The 2007 Customer Interaction Solutions TMC Labs Innovation Awards.Considering call centers have existed for more than 30 years you'd think innovation within the call center industry would slow to a trickle. However, call centers are always looking to squeeze just a little more efficiency and productivity out of their agents, which especially in larger call centers can equate to millions of dollars per year. With the advance of IP communications A general term for networks that use the IP protocol for voice (VoIP) and video traffic. See IP telephony. , data collaboration See data conferencing. tools and other Internet technologies, the contact center has seen an explosion of innovative products and services over the past few years. This year marks the 8th annual 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, which honor products and services that have unique features that their competition often lacks. This year, TMC Labs considered dozens of applications and selected 19 unique and innovative products (see Chart 1). Product descriptions will be published in two parts in order to accommodate our in-depth write-ups. The second set of product descriptions will be published in the October issue. The first set of detailed write-ups will begin with 8x8 and end with Mitel. Next month, we start with NetSuite and end with Toshiba. 8x8 Packet8 Complete Contact Center www.8x8.com The Packet8 Complete Contact Center provides enterprise-class contact center functionality and hosted PBX (Private Branch eXchange) An inhouse telephone switching system that interconnects telephone extensions to each other as well as to the outside telephone network (PSTN). functionality with just a PC and a broadband connection See broadband and wireless broadband. . It features multimedia queuing for voice, voicemail, chat, email and fax. It leverages Packet8's Virtual Office hosted PBX calling features and Packet8's cost efficient business VoIP calling plans. Developed in partnership with Contactual, Inc., developers of on-demand contact center technology solutions, the Packet8 Complete Contact Center lets companies quickly deploy and operate multi-channel contact centers without the time and expense of purchasing, installing and maintaining costly, specialized equipment. 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. Packet8, "Delivered entirely as a hosted service, the Packet8 Complete Contact Center requires no specialized hardware or software, no telecom equipment and no up-front capital expenditures, making it an ideal solution for blending in-house and off-site or multi-site agents. Agents require nothing more than a web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. and a directly addressable Reachable. When something is addressable, it can be identified and manipulated independently of its surroundings. For example, screen pixels and RAM memory are addressable. Each of the screen's picture elements can be individually turned on and off, and each of the memory's bytes can be voice terminal." The Packet8 Complete Contact Center service features skills-based routing, realtime monitoring and reporting, voice recording and logging, 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. , CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. integration and multi-media (voice, email, chat) management. Packet8's hosted call center solution, which hosts the voice network (IVR, PBX functionality, VoIP), as well as tracks and maintains customer data and interaction history, is the next evolution in hosted contact center solutions. AirMagnet VoFi Analyzer www.airmagnet.com Businesses looking to deploy voice over WiFi are looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. easy-to-use tools to provide diagnosis of network issues and ensure voice quality. AirMagnet's VoFi Analyzer is a wireless LAN A local area network that transmits over the air typically in the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz unlicensed frequency band. It does not require line of sight between sender and receiver. Wireless base stations (access points) are wired to an Ethernet network and transmit a radio frequency over an area voice-over-IP (VoFi) analysis tool that allows IT managers to proactively detect and determine the root cause of problems associated with voice calls on a wireless network Unlike competing solutions it actually collects data from three sources--the air, phone and wire. This delivers a comprehensive end-to-end analysis, ensuring that VoFi calls meet the high level of call quality and reliability found with traditional phone solutions. The product features VoFi-specific alarms and real-time statistical analysis integrated into the product, so users can identify and solve with problems as they occur. Additional quality of service features for roaming diagnosis, jitter A flicker or fluctuation in a transmission signal or display image. The term is used in several ways, but it always refers to some offset of time and space from the norm. For example, in a network transmission, jitter would be a bit arriving either ahead or behind a standard clock cycle control and call connection analysis ensure that call quality is kept at the highest levels. AirMagnet claims that VoFi Analyzer is the only product that provides MOS (1) (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) See MOSFET. (2) (Mean Opinion