Announcements/Press Releases
February 03, 2012
Announcements / Press Releases
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Announcements / Press Releases
OAISYS Announces Price and Packaging Changes to Call Recording Solution Portfolio
Enhancements Aim to Expand Appeal and Adoption in SMB and Mid-Market
TEMPE, Ariz. — OAISYS®, a leader in business call recording and contact center management solutions, today announced immediate changes to its pricing and packaging model that make the advanced feature functionality of its Tracer call recording and interaction management solution even more affordable and accessible to a significantly larger market.
“As part of our ongoing commitment to simplicity, a thorough packaging review yielded an opportunity to streamline the product offering in a manner useful for all customers,” said Brian Spencer, president of OAISYS. “The software solution is now licensed by user devices for content capture and by number of concurrent users for content access. This aligns with the value proposition of the solution as realized by customers, which is intrinsically linked to the content capture and access to the software as deployed.”
Depending on their configurations, customers may realize a 20–65 percent savings on their Tracer purchases under the new price and packaging model.
Tracer functionality is built on a foundation of OAISYS’ Talkument® voice documentation solution. Talkument captures digital recordings, or voice documents, of authorized users’ phone-based conversations using patent-pending OAISYS Portable Voice Document (PVD™) technology. Conversations are captured in their entirety and can be easily and securely shared with other authorized users and supervisors for improved collaboration, accuracy and training. Tracer adds advanced interaction management functionality, including customizable performance evaluations, live and automatic call monitoring, quality and resource utilization reporting and synchronized desktop video recording and monitoring.
“Call recording continues to expand as an essential component of best practices for businesses in every commercial sector,” said Spencer. “By introducing these changes, we aspire to make Tracer’s advanced feature set accessible to a far wider range of users within the SMB and mid-market. By reducing pre-requisite costs, our customers can increase user access and achieve tremendous advantages.”
Concurrent with the global changes made to its software licensing requirements, OAISYS has also announced a hardware price reduction affecting the North American market. Of particular interest to customers integrating with voice T1 and PRI lines, the bundled cost of the OAISYS dual T1 and PRI interface board and included voice port licenses has been decreased by 20 percent.
"While other vendors charge customers a significant premium for piecemeal access to their advanced feature functionality, OAISYS continues to gain momentum by removing barriers to entry and giving customers across all markets easy and affordable access to the solutions that can positively impact their business operations,” Spencer said.
The price and packaging changes take effect across all OAISYS channels in applicable markets beginning Feb. 1, 2012.
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Orlando, FL - MicroAutomation, a leading provider of contact center solutions, and Voxeo, the leading provider of Unlocked Communications™, announce that MicroMessenger™ has become the first Voxeo Connect Certified Partner Application. The interactive campaign management and outbound notification application from MicroAutomation, has undergone rigorous evaluation and validation. It is now available in the Voxeo cloud for use with Voxeo Prophecy IVR Hosting.
This is the next step in the multi-faceted strategic partnership that the two companies initially announced in 2011. At that time, MicroAutomation was certified as a preferred Professional Services partner as part of the Voxeo Connect partner program to provide IVR and CTI design, development and implementation services for Voxeo customers.
MicroMessenger 5 is a platform independent application that represents the packaging of the company's best practices born out of more than 12 years of successful outbound customer contact experience, servicing millions of our clients' customers. The latest release contains several ready-to-use campaign templates for simple appointment and payment reminders, customer surveys, and customer or employee notifications. Companies are increasingly using outbound communications to improve customer loyalty, drive revenue and cut costs.
"MicroMessenger offers an exciting opportunity for organizations that are looking to improve their customer communications through proactive event-based contact," stated Scott Fischer, MicroAutomation's COO. "By leveraging Voxeo's 100 percent uptime hosted cloud, customers can quickly and affordably create, launch and scale high-value outbound applications."
