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Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions

Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions. Serge Hyppolite Director, Product Management Aspect Software Serge.Hyppolite@aspect.com www.aspect.com. Mid. Mid. 1980s. 1990s. 2005+. 1980s. 1990s. 2005+. Voice Only. Voice and Data. A History of Innovation. Converged voice/ data network.

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Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions

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  1. Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions Serge Hyppolite Director, Product Management Aspect Software Serge.Hyppolite@aspect.com www.aspect.com

  2. Mid Mid 1980s 1990s 2005+ 1980s 1990s 2005+ Voice Only Voice and Data A History of Innovation Converged voice/ data network Voice, email, and Web front- and back-office integration Voice and data integration Voice ACD WorkforceManagement Unified Communications VoIP/SIP

  3. Rising Customer Expectations Technology Convergence WorkforceGlobalization Rapid Pace of Technological Change Trends Customer Care

  4. Rapid Pace of Technological Change Rising Customer Expectations Technology Convergence WorkforceGlobalization Implications to the Contact Center • Distributed and VirtualContact Centers • Intelligent Applications and Services • Global and remote workforces • Agent Productivity • Increased efficiency, reduced infrastructure costs • Simplified Application and Business Rule Development • Consolidated Administration and Analytics • Enterprise Integration

  5. IP in the CC After the initial hype, IP is finally hitting the call center mainstream; by 2007 there will be over one million IP agent positions in operation and by 2008, IP ACD revenues will have overtaken traditional TDM revenues… SIPAdoption By year-end 2006, 50 percent of enterprise IP telephony and unified messaging systems will support SIP as an option (0.8 probability) Multimedia CC’s and UQ Of the surveyed companies, 82.4 percent reported that they support multiple media types in their contact centers. This indicates that multimedia contact centers (as opposed to telephony-only "call centers") have entered the mainstream. The large percentage of multimedia contact centers does not imply equal adoption levels of universal queue (UQ) systems (30.1 percent of contact centers report having UQ capability) Extended Enterprises By 2006, leading enterprises will be investing in contact center technology for all employees to help them measure, track and manage their own communications (0.7 probability) WorkforceGlobalization Demand for offshore call center outsourcing is growing and shifting east to countries across Europe and will also grow in the APAC region through 2007 Datamonitor: June 2004 Gartner: March 2004 Gartner: June 2003 Gartner: May 2004 Datamonitor: December 2003 Analyst Projections

  6. 2Increase profits by Decrease defections by 5% Value of Contact Center to Enterprise 25–95% 69% of customer losses related to poor customer service/sales interaction1 Sources: 1. Forum Corp 2. Harvard Business Review

  7. The Converged Contact Center “Even though my call centers are distributed, I now have a single, centralized cross-media view of the total customer experience.” CORPORATE “I can deploy a call center anywhere, easily interface to my business applications, and manage it all from my desk.” “ Now I can not only solve the customer’s problem the first time I talk to him, but I can suggest helpful upgrades.” AGENT IT CUSTOMER “Whether I contact them by email, Web, or on the phone, I always get the answer, fast!”

  8. Compelling Reasons for IP Analysts indicate IP is viable and growing: • Growth in overall VoIP • Over the next five years, analysts expect significant growth in the number of IP-architected call centers, with all new switches sold in 10 years to be IP switches. • Demand for hybrid VoIP add-ons • Enterprise call centers will migrate to IP slowly (2005-08), due to reluctance to add risk to customer-facing activities. • Large call centers are more likely to demand VoIP remote agents and hybrid solutions to protect existing investments. • Demand for continued support of PSTN switches • Enterprises, especially large enterprises, will require continued support and add-ons for their PSTN switches. Sources: Frost 2003, Yankee Group 2003, Datamonitor 11/2002, Giga 2003

  9. Compelling Reasons for IP • Advantages of VoIP in contact centers • Support of anywhere agent • Support of remote sites and virtual contact centers • Reduced telephony charges • Unified development and administration • Reduced network and operating costs as voice and data networks converge • Two main types of IP contact center solutions • Hybrid IP/circuit-switched • Pure IP-centric

  10. What if you could… • Cut telephony costs by routing voice traffic over IP networks? • Locate agents in regions with low labor and facility costs? • Deploy VoIP agents using your existing Call Center? • Administer your PSTN and VoIP agents using the same management tools you use today? • Use the same reporting tools you use today for PSTN or VoIP? • Move to VoIP without rewriting or retraining your staff? You can!