Score) The quality of a digitized voice line. It is a subjective measurement that is derived entirely by people listening to the calls and scoring the results from and R-value data for fully encrypted wireless voice traffic. The latest version can monitor VoWLAN performance and reliability by auditing wireless networks to ensure the proper configuration of quality-of-service settings and identify and resolve traffic problems, such as dropped calls, dead spots Dead spots are abnormally fast decays of the fundamental tone on stringed instruments and are caused by a damping of the string's vibrations at a given note, due to energy transfer from the string to the instrument body. and choppy audio. VoFi Analyzer not only samples wireless traffic as it travels through the air, it also integrates with leading phones to directly collect Syslog messages, giving crucial insight into call quality at the device itself. In addition, VoFi Analyzer integrates with leading VoIP servers to provide a "wired" perspective on the connection, letting IT managers easily see the call tear-down details. VoFi Analyzer also provides comprehensive analysis of call roaming, a common problem-area with VoWLAN deployment. Using VoFi Analyzer, IT managers can track all roaming events and see the history of all roams in a given call to quickly determine if a call is frequently "thrashing" between APs or channels. VoFi Analyzer 3.0 also has a new feature called "Follow Phone" that allows the application to lock onto a particular client phone and track that device through any roaming event, no matter where or how often it roams, to accurately troubleshoot a problematic connection. Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch My Teamwork 4.1 www.alcatel.com When Jack Bauer Jack Bauer is the protagonist of the American television series 24, in which he has trained and worked in various capacities as a government agent, including US Army Delta Force, LAPD SWAT, and finally the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) Los Angeles. wants to know the exact location of terrorists within a building he simply has Chloe download a real-time satellite infrared map to his 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). , which displays red dots where the bad guys are, superimposed su·per·im·pose tr.v. su·per·im·posed, su·per·im·pos·ing, su·per·im·pos·es 1. To lay or place (something) on or over something else. 2. onto the building blueprints. Science fiction, right? Not so fast. Alcatel-Lucent has developed an in-door personnel tracking system that leverages multiple WiFi access points to triangulate See triangulation. the location of personnel or objects. Accurately locating objects and people within multifloor buildings is an issue in healthcare, transportation/logistics, first-responder, as well as other enterprise verticals. Although GPS systems work well in the outdoors, satellite signals do not typically penetrate building construction materials, and therefore indoor tracking must be solved using other technologies such as WiFi and RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) A data collection technology that uses electronic tags for storing data. The tag, also known as an "electronic label," "transponder" or "code plate," is made up of an RFID chip attached to an antenna. . By knowing the exact locations of the access points, an RF (radio frequency) processor can use the signal amplitude and other information, such as time-of-arrival, to accurately determine the position of each WiFi client. Typically, a collection of access points is deployed on each floor of a building to provide WiFi coverage. By knowing the locations of these access points, the RF processor can produce an accurate estimate of the X/Y location of each WiFi client, so that, for example, the position of each device can be displayed on a map. The Media Access Control (MAC) address of each WiFi client is also received, and by associating this MAC with the name of device or a person carrying an object, it is therefore possible to know the position of this object or person as a function of time. The solution can convert the location information into a textual string such as "In Patient Room 123" and then display this information as the presence state on a buddy, or contact, list. For example, fellow doctors, nurses, supervisors and administrators can view a doctor's presence if they have the property permissions and can immediately know the current physical location of this doctor. Depending on the presence state, you can alter the communications method. For instance, you can establish a multi-party, multimedia communications session to establish a data collaboration session. The multi-party support is enabled via VoIP using the SIP standard and a softphone client. Finally, OmniTouch My Teamwork offers SIP and XML XML in full Extensible Markup Language. Markup language developed to be a simplified and more structural version of SGML. It incorporates features of HTML (e.g., hypertext linking), but is designed to overcome some of HTML's limitations. APIs for simplified integration to legacy business systems and processes. 