John Amein, SVP of product management at Voxeo, said, "We're excited to partner with MicroAutomation. Their proven, easy-to-use campaign manager, combined with our battle-tested outbound IVR platform offers robust functionality for mission critical applications. We've delivered billions of outbound notifications on the Voxeo platform, and we see proactive customer care using voice and mobile channels like SMS playing a larger, more strategic role in how companies interact with customers."
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Kunnect Upends Call Center Business with Release of First Free Call Center Solution
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Kunnect, a leading provider of cloud-based call center telephony solutions, unveiled Kunnect FREE, the industry’s first free call center solution. Available immediately, Kunnect FREE allows all call centers to leverage its feature rich center solution at no cost; no hardware, no hosting and no software costs. Hosted call center software typically costs companies well over $100 a month for each user, so moving to Kunnect FREE can help businesses instantly trim costs associated with new or existing call centers, as well as centers seeking to add remote agent support.
Kunnect FREE is powered by Kunnect’s XVP Hosted Call Center solution. Rather than pay a monthly subscription fee for software, call centers globally can access the Kunnect FREE website to manage inbound and outbound call center campaigns. The product offers predictive dialing; an automatic call distributor (ACD) for intelligent call queuing; CRM scripting to support call handling with scripts, prompts and external web page integration; and real-time statistics and historical reporting on agent productivity and campaign dispositions and metrics. Its WebAgent software encompasses a SIP phone and CRM package within a browser, thus alleviating the need to install any software on the local computer.
“Kunnect FREE is poised to redefine the way we run our global outsourcing business. With more than 1,000 call center agents globally in eight countries, we stand to save over $1,000,000 annually by going with Kunnect FREE’s cloud-based solution,” said Todd E. Fisch, managing director of Argosy BPO, LLC. “The Kunnect model allows us to centrally manage our client data securely, all the while permitting remote center management of the agents and performance.”
The Kunnect FREE and XVP Hosted Call Center solutions are hosted in the Amazon cloud, making them the industry’s most cost effective and flexible solutions. Deployment is quick and easy with no hardware required. The solutions work with any browser. It can be activated in minutes and scale to meet any load demands.
“Kunnect has set the bar high with the industry’s only free call center solution,” said Fred Côté, president of Kunnect. “Kunnect FREE brings the performance and simplicity of our call center technology to call centers globally at no cost. While other vendors struggle to improve their own price-performance, Kunnect FREE extends our clear leadership in the market.”
For more information on Kunnect FREE, visit http://free.kunnect.com .
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ClickFox Survey Reveals Telecommunication and Wireless Companies Now Surpass Cable to Ignite Most Customer Frustration
Annual Customer Experience Survey Exposes Impact of Service on Loyalty and Revenue
ATLANTA — ClickFox, the pioneering leader in experience analytics, announced the company’s findings from its second annual Consumer Tipping Points survey. The results highlight what customer service issues frustrated consumers most in 2011 and how they responded to negative experiences.
Twenty-seven percent of respondents indicated they are most frustrated by interactions with telecommunication and wireless companies, followed by cable companies at 20 percent. This is a shift from 2010, where consumers indicated they were most frustrated by interactions with cable companies (25 percent), followed by telecommunication companies (10 percent).
Consumers value efficiency
Even as consumers are presented with new options for interacting with companies, such as social media or mobile applications, the basic tenets of customer service efficiency, effort and courtesy -- remain essential.
• Forty-two percent of consumers are most frustrated when they have to speak with multiple customer service representatives and start over every time.
• Ten percent are most frustrated by being kept on hold for long periods of time, dealing with rude or inexperienced representatives or service technicians (9 percent) and not getting what they need on the first try (7 percent).
Unhappy customers have a ripple effect on organizations
Sixty-eight percent of respondents would tell family and friends about a negative customer service experience or post comments via social media, while only 27 percent will tell the company directly through a satisfaction survey, demonstrating that companies aren’t getting a true picture of dissatisfaction. This word of mouth can infect a business; more than 60 percent of consumers are influenced or very influenced by other consumers’ comments about companies, according to ClickFox’s 2011
Social Media for Customer Service Survey.