  11. Factors to Consider When Evaluating Solutions • Breadth of Applications • Flexibility • Rich IP Features • Investment Protection • Company Viability

  12. (1) Breath of Applications • The IP Contact Center solution must offer the rich set of capabilities that the Contact Center Environment requires: • ACD • Predictive Dialing • IVR • Multi Channel Functionality (Chat, Email, Workflow) • Recording and Quality Monitoring • Reporting • “To the Operations team, it doesn’t matter what the underlying infrastructure is, but the business applications are critical.”

  13. (2) Flexibility • “Anywhere” access for agents • Agents at home • Branch office • Call Center • Knowledge Workers • Scalability from tens to thousands of users • Standard interface support • Across technologies; PSTN/VoIP

  14. Flexibility - Agents Anywhere Agents connect to IP PBX LAN/WAN Home-based Agents Customer IP PBX SIP PSTN SIP Agents in Call Center LAN/WAN SIP SIP Home-based Agents SIP Toll-Bypass Gateway TDM IP-Enabled Call Center Internet Agents connect to PSTN PBX PSTN PBX Customer

  15. Managed Corporate Network Flexibility - Multi-Site Networking via IP Calls can be sent from one call center to another via VoIP technology IP-Enabled Center IP-Enabled Call Center IP-Enabled Center LAN/WAN

  16. (3) Rich IP Features Must offer Advanced voice quality and telephony features • SIP v2.0 compliant • Automatic Gain Control • Echo Cancellation • Silence Suppression to conserve bandwidth • Comfort Noise • DTMF tone detection and generation • Configurable, dynamic and adaptive Jitter control • Flexible packetization rate • QoS

  17. Rich IP Features - Standards Support • Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [RFC 3261] • Session Description Protocol (SDP) [RFC 2327] • Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) [RFC 1889] • DTMF digit detection and generation [RFC 2833] • CODEC Support: • G.711μ-law • G.711A-law • G.729A / G.729AB

  18. Rich IP Features - Audio Codecs • G.711 provides best audio quality • 64 kbps (payload) • Good with low call volume • A-law and u-Law setting based on country • Set μ-Law in Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, United States • Set A-Law in other countries • G.729 compression reduces bandwidth required • 8 kbps (payload) • Codecs selected in order of preference based on capabilities of connecting device

  19. Rich IP Features - IP Network Interqueue IP Network InterQueue Seattle Portland Chicago SIP Trunks WAN VPN San Francisco Miami Voice and InterQueue Data Exchanged over IP WAN/VPN Route to any agent off any Call Center!

  20. (4) Investment Protection • Must support both TDM and IP to enable seamless transition • Must provide standard interfaces for connectivity • Must offer interfaces to existing desktop, front office, and back office applications • Routing rules, administration, reporting remain same for PSTN or VoIP transport • Must offer support for standard IP phones - Aspect, Cisco, Siemens, Pingtel, Snom or ‘soft’ IP Phones (MS Windows Messenger) • Allow companies to migrate at own pace

  21. (5) Company Viability • Proven - Must have expertise and focus in Contact Center • Astute Innovators – must provide leadership in innovating technologies in this market • Customer Driven - Must have a history of delivering superior customer service • Always There - Must have the financial discipline and viability to be a trusted long-term business partner

  22. Summary and Close • The benefits of moving to IP are clear and IP is here now • In evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions, companies must consider: • Breadth of Applications – must offer the full set of contact center applications that the business requires • Flexibility – must provide the level of scalability and deployment flexibility to address grow as the business needs expand • Rich IP Features – must offer complete set of IP features and standards interfaces • Investment Protection – must allow companies to migrate to IP at their own pace • Company Viability – must deal with a vendor with the expertise, good reputation, and viability needed to be a long term business partner.

  23. Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, visit us at www.aspect.com

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