TMC Labs Innovation Awards 2005: part I.The purpose of the TMC TMC Technology Marketing Corporation (Norwalk, Connecticut) TMC Texas Medical Center (Houston, TX) TMC Traffic Message Channel TMC The Movie Channel TMC Traffic Management Center Labs Innovation Awards is not simply to recognize good products, but rather to distinguish certain products that have helped to carve out to make or get by cutting, or as if by cutting; to cut out. - Shak. See also: Carve a new market niche or start a trend. This award is also about products that are a cut above those of their competitors due to unique and innovative features. This is our sixth annual installment of the TMC Labs Innovation Awards for Customer Inter@ction Solutions. This year we noticed a trend of converged solutions. For example, instead of simply a traditional workforce management Workforce Management (WFM) encompasses all the responsibilities for maintaining a productive and happy workforce. Sometimes referred to as HRMS systems, or even the larger ERP systems (Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP). There are many software vendors within this space. (WFM (1) (Wired For Management) A specification from Intel for a PC that can be centrally managed in a network. It must be DMI compliant, be accessible by a management server prior to booting, contain instrumentation for component discovery and identification and ) solution, we discovered that many WFM applications were built to perform not only traditional scheduling but also to integrate other types of workflow into their scheduling. We saw trouble ticket management software integrated into the workflow, so agents are scheduled to perform trouble ticket resolution in addition to answering inbound calls. Another convergence trend we saw was hosted contact center solutions that blend CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. , VoIP/telephony and advanced skills-based routing all in one unified application. We had a few winners in this genre because we feel this is unique and innovative and a trend we are likely to see more of in the foreseeable future. TMC Labs researched each of the applications and eventually arrived at our winners' list, which consists of 26 unique and innovative companies. The winners will be published in two parts in order to accommodate our in-depth write-ups of the winning solutions. Part II will be presented in the November 2005 issue of this magazine. Tom Keating For the football player of the same name see Tom Keating (American football). Tom Keating (March 1 1917 - February 12 1984) was an art restorer and famous art forger who claimed to have forged more than 2,000 paintings by over 100 different artists. Chief Technology Officer, TMC; Executive Technology Editor, TMC Labs Aspect Communications Corp. (now Aspect Software) Aspect eWorkforce Management v6.3 www.aspect.com One cannot think of the call center market without considering Aspect. The company has been a market leader in the call center space for more than 20 years, and counts more than two-thirds of the Fortune 50 as customers. The latest version of Aspect eWorkforce Management (eWFM), v6.3, has a host of enhancements available, including features that automate schedule bidding and processing, customized performance optimization options, and a new module that lets businesses integrate outsourced and in-house workforce statistics. eWFM has typical workforce management features such as optimizing scheduling efficiency and automating the selection and assignment of workforce schedules, vacations, holidays and other events. The solution also maximizes agent empowerment and retention by providing flexible scheduling that weighs both the organization's and the agent's needs. eWFM features powerful forecasting, scheduling and tracking, as well as optional packages that can fine-tune agent performance, empower agents and supervisors, and simplify the management of multisite contact center workforces. eWFM fully integrates with Aspect's flagship Uniphi Suite, and includes significant new capabilities that drive workforce productivity. For instance, it includes increased agent input to scheduling, increased data and customization for analytics and the integration of outsourced and in-house staffing. The Empower module has added functionality to improve overall contact center productivity and to give agents more control over their work schedule by making bidding for schedules and vacations easier and by reducing the processing time involved. The enhanced version of Aspect Performance Optimization (APO apo- 1 A prefix indicating a protein component in a conjugated molecule–eg, apoferritin, apolipoprotein, see there 2 Apolipoprotein, see there ) lets customers gather and integrate data from external applications, such as CRM and quality monitoring, so they may undertake more comprehensive analyses of their businesses and take informed action. One final enhancement in the new version that is unique is its new Encompass module, which lets businesses tie together intraday Intraday Another way of saying "within the day." Notes: This term is often used for the new highs and lows of a security. For example, "a new intraday high" means a security reached a new all-time high throughout the trading day, but then fell by closing. statistics from their outsourced resources with data from their in-house resources for a comprehensive picture of contact center activity. "In the past, allocating vacations and floating holidays was a labor-intensive process, with each agent filling out bid forms and requests being processed manually," said Joseph Beery beer·y adj. beer·i·er, beer·i·est 1. Smelling or tasting of beer: beery breath. 