Poor customer service directly impacts the bottom line
Forty percent of consumers would cease doing business with a company after a poor customer service experience. Even more concerning, more than 80 percent of customers who reached their breaking point after a bad customer service experience indicated that they were established customers. Conversely, exceptional customer service drives greater revenue; 15 percent of consumers said they would purchase additional products and services when they receive exceptional service.
“It’s imperative for companies to listen to their customers and take action to improve the overall customer experience,” said Marco Pacelli, CEO of ClickFox. “Highly saturated, commoditized industries such as telecommunications need to shift their focus from acquiring new customers and fight to keep the ones they have.”
About the survey
Between Nov. 22 and Dec. 15, 443 consumers participated in a 10-question survey to provide insight into trends about customer service frustrations and consumer reactions. The full survey report is available for download at http://web.clickfox.com/2011SurveyResults-CustomerTippingPoint.html.
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Pipkins Participates in 2012 Call Center Events
Workforce Management Solutions Company to Participate in
2012 Call Center Optimization Forums and At-Home Agent Seminars
ST. LOUIS, MO — Pipkins, Inc., a leading supplier of workforce management software and services to the call center industry, today announced that it will participate in 2012 industry events, including 2012 Call Center Optimization Forums (CCOF) and At-home Agent Seminars, facilitated by Michelle Rowan, At-Home Agent Industry Leader.
Call Center Optimization Forums seminars are designed for executives, managers, and IT decision-makers of businesses who need to stay informed about the latest industry trends, best practices, and rapidly evolving contact center optimization technology. CCOF attendees will have an opportunity to learn industry best practices from multiple experts in the field and view demonstrations of the latest advancements in call center technology. Pipkins will focus on workforce management best practices.
At-home seminars are designed exclusively for organizations considering the at-home model, currently in pilot, or expanding and refining their existing model. Attendees of At-Home Agent Seminars range from blue-chip companies in continuous improvement mode to those studying the model and building business cases. Proven strategies and business cases will be the blue print for the sessions, with high interaction and benchmarking among attendees to leverage learning and best practices.
Pipkins will also participate in the 2012 Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) Annual Conference where attendees can learn from industry experts and peers in 48 different sessions. Pipkins will be a part of the 2012 American Teleservices Association (ATA) Convention and Expo. ATA represents more than 4,000 contact centers that account for over 1.8 million professionals worldwide.
Dates for upcoming seminars are:
• February 21-23, Dallas, TX (Remote Agent Summit)
• March 7-9, Nashville, TN (SWPP)
• March 29-30, Tampa, FL (At-Home Agent Strategies for Success)
• April 29-May 2, Hollywood, FL (ATA)
About Pipkins Inc.
Pipkins Inc., founded in 1983, is the leading supplier of workforce management software and services to the call center industry. Vantage Point, Pipkins’ premier product, is the most accurate forecasting and scheduling tool on the market and enables managers to solve the complicated operational issues in today’s multi-faceted call center environment. Pipkins’ systems forecast and schedule more than 300,000 agents in over 500 locations across all industries worldwide. The company is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information, visit www.pipkins.com.
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Leading Virtual Interviewing Provider HireIQ Introduces Latest Version of InterviewIQ
New version adds workflow wizards, data visualization, reporting and analytics features
ATLANTA — HireIQ Solutions, Inc., the innovative company that improves the hiring and recruiting process for customer-facing organizations, announced today the availability of the latest version of its flagship virtual interviewing solution, InterviewIQ. Driven by extensive customer and market input, the new release includes features that improve usability and workflow, including a position creation wizard and editor; new data visualizations; new reports; and enhanced candidate disposition options. Since InterviewIQ is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, the new release is available to all current customers.
Customer service organizations such as contact centers, retailers, hospitality, and travel and leisure providers are under constant pressure to staff their organizations with well-qualified employees. The new features further improve the efficiency and effectiveness of recruiters and provide them with the necessary tools to more quickly identify best-fit candidates for open positions. As a result, recruiters provide better service to their stakeholders by hiring candidates that are more likely to stay with the organization longer and will perform better from the first day of hire.