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. GoToWebinar 1.0 www.citrix.com Citrix GoToWebinar is Citrix's managed online event service designed to enable large-scale online webinars and targeting the small to medium sized business (SMB (1) (Small to Medium-sized Business) Also called "SME" (small to medium-sized enterprise), it refers to companies that are larger than the small office/home office (SOHO), but not huge. ) market. GoToWebinar uses proprietary bandwidth-adaptive compression and screen-sharing technology used in other Citrix products to enable event organizers to meet with attendees using a variety of Internet speeds. GoToWebinar is designed to handle up to 1,000 people and features recording, live annotation 1. (programming, compiler) annotation - Extra information associated with a particular point in a document or program. Annotations may be added either by a compiler or by the programmer. and mark-up, text chat, an attendees panel, and very good scheduling and invitation functionality. GoToWebinar helps businesses evaluate the success of their Webinars via built-in reports. Businesses can qualify leads using the GoToWebinar Attendee Profile, which provides a detailed list of Webinar attendees sorted by their level of interest. GoToWebinar reports track Webinar attendance, audience feedback and overall Webinar success. Using the Dashboard, organizers can monitor overall attendee attentiveness displayed as a percentage. Essentially, the host of the Webinar can see whether any attendee has temporarily switched to another application during the Webinar. This helps the moderator determine the Webinar's overall ability to hold the audience's attention, which may require better content, shorter duration, or a different speaker. In addition you can also measure and record attendees' feedback and satisfaction with the session. Webinars can be recorded--both the screen and the audio and can be distributed as standard Windows Media Microsoft's audio and video framework for Windows, which embraces playback, encoding and streaming. Windows Media Player is the digital jukebox and media player that comes with every version of Windows. files. Finally, Citrix offer this service under a single flat fee, allowing you to create unlimited Webinars of any length without paying additional charges, which is common among other online event products. Consona, Inc. KNOVA 7.2 www.consona.com KNOVA provides Intelligent Customer Experience solutions that maximize the value of every interaction throughout the customer lifecycle. The company's suite of self-service, contact center and peer support applications automate the most critical part of customer service--actually resolving the case, not just tracking it. Knova's service resolution management applications optimize the resolution process across multiple service channels, including contact centers, self-service Web sites, help desk, email and chat. KNOVA provides intelligent customer experience applications, delivered as a cohesive, integrated Service Resolution Management solution that reduces service costs, increases revenue, and improves customer satisfaction. KNOVA leverages a series of patents to build their next-generation search and knowledge management platform. It offers powerful adaptive and guided search and a Resolution Flow engine for process optimization Process optimization is the practice of making changes or adjustments to a process, to get results. Optimization is the use of specific techniques to determine the most cost effective and efficient solution to a problem or design for a process. . Importantly, it has collaborative resolution for agents and built-in forums. EchoPass EchoSystem version 2.0 www.echopass.com What if you could combine VoIP, 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. call routing, CRM, IVR/ACD, 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. and multi-channel voice/chat/email/fax customer interactions all in a single on-demand and highly-available solution? The hosted Echopass EchoSystem does all that and more. This customizable, fully multi-tenant and on-demand service integration platform integrates Echopass' advanced multi-channel VoIP contact center software and services with best-of-breed partner technologies and services. The EchoSystem is an end-to-end comprehensive hosted contact center solution with guaranteed service level agreements for the entire service across multi-site contact centers. Echopass helps ensure that incoming communications, whether via voice, email, Web-chat or fax, are routed to the best available agent. It also features recording and monitoring, as well as agent performance analytics. EchoPass claims it is the first and only company to develop a unique multi-tenant version of Genesys' popular call routing functionality. They also claim to be the first to integrate this on-demand multitenant call routing capability with on-demand CRM, workforce management applications, a wide array of voice/data network technologies and other enterprise-class applications. This highly reliable solution is protected through Echopass' "always on" guarantee Service Level Agreement. This SLA (1) (StereoLithography Apparatus) See 3D printing. (2) (Service Level Agreement) A contract between the provider and the user that specifies the level of service expected during its term. offers 99.9% reliability and includes delivery/management of telco and other partner company's hosted applications which do not provide Echopass with that high a level of SLA. Echopass is SAS (1) (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, www.sas.com) A software company that specializes in data warehousing and decision support software based on the SAS System. Founded in 1976, SAS is one of the world's largest privately held software companies. See SAS System. 