2. Affected or produced by beer: beery humor. , senior vice president and CIO CIO: see American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. (Chief Information Officer) The executive officer in charge of information processing in an organization. of America West Airlines America West Airlines was one of the United States' ten major airlines. The airline was based in Tempe, Arizona, and is now a part of US Airways Group. At the time of its integration into US Airways, the airline maintained two hubs, one at Phoenix Sky Harbor International . "Using Aspect eWorkforce Management v6.3, we reduced the amount of time it takes to process annual vacation requests from 480 man hours to just 20--this is outstanding. We've rolled out the new solution to 1,200 agents across two sites, and we like that our employees can manage their own vacations." AT&T AT&T BusinessDirect eBill www.att.com Let's face it, nobody enjoys examining their phone bills to ensure accuracy. But if you think you've got it bad, just imagine that you are the telecom manager in charge of 10 disparate call center sites with millions of calls each month. How does a company make sure it isn't getting shafted by the phone company, or that there aren't fraudulent charges on the bills? Well, AT&T BusinessDirect eBill gives customers the ability to view their AT&T invoice details, analyze billing data by creating standard or custom reports, make inquiries and request billing adjustments online, see payment history, and pay bills online. When a customer disputes a charge online, it is automatically removed from the balance until the dispute is resolved. Disputing individual calls online is much easier than explaining the details of each disputed charge call-by-call with a phone company representative. With eBill, customers are able to assign charges by location, branch, department, or other operating unit operating unit A type of operating company that engages in transactions with outsiders and that is owned by another business. For example, in 1995 the stockholders of Capital Cities/ABC approved a $19 billion merger with the Walt Disney Company, whereupon . Customers can also restrict access to various portions of the bill. The reporting and analysis tools allow customers to save hours each month, and help provide audit trails both financially and for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. eBill offers a 13-month history online, plus the option of "turning off" paper billing. Customers receive their bill electronically about five business days faster than paper. eBill is available for AT&T voice and data services. AT&T claims that eBill is the only industry tool that offers online dispute capabilities; all others require a form that must be processed manually behind the scenes. The company also claims that eBill is the only portal that provides payment options via Financial EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) The electronic communication of business transactions, such as orders, confirmations and invoices, between organizations. Third parties provide EDI services that enable organizations with different equipment to connect. , credit/debit card, bank draft, online auto-pay, or click-to-pay. In addition, access to eBill is integrated into AT&T BusinessDirect, the company's customer Web portal See portal. . Many competitors require multiple portals for different online tools. While AT&T actively promotes that customers receive their bills via eBill, those customers are not charged extra if they wish to receive paper or CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). bills. AT&T informed us that it offers discounts to customers who select online billing and/or payment in the low-end market In the USA, as well as in most developed countries, the low-end market consists of lower-priced products suitable for customers who are not willing or able to spend large amounts of money. In developing countries, some low-end products may be considered high-end or even luxury items. strata. The reporting and analysis tools in eBill are very advanced, and are designed to save customers time in analyzing monthly bills. Many large customers must do organizational charge-backs each month for billing; eBill is able to consolidate multiple disparate bills and services for a customer, and allow for analysis within a specific bill/service, or across all as one entity. For example, a customer with a thousand locations, utilizing AT&T voice, data, IP, MIS and DSL DSL in full Digital Subscriber Line Broadband digital communications connection that operates over standard copper telephone wires. It requires a DSL modem, which splits transmissions into two frequency bands: the lower frequencies for voice (ordinary services in varying combinations, can not only analyze one location or service, but the entire range of locations and services at the same time. AttachmateWRQ Verastream www.attachmate.com One major problem experienced by nearly all organizations is disparate database systems making it difficult to see a unified view of all company data. AttachmateWRQ's Verastream solves this problem by enabling organizations to maximize the value of their existing IT investments while providing a Web-based front-end interface to all data. The target market for Verastream typically includes contact center managers and their IT directors and supporting IT staff at medium-sized and large enterprises. These buyers are tasked with integrating existing business logic and data from host applications in support of new initiatives. Verastream specifically targets call centers using real-time customer-focused applications, including Web self-service applications A software application that allows a user to obtain information or complete a business transaction on the computer that has traditionally required the help of a human representative. Voice response systems and Web sites are widely used for self-service applications. See kiosk. and packaged CRM applications that need to leverage mission-critical functionality residing within legacy