“Call center operations are particularly challenged in maintaining a healthy pipeline of well-qualified applicants,” said Paul Stockford, principal analyst with leading analyst firm Saddletree Research and the research director for the National Association of Call Centers. “Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruiting suite has a positive downstream effect on customer service operations, resulting in increased agent and customer retention, improved sales and service performance, and reduced operating costs. HireIQ’s InterviewIQ is an important link in delivering these benefits.”
InterviewIQ uses media-rich web and voice response technologies to lead an applicant through a text and voice response virtual interview that is configured to each customer’s unique requirements. Customers can design these interviews to test a wide variety of applicant characteristics, including customer service aptitude, critical thinking, math skills, grammar proficiency and communication skills. As a web-based application, InterviewIQ allows applicants to complete their interviews when it is convenient for them and stores their responses for a recruiter to evaluate later. This effectively expands the reach of a company’s recruiting team.
Market-Driven Enhancements Satisfy Real Needs
HireIQ actively solicited input from key stakeholders, including its customers, industry sources and valued partners, helping to ensure that the new features developed would satisfy real business needs. Key features of this latest release of InterviewIQ include:
Data Visualization and Reports. A number of new reports and graphs have been added to help recruiters, their management and key stakeholders more readily see key recruiting metrics. These include the number of candidates in each stage of the interview process, the performance of recruiters in evaluating and scoring interviews, and individual candidate results.
Additional Disposition Options. Users can now document certain details about candidate hires. This allows customers to better measure key retention metrics and identify the types of interviews that yield longer agent tenure.
Workflow and Wizards. As part of its ongoing effort to streamline interviewing processes and increase recruiter efficiency and effectiveness, the new version includes a position creation wizard and editor, and in-line candidate scoring.
“This new release spotlights our ongoing commitment to developing hiring optimization technologies that have real business value in the market,” said Joe Gruca, chief executive officer of HireIQ. “Our InterviewIQ virtual interviewing application is a proven and valuable solution with a demonstrated ability to greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruiting organization, further increasing its value to its key stakeholders.”
For a complete listing of HireIQ news, please visit http://www.hireiqinc.com/resources/press.
ABOUT HIREIQ SOLUTIONS, INC.
HireIQ Solutions, Inc. helps customer service organizations improve hiring decisions, reduce recruiting costs and increase talent performance using its proven predictive performance technology. HireIQ’s flagship product, InterviewIQ, uses rich media, web and voice response technologies to automate the phone screening process, resulting in better-qualified candidates presented during the hiring process. Employees hired using HireIQ’s suite of talent performance optimization products demonstrate increased speed to competency, reduced attrition and improved sales and service performance. HireIQ is a privately held company based in Atlanta, GA. For further information, please visit www.hireiqinc.com. Follow HireIQ on Twitter at www.twitter.com/hireiqinc.
© 2012 HireIQ Inc. All rights reserved. All materials provided, regardless of form, are the exclusive property of HireIQ. HireIQ’s products may be covered by one or more United States, European or other international patents or applications. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Who Protects Call Centers from Telecom Fraud: Humbug Does
...Humbug Telecom Labs Announces The Release Of Their Call Center Solution White Paper
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American Teleservices Association Extends a “Call for Speakers” for 2012 Convention & Expo
Indianapolis, IN – The American Teleservices Association (ATA) has requested presentation/panel proposals for its 2012 Convention & Expo, April 29-May 2 at the Westin Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida.
The sessions proposed should complement the Convention’s theme of “Managing Customer Experience in a Digital World” which will be highlighted by the nationally recognized keynote speakers.
A national marketing campaign will begin shortly and speakers will be highlighted along with the following message:
“The “customer journey” is now interactive... fueled by technology anchored in the “digital transformation” of modern customer contact. We’ve moved beyond “call taking and call making” and now connect with the consumer in their preferred space. This is the Ideal Customer Experience 2.0. On April 29 -May 2, 2012 the ATA Convention & EXPO takes you there!”