70 certified for its security and operations. Without upfront capital expenditures, contact centers can quickly ramp up Ramp Up To increase a company's operations in anticipation of increased demand. Notes: A company might 'ramp up' operations if they just signed a contract creating substantially more demand for their product. See also: Demand, Economies of Scale their business with the ability to add agents and manage multiple contact center sites, all on-the-fly. Exony Exony Virtualized Interaction Manager v6.1 www.exony.com Contact center managers and supervisors s increasingly have to manage agents in multiple locations, including branch office agents, teleworkers and third party outsourced agents. This makes it a challenge to quickly and easily measure and manage agent performance. Exony VIM (Vendor Independent Messaging Interface) A programming interface developed by Lotus, Novell, IBM and others. In order to enable an application to send and receive mail over a VIM-compliant messaging system such as cc:Mail, programmers write to the VIM interface. solves this problem by combining virtual contact center reporting and analytics with virtual contact center resource management in a single, integrated application. The latest version, Exony VIM v6.1, includes a number of updates to the core VIM capabilities (e.g., enhanced and upgraded 'Report Builder' tool), plus two new modules: VIM Connect and VIM Service Management. The Exony Virtualized Interaction Manager leverages key technology components from Microsoft including .Net, SQL Server An earlier relational DBMS from Sybase and from Microsoft. Sybase introduced SQL Server in 1988 for various Unix versions. In that same year, with help from IBM, Sybase created an OS/2 version that Microsoft licensed and branded as Microsoft SQL Server. , Reporting Services, Office Web Components, etc. Targeting large enterprises, service providers, telecoms operators/carriers it features hierarchical partitioning, roles-based security, "intelligent interaction" data gathering and interpretation, and resource management/provisioning technologies that enable the effective and efficient operation of hosted, outsourced and enterprise virtual customer contact operations. Using VIM you can measure and manage the performance of any end-user in the virtualized organization. Importantly, you can easily identify and focus on priorities for customer interaction experience, efficiency and effectiveness, through self-service reporting and analytics drill-down. By offering a 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. reporting dashboard, you can monitor up-to-the-minute performance and quality of third party service providers. Another innovation for Exony is that their comprehensive Reporting and Analytics solution works with the popular Cisco IPCC See IMS Forum. platform. In fact, Exony VIM Resource Management has been OEM'd by Cisco as per its Contact Center Management Portal, and comes bundled with Cisco's Unified Contact Center from V7.1. Glance Networks Glance 2.2 www.glance.net Glances hosted meeting solution has a distinct advantage over competing solutions, including WebEx and GoToMeeting, in that it runs not only on PCs but Macs as well. The Mac market has long been neglected for some time, so Glance enables Mac environments to leverage screen-sharing capabilities to enhance productivity through online interactions. The new Mac version of Glance is the industry's first one-button screen sharing screen sharing - Audiographic Teleconferencing tool that lets Mac users instantly show their live computer screens to anyone online. Guests simply use their browser, from nearly any PC, Mac or Linux computer. Once connected, guests see everything the host sees, in full color. Sign-up and installation takes under two minutes and users get to pick their own personal URLs. Glance Networks told us, "The Mac version of Glance brings the first global cross-platform screen sharing service to Mac and PC users. Recognizing the diversification of operating system operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. use in the business world, Glance worked diligently to create an inclusive product that appeals to all computer users and industries. Macoriented fields, such as creative design, marketing and education, were long neglected by the 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. industry. This year's release of Glance for the Mac market makes its service the only one-button and fully-cross platform screen sharing product on the market today." Unlike Apple's upcoming screen sharing tool, which is Mac-only, Leopard-only, inside-firewalls-only, and one-viewer only, Glance works on all Mac OS 10.3.9+ computers as well as PC (Win98/XP/2k/Vista) and Linux computers, passes transparently through most firewalls and scales to up to 100 guests at a time. With one click, users can demonstrate live Web demos, sales presentations, or creative work right from their desktops. Mitel Customer Interaction Solutions www.mitel.com Mitel's Customer Interaction Solutions portfolio scales from 10 to thousands of agent seats and consists of two-tiers. The first tier is comprised