applications. Verastream host integration software enables contact centers to boost productivity by combining customer information locked away on multiple legacy screens into a single, easy-to-use Web interface. AttachmateWRQ stated, "Since the majority of customer information is stored on host systems, contact center employees often have to look through as many as 100 different screens before finding the customer data needed to answer a customer query." Using Verastream, agents are able to handle calls in seconds instead of spending minutes struggling with the complexities of the legacy applications. Contact centers leverage Verastream to provide agents and customers with simplified access to billing status, order histories, product inventory and other customer-related information. Verastream also enables contact centers to provide customers with direct access to information via the Web, enabling them to cut caller wait times, reduce data-entry errors and improve agent productivity. "We have seen a dramatic increase in my reps' productivity, because now they don't spend so much time looking through green screens," an AT&T rep said. "They put the phone number in, and 10 to 15 seconds later, here come the results. The new efficiency allows CSRs to focus elsewhere." Using Verastream's designer interface, users can quickly add multiple legacy databases to a single Web screen. Using a sophisticated design tool, contact center developers without specific Web development expertise can create an object model of a host application. Navigating through the host application screens, they simply click the fields that will be used in the new application, leaving the original application intact. The resulting object model can perform any transaction supported by the host application, including screen navigation, reads and writes. Full integration for a wide variety of application program interfaces, including Java, JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity) A programming interface that lets Java applications access a database via the SQL language. Since Java interpreters (Java Virtual Machines) are available for all major client platforms, this allows a platform-independent database , COM, .NET, SQL SQL in full Structured Query Language. Computer programming language used for retrieving records or parts of records in databases and performing various calculations before displaying the results. , and Microsoft BizTalk Server Microsoft BizTalk Server, often referred to as simply "BizTalk", is a business process management (BPM) server. Through the use of "adapters" which are tailored to communicate with different software systems used in a large enterprise, it enables companies to automate and integrate 2004, is available. Verastream was one of the first host integration vendors to offer an adaptable Service-Oriented Architecture See SOA. (SOA (1) (Start Of Authority) The first record in a DNS zone file. See DNS records. (2) (Service Oriented Architecture) The modularization of business functions for greater flexibility and reusability. ) approach for reusing legacy logic and data in Web applications, CRM applications or portals that enable contact centers to deliver rapid results. Citrix Online Citrix Online is a division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS) that sells Web-based remote access, support, and collaboration software and services. Its products are GoToAssist, GoToMeeting, GoToMyPC, and GoToWebinar. Citrix GoToMeeting Corporate 2.0 www.citrix.com Citrix is renowned for its remote-access solutions and its superb screen-sharing technology that compresses screen images, keystrokes and mouse movements so remarkably that it even performs well on dial-up Internet access See dial-up. . GoToMeeting Corporate is another innovative solution from Citrix. It's a collaborative meeting software solution that primarily targets SOHO/SMBs. However, Citrix told us that with the release of v2.0, larger businesses will adopt GoToMeeting as well. Citrix GoToMeeting Corporate enables a collaborative online meeting via an extremely easy-to-use interface. It supports up to 200 attendees per meeting and its instant screen-sharing technology allows presenters to share PowerPoint slides, or any other PC application with all participants in real time. The solution features bundled integration with popular applications such as e-mail and instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or . It also features true 24-bit color representation of the presenter's PC so all illustrations, graphic-intensive applications and pictures are shown to meeting attendees in their native high-color state. It also features excellent security with 128-bit end-to-end AES encryption. GoToMeeting also includes a free audio bridge, giving meeting participants immediate access to audio conferencing See audioconferencing. . GoToMeeting is bandwidth-adaptive to ensure that participants with different connections--even dial-up users--can connect to a meeting. The Web-based Administration Center provides a central point of control and robust real-time usage reports to facilitate easy management. Detailed reports can be created to track meeting information and usage statistics. With version 2.0, Citrix added desktop recording and playback, specific application sharing A data conferencing capability that lets two or more users interactively work on the same application at the same time. The application is loaded and running in only one machine; however, keystrokes are transmitted from and screen changes are transmitted to the other participants. , drawing tools and a Web services (1) Loosely, any online service delivered over the Web. Such usage appears in articles from non-technical sources, but not in IT-oriented publications, because definition #2 below describes the correct use of the term. application programming interface, which allows