Interested speakers should apply by January 31, 2012.
Download the Presentation/Panel Info Sheet here:
http://ataconnect.org/convention/docs/2012conventionspeakerinfo.pdf
Apply directly here:
http://ataconnect.org/convention/callforspeakers
For question about speaking contact Lisa Nye Ford at 317-816-9336 x102.
To explore Sponsorship Opportunities contact Tom Chandler at 317-816-9336 x116.
About ATA
The American Teleservices Association (ATA) is the only non-profit trade organization dedicated exclusively to the advancement of companies using contact centers as an integral channel of operations. ATA members include companies with inbound or outbound contact centers, users of teleservices, trainers, consultants, and equipment suppliers who initiate, facilitate, and generate telephone, Internet, and e-mail sales, service, and support. ATA provides leadership in the professional and ethical use of the telephone for conducting business and is committed to serving the needs of its members, recommending the highest standards of quality for the channel and protecting the rights of consumers. Members benefit from the ATA’s strong advocacy at the national and state level; advanced and timely educational opportunities and business-building events; advocacy and support in the public realm; and rich and trusted resources for teleservices professionals.
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inContact to Deliver Verint Workforce Optimization Solution in the Cloud
Partnership Makes Best-in-Class WFO Solutions Available to Contact Centers of All Sizes in a Pay-as-You-Go, Software-as-a-Service Model
SALT LAKE CITY – inContact (NASDAQ: SAAS), the leading provider of cloud-based call center software and call center workforce optimization tools, announced the extension of its partnership with Verint® Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNT), a leading global provider of enterprise workforce optimization and security intelligence solutions, whose offerings are used by more than 10,000 organizations, including over 85 percent of the Fortune 100. Through the companies’ extended relationship, inContact will deliver Verint’s award-winning workforce optimization (WFO) suite as a cloud-based solution, enabling contact centers of all sizes to deploy these powerful solutions in a pay-as-you-go software model.
Typically the workforce accounts for more than 70 percent of the expense in any contact center and maximizing agent effectiveness through monitoring, training and scheduling is key to profitability and customer satisfaction. inContact WFO, powered by Verint’s software, is a unified suite of powerful workforce optimization solutions for analyzing and optimizing customer service across the contact center. inContact WFO can help companies of all sizes understand what’s happening in their customer-focused operations – and make better decisions about their people, processes, and performance.
“Following the successful launch of cloud workforce management with inContact last year, we are expanding our relationship to now offer Verint’s WFO suite, with multi-tenant capabilities, through the inContact cloud,” said John Bourne, senior vice president, global channels and alliances, Verint Systems. “Leveraging the capabilities inherent through Verint’s proven WFO suite, inContact customers can benefit from the unprecedented visibility across the contact center, enabling them to advance the sales, service and customer experiences they deliver.”
inContact is now the only cloud provider to combine contact center infrastructure, unified workflow-driven WFO and connectivity in one powerful offering. The new inContact WFO portfolio will include:
· Quality Monitoring includes real-time monitoring, search and replay, evaluations, coaching and reporting
· Workforce Management includes forecasting and scheduling, advanced adherence, time off management and shift bidding
· eLearning includes lesson management
· Performance Management includes agent scorecards
· Speech Analytics enables contact centers to understand the root cause of customer satisfaction issues
“WFO represents a global market opportunity of more than $1 billion, and delivers powerful competitive advantage for the contact centers that deploy it,” said Paul Jarman, inContact CEO. “We believe that our expanded strategic partnership with Verint will enable us to extend the benefits of WFO to companies of all sizes through our robust cloud-delivery platform.”
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SOUTHWEST AIRLINES DEPLOYS VAROLII INTERACT MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS TO ENABLE EFFICIENT PILOT SCHEDULING
Real-Time Flight Scheduling Information to Pilots Enhances Communications Effectiveness and On-Time Flight Operations
SEATTLE—Varolii Corporation, the independent market and technology leader in interactive, personalized business-to-consumer text, voice and email communications, today announced that it has partnered with Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV), the nation’s leading low-fare carrier, to streamline its process for matching pilot availability with flight needs. Using the Varolii Interact platform, Southwest Airlines uses SMS text messages to more efficiently and effectively alert pilots of flight scheduling opportunities. Based on Varolii’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, Southwest Airlines’ Open Time Alerts (OTA) helps the airline quickly staff unassigned flights, ensure on time flight operations and reduce costs from a less efficient, manual process.
In cases of illness or other circumstances that prevent a pilot from attending their scheduled flights, airlines are left with “open time”, or an uncovered shift, that must quickly be reassigned. Prior to implementing the OTA solution, Southwest’s crew scheduling departments had to make hundreds of manual phone calls each day to pilots to fill open shifts. Schedulers were also required to follow a specific call sequence, starting with the most senior pilots, which created lag times from waiting for responses before moving on to the next pilot on the list. This not only wasted resources, but made it difficult to efficiently schedule pilots for unfilled flight times.
With the Varolii Interact platform, Southwest’s OTA solution provides pilots with an opt-in program that delivers SMS text messages directly to their mobile devices to alert them of open flights and give them the real-time opportunity to opt-in to staff specific flights. Each message includes detailed flight information, including the length of the assignment, overnight accommodations, if necessary, flight time and more. Pilots receive the information in a pre-determined cascade of priority, based on seniority and other factors, and can respond instantly on their phone using Varolii Interact’s two-way text messaging capability to notify Southwest’s crew scheduling department if they are interested in the assignment. As a result, Southwest has been able to streamline its scheduling processes and improve the flow of information to their pilot group.
“With the pervasiveness of today’s mobile devices, we knew we needed to adapt our communications strategy to meet the changing needs of our pilots,” said Russell McCrady, senior director of crew operations and employee resources at Southwest Airlines. “Varolii Interact enables us to tap into this real-time response channel and reap the benefits of mobile capabilities. This has not only helped us to assign flights faster and easier as pilots are more apt to respond; but, the solution has nearly eliminated the need for repetitive, laborious calls to pilots. This has freed up the scheduling staff to focus on the operation and improve our overall productivity.”
Southwest Airlines uses Varolii to exchange more than 100,000 OTA text messages to pilots each month. Out of the airline’s 6,067 active pilots in the company, more than two-thirds have signed up for the opt-in OTA program since the solution was first implemented in December 2010.
“Our collaborative goal with Southwest Airlines continues to be not only to improve business efficiencies, but ultimately deliver the best experience to the targeted customer,” said Andrea Austin, vice president at Varolii. “At the heart of the OTA solution is the ability to ensure that flights will run as scheduled. By easily assigning the right pilots to open shifts, Southwest Airlines has been able to draw upon Varolii technology to significantly limit unnecessary flight delays, improving customer satisfaction and overall business performance. These kind of business-results outcomes are at the heart of our partnership with Southwest where we are both focused on delivering superior results for their business, employees and passengers alike.”
Varolii’s technology, through its Global Network Service, automatically directs traffic to the optimal geographic region, all within a cloud environment, allowing the Southwest solution to be more resilient and self-healing. This optimized routing is based on a combination of static and adaptive metrics, including business policies, network conditions and the health of the application itself. This strategy has helped to ensure overall improved performance of the Southwest Airlines solution.
Southwest Airlines currently operates more than 1.2 million flights per year. Southwest Airlines relies on Varolii to deliver more than 5 million intelligent, personalized digital communications to flight crew members, as well as passengers and employees each year to quickly and efficiently notify them of flight status, disruptions, gate changes, and other critical information. In addition to Southwest, Varolii partners with a number of leading airlines, enabling them to reach passengers and employees in a smart, personalized and cost-effective way with its Varolii Interact platform.
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Introducing Replay® SIP
Hybrid PBX/IP Systems Get Affordable Access to Call Recording
Florham Park, NJ – Trisys introduces Replay SIP (www.trisys.com/replaysip.htm), a scalable module of its popular Replay Call Recording software solution that is easily added to IP-based telephony systems. As business adds IP phones to existing telephony systems in order to take advantage of cost efficiencies, access to phone application software is often lost or requires expensive upgrade. Now with Replay SIP business can freely add call recording functionality for MSRP $300 US per phone. The small footprint, scalable product also moves Replay to the forefront of options for new, predominantly IP phone system sales.
Trisys’ Replay SIP is a 100% software based call recording solution. It is designed to record phone conversations taking place on SIP-based IP phone systems. Replay SIP runs unobtrusively on networks, monitoring VoIP (Voice over IP) traffic for desired calls, and converts them in to call recordings. With Replay SIP installed, authorized users can easily access call recordings for quality assurance, regulatory compliance, dispute resolution, and much more.
“The Replay SIP Call Recording solution turns an IP based telephone system in to a tremendous management and productivity tool,” noted Mike Shevelev, president of Trisys, Inc. “Implementation is very easy and cost effective; the benefits are enormous and far reaching. Because Replay SIP has a small “footprint,” scalability is never an issue: simply add multiple local or remotely located servers. This allows for rapid deployment even in complex corporate environments.”
Replay SIP supports most SIP-based IP telephone systems, saves recordings as standard WAV files, which can be automatically archived or deleted, supports On-Demand and Pause/Resume recording providing that PBX and IP Phones support RTP “events” as per RFC 2833/4733. Replay SIP is available as a software solution or as a complete turnkey solution including software and hardware.
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Verint to Acquire Vovici Creating Category Leader in Voice of the Customer Solutions
Combination Will Create Industry’s Most Comprehensive VoC Provider for Multichannel Analytics, Including Speech, Social Media, Email, Web Chat and Enterprise Feedback
MELVILLE, N.Y., — Expanding on its Voice of the Customer (VoC) Analytics platform, Verint® Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNT) announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire, upon closing, Vovici™, an industry leader in enterprise feedback management (EFM) solutions. This combination will create a new category leader in enterprise solutions designed for chief customer officers (CCOs), chief marketing officers (CMOs), chief experience officers (CXOs) and other VoC executives across organizations. As the market’s most comprehensive VoC Analytics platform available, the Verint-Vovici solution will enable organizations to implement a single-vendor solution for collecting, analyzing and acting on customer insights.
The acquisition will add Vovici’s powerful, scalable and easy-to-use enterprise feedback solutions to the Verint VoC Analytics platform, which is setting a new industry standard for helping forward-thinking organizations develop a single solution set for VoC initiatives across voice recordings, surveys, email, chat and social media. Combined with the industry’s leading speech and text analytics solutions and workforce optimization suite, the addition of Vovici will add market-leading VoC functionality, including advanced survey management, customer profile management, interactive dashboards and ad-hoc analysis across any customer touch point. Learn more about Vovici and its product line, by clicking here.
“This business combination will change the playing field in the market, advancing our customers around the globe through a solution designed to help them achieve their voice of the customer goals at all levels—from the contact center through the entire enterprise,” says Dan Bodner, CEO, Verint. “Combining Vovici’s deep domain expertise with our actionable intelligence vision will further position us to solidify our already strong market leadership position.”
“Further, the combination is a strategic move that will fill a void in the market by enabling customers to extract tremendous value from this emerging toolset for the chief customer officer,” adds Bodner. “It will offer our combined customers another means to extract critical information through sophisticated enterprise feedback and robust analytics to better anticipate, understand and act on the VoC—helping foster more loyal customers and drive more profitable business outcomes.”
Through solutions in Verint’s VoC Analytics platform, leading brands—including many from the Fortune 100—trust Verint to deliver the actionable intelligence required to make better business decisions and improve enterprise performance. Similarly, Vovici solutions deliver measurable return on investment (ROI) across a variety of industries. For example, a leading manufacturer of outdoor equipment redesigned its product packaging based on customer feedback, which resulted in double-digit sales growth; and a U.S. nationwide retailer saved more than $4 million and enabled projects to be completed three to five times faster.
