducted by employing the IT service desk of KCOM and the staff operated out of Hull and Reading in the UK. Nortel’s (News - Alert) Contact Center 7.0 was integrated with Microsoft Office Communications Server and it was deployed to assist agents in handling high call volumes for improving customer service. Callers can choose any method of communication to register queries.

 

KCOM service desk handles about 6000 calls a month from internal and external clients. But after deploying Nortel’s Contact Center 7.0 and OCS solution agents are witnessing a drop of 30 percent in calls. Many users submitted their queries by instant message (IM) or email, said KCOM sources.

 

Paul Marsden, workplace services manager at KCOM said, “ They particularly liked the ability to submit queries via instant message as it allowed them to continue working rather than waiting in a queue for the call to be answered. Also, given the choice, the agents themselves didn’t want to go back to the old technology; they felt the Contact Center 7.0 and Office Communications Server solution was more intuitive and user friendly,” he added.

 

Nortel Contact Center 7.0 lets agents to prioritize enquiries. This allows urgent calls to be handled immediately and less urgent calls were attended to when agents became available. Enquiries processing also took less time when submitted by instant message as more background information was garnered from users.

 

The CC7 solution also included Nortel’s ‘Expert Anywhere’ capability which allows agents to find if other experts were available in the contact center. The access to ‘presence’ information allowed agents to route calls knowing well that they will be answered and resolved on first contact explained sources.

 

During the testing, agents of KCOM instantly recognized the benefit of seeing the availability of subject matter experts within their new integrated desktop. The solution allowed the agents to identify the people within the business that could help them resolve enquiries which they could not answer themselves, without the need to call back.

 

Any delay in answering queries is considered costly to any business and happens when access to the right information or the right people at the right time is absent. This problem can be solved by combining the power of Nortel’s Contact Center suite with the Presence and Instant Messaging capabilities of the Microsoft Office Communications Server platform.