third-party applications to integrate GoToMeeting into their solutions. Citrix Online claims it has the industry's first "All You Can Meet" pricing model. The pricing structure offers an unlimited number of meetings of unrestricted length for a flat, monthly fee. Most competing online meeting services charge per-minute and per-user fees, plus overage Overage Apples mainly to convertible securities. Difference between how much common stock one party must sell and the other wishes to buy for the same amount of convertible in a swap. charges, making GoToMeeting a very advantageous choice when evaluating and selecting an online meeting solution. Concerto Software, Inc. (now Aspect Software) Concerto EnsemblePro www.concerto.com An ensemble is defined as "a group, an orchestra, a collection, as a whole." Concerto Software's EnsemblePro fits that definition to a tee. EnsemblePro takes various important call center functions, such as skills-based routing, e-mail management, chat, fax, campaign and agent management, queuing and predictive dialing, and orchestrates them into one package. The ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) A computerized phone system that responds to the caller with a voice menu and connects the call to the appropriate agent. It can also distribute calls equally to agents. capabilities of Concerto EnsemblePro answer calls as they enter the contact center and intelligently route them to available agents, based on the dialed number (DNIS (Dialed Number Identification Service) A service that enables a company to identify which telephone number was dialed. A PBX often receives calls on the same port that were dialed to different 800 or 900 numbers, and the DNIS data contains the dialed number so ), calling party identification (ANI), available agents, customer profile, service levels and defined business rules. The multilevel mul·ti·lev·el adj. Having several levels: a multilevel parking garage. Adj. 1. multilevel - of a building having more than one level , skills-based routing functionality ensures that the customer is routed to the most appropriate agent. Concerto EnsemblePro also offers overflow routing, call re-routing based on queue statistics, abandoned call recuperation recuperation /re·cu·per·a·tion/ (-koo?per-a´shun) recovery of health and strength. recuperation, n the process of recovering health, strength, and mental and emotional vigor. and multisite routing. The predictive dialer An automatic telephone dialing system that dials from a list of numbers and turns the call over to an agent when a human responds. It increases productivity in a call center, because the agents can spend their time talking rather than waiting for calls to go through as well as hanging up functionality of Concerto EnsemblePro helps increase agent productivity through automated dialing and real-time access to customer information, while offering campaign and agent management capabilities that increase operating efficiency. An IVR/voice self-service feature is available, allowing customers to query their account information without agent assistance. The multichannel Using two or more paths for transmission or processing. It can refer to a variety of architectures including (1) multiple I/O channels between the CPU and peripheral devices, (2) multiple wires in a cable, (3) multiple "logical" channels within a single wire or fiber or (4) multiple capabilities for voice, e-mail, Web and fax allow customers to contact the organization via the medium of their choice. E-mail tools include auto-acknowledgement, greetings, signatures, e-mail templates and attachment capabilities and distribution lists and e-mail campaign tools. Designed for contact centers with between 10 and 3,000 seats, Concerto EnsemblePro was one of the first products to unite inbound, outbound and blended multichannel contact (voice, e-mail, Web and fax), while also delivering robust queuing, routing, reporting and agent empowerment capabilities in a single solution. One very innovative aspect of this solution is its workflow routing. For example, a typical help-desk agent handles calls, but also manages customer issues using a trouble ticket management application. The phone calls delivered to the agent can be routed, queued and prioritized; however, the service requests (SR) in the ticket management application are static, leaving the agent to manually select the next SR to work on. With Concerto EnsemblePro, the service request can be prioritized and blended across all the other interactions the agent can handle. For example, if a service request has a critical priority, it may be delivered before the next phone call. This level of workflow blending allows companies to ensure a certain level of customer service quality by applying their own customized business rules. Contactual Contactual OnDemand Contact Center www.contactual.com Contactual OnDemand Contact Center is a hosted contact center application that is VoIP-based (SIP) and 100 percent Web-provisioned and -configured. Contactual claims to be the first SIP- and VoIP-based hosted contact center (in early 2000); and the company also claims to be the first hosted VoIP contact center solution to integrate with major on-demand CRM applications, including those of Salesforce.com and NetSuite. One of the most important features is that this solution is 100 percent Web-provisioned and Web-configured. Some of Contactual's competitors require going to data centers and configuring on site for new customers. Worse, some hosted competitors have to do a truck roll and configure on site the required customer hardware and Telco equipment. Contactual is a very scalable and easy-to-use hosted contact center application; it claims four nines of reliability/uptime in 2005. Contactual cited an example of an insurance adjuster that has seasonal peaks and a need for catastrophe overflow--they were able to