of Mitel Contact Center Enterprise Edition--for highly sophisticated large-scale contact centers--and the second is Mitel Contact Center Business Edition--for individual contact centers that have 25 or fewer agents. One innovative and important feature is that it enables seamless business continuity during a network upgrade or in the event of a network outage A network outage is an interruption in availability of a system due to the communication failure of the network. Network outages cost money directly to the organisation (for example Banks, Airlines, Online Transaction companies); or cost money indirectly to customers ISP, . Customers can maintain contact center data flow at distributed locations via the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) The worldwide voice telephone network. Once only an analog system, the heart of most telephone networks today is all digital. In the U.S. . Using Primary Rate Interface (PRI PRI: see Institutional Revolutionary party. (Primary Rate Interface) An ISDN service that provides 23 64 Kbps B (Bearer) channels and one 64 Kbps D (Data) channel (23B+D), which is equivalent to the 24 channels of a T1 line. ) and the switched networking feature, Mitel has the ability to launch a PSTN call automatically to reconnect the data linkage. According to the company, "This feature, enabled by the proprietary Digital XNet, is unique to Mitel, and along with the integration of Microsoft's clustering services provides customers with unsurpassed availability for their contact center operations. Using the PSTN to create a data channel is not new, however, having a PBX automatically do it when it senses that the data network has failed, is. In this way we can say that Mitel's Customer Interaction Solutions availability is innovative within the industry." Using PRI and the Mitel switched networking remote LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. feature, Mitel has the ability to launch a PSTN call automatically that will reconnect Voice over IP (VoIP) and data traffic should the WAN connection fail. As an example, if the WAN connection is being used for VoIP traffic and the WAN connection fails, the VoIP calls on the Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP (1) (Internet Cache Protocol) A protocol used by one proxy server to query another for a cached Web page without having to go to the Internet to retrieve it. See CARP and proxy server. ) can be routed over the PRI PSTN automatically and routed to the disaster recovery site. In conjunction with this, data traffic can be routed with a network side PRI connection. This PRI link would be connected to the 3300 ICP server allowing data traffic to be routed to the disaster recovery site over the PSTN network. These PRI channels are 64K/s each and by simply leveraging channel bonding Increasing transmission speed by spreading the data over two or more lines. Bonded analog modems use two analog telephone lines to double transmission capacity, splitting data into two streams of 56 Kbps. In addition, if one modem fails, the transmission continues with the other modem. via the router you can provide 23 channels x 64k or 1472K/s bandwidth. This back up feature, in conjunction with the high availability Also called "RAS" (reliability, availability, serviceability) or "fault resilient," it refers to a multiprocessing system that can quickly recover from a failure. There may be a minute or two of downtime while one system switches over to another, but processing will continue. server option, is unique to Mitel and provides continuous VoIP and data should the WAN be out of service. Another important high availability feature is its support for Microsoft clustering. Mitel Customer Interaction Solutions leverages Microsoft clustering services for Mitel Contact Center Management, Mitel Interactive Contact Center and Mitel Intelligent Queue. High availability offers a disaster recovery safety net to ensure failover to a secondary server. It also allows for continuous uptime while upgrading or performing maintenance on servers without affecting customers or agent productivity. By 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. , Executive Technology Editor, TMC Labs
Company Name Product Web Address
8x8, Inc. Packet8 Complete www.packet8.net
Contact Center
AirMagnet VoFi Analyzer www.airmagnet.com
Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch My www.alcatel.com
Teamwork 4.1
Citrix Online GoTo Webinar www.citrix.com
Consona, Inc. KNOVA 7.2 www.consona.com
EchoPass EchoSystem version 2.0 www.echopass.com
Exony Exony Virtualized www.exony.com
Interaction Manager
(VIM) v6.1
Glance Networks Glance 2.2 www.glance.net
Mitel Mitel Customer www.mitel.com
Interactions
Solutions
NetSuite NetSuite www.netsuite.com
Nexidia Nexidia Enterprise www.nexidia.com
Speech
Intelligence 6.1
Nortel BCM50 v2.0 www.nortel.com
NTRGlobal NTRsupport www.ntrsupport.com
Numara Software Numara Track-IT! 8 www.numarasoftware.com
Enterprise Edition
OpenSpan OpenSpan Platform www.openspan.com
Premiere Global PGi Netspoke www.premiereglobal.com
Services
Salesforce.com Salesforce Customer www.salesforce.com
Portal
TeleDirect Liberation 6000 V6.6.3 www.tdirect.com
International,
Inc.
Toshiba Strata CIX40 IP Business www.toshiba.com
Telecommunication Communication System
Systems Division
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion