Avaya Launches New SIP-Based Integration Architecture, Intelligent Routing Solutions

If there has been any doubt that the open-standards Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP)-based IP is the new standard in contact center solutions, then two major product releases from Avaya that enhance performance and routing and which can generate cost savings should dispel it.

 

The Avaya (News - Alert) Aura, which utilizes SIP, is a software architecture that easily integrates multichannel communications across multiple locations and other suppliers’ solutions. The Avaya Intelligent Customer Routing is an application that transfers customers and their essential information to the right agent or expert using the quickest and most efficient route possible.

 

Both the Avaya Aura and the Avaya Intelligent Customer Routing tap into Avaya’s Avaya new Strategic Communications Consulting practice. It helps enterprises develop their communications using the most advanced expertise, tools and capabilities. It solves business issues by maximizing technologies, such as unified SIP-based architectures.

 

 

 

The Avaya Aura consists of the SIP-based Avaya Aura Session Manager, which orchestrates a wide array of communication applications and systems by decoupling applications from the networks. With it services can be deployed to users based on what features they need rather than where they work or the capabilities of the system to which they are connected.

 

The Avaya Aura also includes unified communications (UC) capabilities. Avaya’s Communication Manager becomes a business feature server. There is enhanced presence functionality, expanding the ability to federate presence from multiple sources and vendors for a more accurate view of an employee or workgroup availability.

 

For companies with branch locations, Avaya Aura Branch Edition provides the capabilities of Avaya Aura as a SIP-based replacement for key systems in small locations. This feature enables companies to go from standalone stores and branches (or small contact centers) to a full, SIP-connected enterprise.

 

In turn, Avaya Aura delivers several key productivity benefits. It provides the ability to create new applications and quickly extend them to workers anywhere. It can map applications to individual employee profiles, making the appropriate features globally available regardless of the location, system or device to which employees are connected. 

 

Avaya Aura also confers cost savings through centrally managed, enterprise-wide dial plans and on-net calling, global least cost routing, PSTN access from the most cost-effective location. It also eliminates local application servers and optimizes software licensing across the full breadth of the enterprise, rather than for a single location.

 

“With Avaya Aura, organizations can achieve rapid returns on their business communications investment, while simplifying the development and deployment of applications that improve operational performance,” says Kevin Kennedy (News - Alert), president and CEO, Avaya. “With this new architecture, for the first time, the way we communicate is defined by the applications and the user, not the network.” 

 

 

Avaya Intelligent Customer Routing delivers customers and their essential information to the right agent or expert using the quickest and most efficient route possible. It also permits customers to use low-cost speech self service to provide key information such as account numbers and transaction histories and get connected to the best available resource anywhere in a business. 

 

The Intelligent Customer Routing is the first solution enabled by the SIP-based Avaya Aura architecture. With SIP, businesses can more easily route communications to global locations using multi-vendor systems. This allows contact centers to maximize agents and expert utilization regardless of which vendor’s equipment they are on or where they are located.

 

With the Intelligent Customer Routing customers’ calls can travel further, faster, and with key information intact, leading to shorter queues and faster yet more satisfying interactions by eliminating repetition of what customers had told the speech apps. The solution can even offer to call back customers if a hold time is deemed excessive. It can also deliver messages during self service that are personalized for a customer’s profile. For instance, if a caller is identified as a user of frequent flyer miles, she can get information based on prior travel or upcoming trips.

 

These self service capabilities can be delivered visually through the use of video-based menus and content – accessible via a 3G mobile device, kiosk or computer – that enables customers to see their options. This includes the ability for calling customers to view instructional videos or advertisements tailored to their profile while they wait for an agent. For example, cable TV customers can view coming attractions, entertainment news or ‘how to’ videos that match recent purchases.

 

These features are being delivered by another new Avaya solution, Avaya Voice Portal 5.0. Its capabilities include integrated video and voice support; itis one of the first self service solutions to support the standards-based Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL). SMIL provides open standards support for system integrators and companies, so they can implement advanced customer experiences using dynamic video content. It can support up to 5,000 concurrent sessions, or voice calls per Voice Portal system, increased from 2,000 sessions. Further, the solution can cluster self service systems for tens of thousands of sessions.

 

Avaya Voice Portal 5.0 also has new measurement tools. Organizations can now provide certain people or divisions with just the data they need to determine the effectiveness of a self service program. This does away with the ‘all or nothing’ approach to sharing information, allowing IT supervisors to provide tailored views for certain business users, while helping it maintain control and confidentiality over information.

 

 “Companies want to get the benefit of enhancing customer service, while improving their return on investments,” says Mary Wardley, program vice president, CRM and enterprise applications, IDC (News - Alert). “Avaya’s new architecture and contact center solution achieves this by tapping the potential of SIP and Web applications in a way that continues to prioritize cost-efficiency and reliability.”

 

“Customers today have very sophisticated demands, having grown comfortable with instant information, social networks and other avenues of intelligent communications,” says Bob Lyons, general manager and vice president of Avaya’s contact center division. “Avaya Intelligent Customer Routing is designed for this new generation of savvy customers, giving businesses the tools they need to deliver faster, more flexible and more dynamic customer service, while reducing the total cost to serve in the process.”