scale from one to 200 seats overnight. Contactual features skills-based routing across e-mail, chat and phone. Voice recording/logging is also available. There is also co-browsing with navigation and form-fill synchronization (1) See synchronous and synchronous transmission. (2) Ensuring that two sets of data are always the same. See data synchronization. (3) Keeping time-of-day clocks in two devices set to the same time. See NTP. , integrated to chat, standard phone and VoIP. E-mail management is very sophisticated and flexible, and includes virus and spam filtering A software routine that deletes incoming spam or diverts it to a "junk" mailbox (see spam folder). Also called "spam blockers," spam filters are built into a user's e-mail program. , priority and skill presentation, keyword and address routing, complete logging, auto-responders and optional FAQ/knowledge base integration. CustomerSat, Inc. CustomerSat Enterprise www.customersat.com Does this sound familiar? "Sue, do you have that survey report for me?" "No, not yet, John. I still have to cross-reference the three database files, and then design a complex SQL query to pull the data, and finally output it to Excel so I can create a graphical chart." Messaging data and creating meaningful reports is a very complex and often labor-intensive task that is often assigned to MIS personnel. The problem is MIS has database savvy but not necessarily marketing or reporting savvy, often resulting in a disconnect between what sales or marketing teams want and what MIS provides. CustomerSat Enterprise is a hosted (ASP) survey solution, tailored to the needs of clients, that gathers customer and market feedback by multiple channels (e.g., online, phone, speech-enabled IVR (Interactive Voice Response) An automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed voice menus and data extracted from databases in real time. and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) A handheld computer for managing contacts, appointments and tasks. It typically includes a name and address database, calendar, to-do list and note taker, which are the functions in a personal information manager (see PIM). ), and then delivers real-time analytics on survey results without requiring MIS intervention. Such reports include frequency distributions, cross tabs, correlations, trend lines, significance testing, and other statistics-through-portal-accessible, interactive dashboards and "push" (e-mailed) reports, enabling managers throughout clients' organizations to pinpoint customer concerns and market opportunities. CustomerSat also drives actions enterprisewide by e-mailing detailed alerts, and by using business rules to instantly open and assign cases, when customers' satisfaction and other scores fall below specified thresholds. Thus, one of the general benefits of the alerting and reporting is that it enables enterprises to save at-risk customers and renewal revenue before they are lost. CustomerSat Enterprise integrates with the clients' CRM and other corporate IT systems through secure Internet protocols Refers to all the standards that keep the Internet running. The foundation protocol is TCP/IP, which provides the basic communications mechanism as well as ways to copy files (FTP) and send e-mail (SMTP). to automate the deployment of both event-based (continuous) and relationship (periodic) surveys. Powerful cross-tabbing and survey-results analysis (e.g., satisfaction by region) is built into the product. Similarly, you can drill-down from aggregate statistics to detailed survey responses that the statistics comprise. For example, in a frequency distribution bar chart for a particular rating question, clicking on a bar in the chart brings up a summary table of the respondents whose answers comprise that bar in the chart. Clicking again on any row in the table brings up the completed questionnaire and allowed descriptive fields of each customer. CustomerSat claims to have invented the first 100 percent online, real-time survey cross-tabs generation (1997) and the first to create real-time trend lines of call center customer satisfaction online (1998). Additionally, you may have encountered their PopUp-on-Exit surveys for Web site visitors, which pop up when visitors exit the Web site. CustomerSat claims to be first to do this as well. One key benefit of this product is its enterprisewide survey invitation controls to ensure that customers are protected from too many survey requests from multiple divisions and departments within the enterprise. Unique real-time positioning charts are also provided to segment and position customers, products, call centers and sales regions based on satisfaction and loyalty. Speech IVR integration is admirable through integration with third-party IVRs. CustomerSat Enterprise records and stores customers' verbatim comments as audio (.wav) files, which can be played back from within Enterprise, thereby enabling managers to hear comments in a customer's own words, tone of voice and spoken ratings. A speaker icon in Enterprise analytics indicates that a recorded comment or suggestion is available. If a customer states a very low rating, such as two out of 10, the unfavorable score can trigger e-mail alerts and cause a case to be instantly opened and assigned. One final feature of note is the bounce e-mail management. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. CustomerSat, "When e-mailing invitations to surveys, our clients receive large volumes of bounce e-mail messages: out of office, mailbox A simulated mailbox in the computer that holds e-mail messages. Mailboxes are stored on disk as a file of messages, a database of messages or as an individual file for each message. The standard mailboxes are usually In, Out, Trash and Junk (Spam). full, user unknown, etc. Some of these messages are critical for updating their e-mail databases; others can be ignored. Managing them is labor-intensive and time-consuming." CustomerSat Enterprise's automated bounce e-mail manager receives, interprets, categorizes and files these bounced e-mail An e-mail message that is returned to the sender. It is generally due to a misspelling of the name or an incorrect address. E-mail can also be returned if the size of the attached file exceeds a set limit by your ISP. See e-mail. invitations to help eliminate this labor-intensive task, raise productivity and improve e-mail list quality. Five9, Inc. Virtual Contact Center www.five9.com The hosted contact center model is becoming more popular as customers realize that IP communications A general term for networks that use the IP protocol for voice (VoIP) and video traffic. See IP telephony. not only are reliable, but also provide a single unified solution that combines CRM, telephony features and VoIP, all in one affordable package. The Five9 Virtual Contact Center (VCC An electronics designation that refers to voltage from a power supply connected to the "collector" terminal of a bipolar transistor. In an NPN bipolar (BJT) transistor, it would be +Vcc, while in a PNP transistor, it would be -Vcc. ) exemplifies this model with its enablement of companies to build a comprehensive, feature-rich contact center--anywhere in the world--without any hardware, software or up-front capital expenditures. Five9's on-demand service allows for easy setup and administration of at-home agent workforces, as well as single-site or distributed multisite centers to act as one, regardless of geographic location. What makes VCC unique is that Five9 built it from the ground up to eliminate any third-party license fees and integration hassles, thus ensuring low costs. Any business with only a PC and a broadband connection See broadband and wireless broadband. can afford a comprehensive suite of applications, which include the following: ACD; predictive dialer; CRM; IVR; CTI (Computer Telephone Integration) Combining data with voice systems in order to enhance telephone services. For example, automatic number identification (ANI) allows a caller's records to be retrieved from the database while the call is routed to the appropriate party. ; remote-agent capabilities; skills-based routing; recording; silent monitoring; real-time reporting; chat; and centralized cen·tral·ize v. cen·tral·ized, cen·tral·iz·ing, cen·tral·iz·es v.tr. 1. To draw into or toward a center; consolidate. 2. management for multisite and offshore contact centers. All of Five9's advanced VoIP-based contact center functionality can be integrated with leading on-demand CRM solutions from Salesforce.com, Unipress and RightNow. VCC is cost effective and very fast to deploy. According to Five9, customers can be up and running in hours, as opposed to the days or weeks they would have to wait for other solutions. Because it is an on-demand Web-based solution, companies can deploy "distributed call centers," in which agents work out of remote locations around the world, and calls and tasks are routed to them over the Internet. This also enables outsourcers to deploy call centers on their clients' behalf within the same country or internationally. Five9's combination of ACD, IVR, predictive dialing, call scripting and branching, call recording and skills-based routing make it one of the true innovators within the hosted contact center space. IEX IEX Ion Exchange (chromatography) IEX Inter-Exchange Carrier Corporation, a Tekelec company TotalView Workforce Management System www.iex.com IEX has been in the call center space for many years, and the company has won numerous industry awards (including several from Customer Inter@ction Solutions). IEX's TotalView Workforce Management System enables contact centers to deliver consistent service with lower operating costs operating costs npl → gastos mpl operacionales , as well as increased employee morale. It is designed to improve the scheduling and agent management processes in both single-site and multisite environments. In fact, IEX claims it offered the first system to address the needs of a multisite environment, further claiming its multisite workforce management functionality as one of the company's core strengths. IEX has two other firsts to its credit: the first system to offer Web-based agent self-service applications; and the first to support skills-based routing in a multisite environment, with multiple call routing configurations. The system's advanced features include skills-based and multimedia scheduling, real-time and historical adherence, intraday and performance management, enterprise reporting With the dramatic expansion of information technology, and the desire for increased competitiveness in corporations, there has been an increase in the use of computing power to produce unified reports which join different views of the enterprise in one place. and data exchange, vacation and holiday planning as well as short- and long-term resource planning Resource planning may refer to:
TotalView has complete multichannel management, including inbound, outbound, e-mail, Web chat, fax, etc. Multichannel management is enabled with TotalView's Skill Block Scheduling Block scheduling is a type of academic scheduling in which each student has fewer classes per day for a longer period of time. This is intended to result in more time for teaching due to less time wasted due to class switching and preparation. feature. It allows centers to forecast when they will receive multichannel contacts and then schedule the optimal time for handling them, allowing centers to take advantage of cross-training and multisite management while determining the optimal windows of time for agents to devote to multichannel contact handling. IEX continually invests in R&D to better improve the company's products. One such development is the SmartSync application, which serves as a single point of entry and enables improved data integrity for shared data elements across multiple platforms Refers to two or more operating environments, which typically include the CPU family and operating system. For example, if versions of a program run on Windows and the Macintosh, the software is said to support multiple platforms. . This technology allows IEX to strengthen its offering through tight integration, such as a strong performance management and strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. . Interwise ECP (Enhanced Capabilities Port) See IEEE 1284. 1. ECP - Engineering Change Proposal. 2. ECP - Enhanced Capabilities Port. 3. ECP - Extended Capabilities Port. 4. ECP - Extended Concurrent Prolog. Connect www.interwise.com There are several Web conferencing A videoconferencing session via the Internet. In order to interact with other participants, attendees use either a Web application or an application downloaded into their client machines. products on the market; and of those, many have integrated an audio phone-bridge conference number. But how many take advantage of video, and how many of VoIP? Not too many. Interwise's ECP Connect is an exception, featuring voice, video, Web and data--all in one solution. ECP Connect meets the complete conferencing and collaboration needs of an enterprise in a single, IP-based solution that allows individual users to conduct scheduled or ad-hoc voice-only or voice/Web/video conferences from any phone or personal computer. ECP Connect and Interwise's fixed-price/unlimited-usage business model, as well as its flexible deployment options, makes it easy for companies to replace their multiple conferencing and collaboration products See collaborative software. with a single solution. With ECP Connect's fixed/unlimited pricing plan, there are no per-minute charges and no overage charges, so you know what you are paying for. Interwise claims ECP Connect is the only conferencing solution to unite the data stream and voice stream into one IP-based solution. In addition, Interwise's software-only Multimedia Softbridge distributed media server architecture efficiently routes, bridges and manages integrated voice, data and video streams across multiple sites in real time. Further, it includes media services, session control, content distribution and an any-device access layer. Additionally, ECP Connect is unique in how it optimizes the IP bandwidth; it is able to detect the end user's bandwidth (i.e., 56K vs. broadband or T1) and adjust the flow of voice, data and video so as not to overload the bandwidth going to and from the end user's PC. Interwise said, "ECP Connect breaks ground in being a software-only solution capable of being deployed on low-cost commodity servers. There is no need for expensive hardware (PBXs, etc.) to deploy this solution across an extended enterprise. Also, ECP Connect is the only Web-based conferencing solution capable of scaling to tens of thousands of concurrent users." TMC Labs has personally tested and used Interwise's ECP Connect for a Web-VoIP-video conference and we found it worked well with nearly 30 participants. KANA Resolution www.kana.com KANA Resolution is an enterprise software application aimed at increasing customer service agent productivity while also delivering cross-sell/upsell opportunities. KANA Resolution leverages knowledge and intelligence to automatically provide agents with the best information needed to resolve customer requests. In doing so, it provides three primary business benefits: increased customer satisfaction, reduced cost of service and increased revenue. Resolution is business-rules-driven, and dynamic form-based scripts offer step-by-step guidance for all types of service calls. It also includes integrated knowledge management and automatically recommended knowledge articles to reduce research time and provide help to the agent. A unique feature is its ability to automatically present personalized per·son·al·ize tr.v. per·son·al·ized, per·son·al·iz·ing, per·son·al·iz·es 1. To take (a general remark or characterization) in a personal manner. 2. To attribute human or personal qualities to; personify. offers, integrating cross-selling and upselling into the service interaction. Kana Resolution also features e-mail integration and the ability to write data to back-end and CRM systems--two features that allow for rapid response delivery, system updates and case closure. Visual drag-and-drop design tools are available to enable users to quickly and easily model best-practice service processes. KANA has integrated its two product offerings, KANA Response and KANA IQ, into KANA Resolution, providing agents with a more complete solution for knowledge-powered and agent-assisted service. Kana Response automates the process of responding to simple and repetitive inquiries so agents can concentrate on more complex questions and escalations. It automatically responds to customer e-mail, and routes inquiries to the appropriate customer service expert. To drive additional revenue in the contact center, KANA Resolution guides the agent through the customer service interaction, suggesting appropriate actions and providing cross- and upsell recommendations. Resolution is built on a Web services architecture, which allows for easy integration with common enterprise application environments. KANA provides seven pre-built adapters, enabling integration with major call center applications, such as Siebel, Clarify, PeopleSoft and SAP. One final feature of note is the solution's research capabilities, which reduce diagnosis and research time by integrating knowledge management and offering multiple diagnostic and advice tools, including natural-language query, clarifying questions, scripts and expert modeling. Knova Knova SRM (1) (Storage Resource Management) The management of the storage resources in an organization in order to avoid duplication of files and to determine space utilization across all servers. Suite www.knova.com Built on knowledge management and search technologies, Knova's service resolution management (SRM) applications optimize the resolution process across multiple service channels, including contact centers, self-service Web sites, help desk, e-mail and chat. Knova's SRM applications complement, integrate with, and enhance traditional CRM, contact center and help desk applications by providing knowledge management solutions that improve service delivery. One interesting feature to note: Knova was the first to integrate forums into its solution. The company also claims to be the first to implement self-service wizards for customer self-resolution. Another unique capability is the Knova Field Service, which is a knowledge-empowered mobile support application that enables service professionals to quickly resolve customer issues on site. One of the truly powerful aspects of Knova is its superb search engine, featuring enhanced natural-language processing and contextual proximity indexing, resulting in much more accurate search results and saved time and effort for agents. In addition, Knova offers enhanced content management with new authoring and content management features that support personalization Custom tailoring information to the individual. On the Web, personalization means returning a page that has been customized for the user, taking into consideration that person's habits and preferences. and compliance goals. Microsoft Corp. Microsoft Speech Server The Microsoft Speech Server is a product from Microsoft designed to allow the authoring and deployment of IVR applications incorporating Speech Recognition, Speech Synthesis and DTMF. 2004 R2 www.microsoft.com Microsoft Speech Server (MSS MSS - maximum segment size ) is a Web-based, speech-enabled interactive voice response (IVR) and multimodal Two or more modes of operation. The term is used to refer to a myriad of functions and conditions in which two or more different methods, processes or forms of delivery are used. On the Web, it refers to asking for something one way and receiving the answer another; for example requesting application solutions platform designed for enterprises that want to build applications with speech capabilities. MSS is a Speech Application Language Tags For other meanings of the word salt or acronym "SALT", see salt (disambiguation). Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) is an XML based markup language that is used in HTML and XHTML pages to add voice recognition capabilities to web based applications. (SALT)-based platform, and uses an ASP.NET-based Web server as the application server. Already supporting English, MSS R2 adds French and Spanish recognition, as well as more efficient ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Using voice recognition to replace keypad entry for telephone voice menus. Typically used to speak the digits 0 through 9 insted of keying them, ASR systems may be able to recognize a limited vocabulary. See voice recognition and AVSR. and TTS (1) See text-to-speech. (2) (Transaction Tracking System) Software that monitors a transaction until completion. In the event of a hardware or software failure, it ensures that the database is brought back to its former state before the attempt to engines. Besides IVR applications, you can also develop other types of applications, such as the ability to read your e-mail using TTS. In fact, using MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) An enhanced transmission service that enables graphics, video clips and sound files to be transmitted via cellphones. Developed as part of the 3GPP project, MMS phones are generally backward compatible with SMS and EMS. you can deploy DTMF (Dual-Tone MultiFrequency) The type of audio signals that are generated when you press the buttons on a touch-tone telephone. See also DMTF. DTMF - Dual Tone Multi Frequency (touch-tone) applications, speech-enabled telephony applications, and multimodal (mixed speech/ visual) applications. The two main core components included with MSS are the Telephony Application Services See ASP and Web services. (TAS TAS abbr. 1. telephone answering system 2. true airspeed ) and Speech Engine Services (SES), including automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS) and prompt manager. MSS 2004 R2 can now be deployed in an all-in-one server configuration. In addition, customers can benefit from expanded telephony boards coverage and VoIP support for MSS 2004 R2 including Aculab, Brooktrout Inc., Eicon Networks and Vail Vail (vāl), town (1990 pop. 3,569), Eagle co., W central Colo., on Gore Creek, in the Gore Range of the Rocky Mts.; founded as a ski resort 1962, inc. as a town 1966. Systems Inc. According to Microsoft, "Built on .NET technologies, MSS is the first product in its class to seamlessly integrate Web technologies, speech processing Speech processing is the study of speech signals and the processing methods of these signals. The signals are usually processed in a digital representation whereby speech processing can be seen as the intersection of digital signal processing and natural language processing. services and telephony capabilities into one platform that enables companies to leverage existing technology investments." Microsoft aims to have the Microsoft Speech Platform permit speech-enabled access to applications not only from telephones and cell phones, but also from handheld devices such as PDAs, smart phones and tablet PCs. A solution like this one, which can help further enhance self-service capabilities by leveraging speech-recognition while simultaneously enabling other types of touch points, will go a long way toward enhancing customer service and customer loyalty. |
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