“Generating a unified view into the customer experience is a critical enabler for every business today,” says Greg Stock, CEO, Vovici. “Whether driving customer loyalty, optimizing operational performance or supporting broader business transformation initiatives, the addition of Vovici to Verint’s proven, market-leading solutions will greatly expand our ability to help unlock the value of customer experiences.”
Industry experts agree on the importance of tapping into these customer experiences to drive operational excellence. Notes Kathleen Peterson, chief vision officer, PowerHouse Consulting, “We are seeing C-level customer experience and associated positions take off. As a result, organizations need tools that will enrich their roles. When combined with the right strategic planning around the customer experience, the combination of Verint and Vovici will offer customers the technology to help bring these critical voice of the customer initiatives to life.”
Delivering on the Promise of VoC Analytics to Respond to Failing Customer Experiences
According to independent research company Forrester Research, Inc., “For roughly two-thirds of US brands, [the] customer experience ranges from just OK to downright bad.”1 It adds that “Many customer experience initiatives don’t meet their full potential—or worse, fail completely—because neither employees nor partners have a complete picture of what the customer experience actually entails or the dynamics that go into creating it.”2 Implementing a comprehensive VoC program that correlates customer touch points can optimize performance across all channels, so organizations can keep customers engaged with great experiences and loyal through great relationships.
Leveraging the Verint-Vovici solution, global customers can drive loyalty through actionable insights by standardizing on a single vendor VoC solution set across the full range of customer communications channels—voice, email, chat, web and IVR surveys, online communities and social media outlets—using:
Speech Analytics—directly mines insight from the recorded voice, whether as part of a contact center interaction or voice-based (IVR) feedback program, and analyzes mass recorded conversations to identify call drivers, call topics and customer attitudes.
Social Media Analytics—directly mines insight and customer sentiment from social media channels.
Email and Web Chat Analytics—directly mines insight and customer sentiment from other text-based sources, such as email, web chat and customer feedback sentiments.
Feedback Analytics—creates useable and timely insights needed to improve products, loyalty and advocacy. Interactive dashboards accelerate the discovery and sharing of insight, support and ad-hoc analysis, and enable push reports driving timely insight into the business.
Integration to the industry’s leading WFO platform—Verint’s Impact 360® Workforce Optimization™ suite enables organizations to implement, manage and track performance improvement programs throughout the enterprise to help service, delight and retain customers.
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ETECH, INC LAUNCHES “REMOTE WORKER” TECHNOLOGY
Etech, Inc. launches “Remote Worker” technology that will enable e-retailing companies to strengthen their at-home customer service agent model, save cost, and offer flexibility to employees.
Nacogdoches, TX – Etech, Inc., a global business process outsourcer, recently announced that their technology division, Etech Technology Solutions (ETS), launched their first remote worker management solution known as Nomad TMMS© (Team Member Management Solution).
Many e-retailing companies are interested in adding the ability for their contact center agents to work from home. This model has several advantages for both the company and the employees. Companies can realize a huge cost savings with this model and can employ people who previously could not commute to a regular work setting such as the disabled. It also provides an environment with little to no distractions, no commute and flexible working hours. However, there are two primary problems that prevent many companies from taking this step --management of the at-home employee and security.
Etech Technology Solutions has developed an application that controls the desktop workstation of the at-home employee. The Nomad TMMS application, which is protected by US Copyright Law, includes a number of key features to make the remote worker model possible for many organizations. It provides a secure, encrypted access portal to the company's systems as well as a number of other security measures to keep customer information safe and secure.
“The Nomad TMMS application offers a significant value proposition to companies as it will help them in cost reduction and even access that untapped valuable human resource that faces difficulty coming to work. The agents can easily work from their homes with greater flexibility,” said Mr. Dilip Barot, CEO, Etech, Inc. and President of Creative Choice Group headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Also, Mr. Dilip Barot has entrepreneurial interests in real estate infrastructure, investment, construction, asset management, and IT/ITeS. “It will enable companies to consolidate their capability of offering customer service through the home based customer agent model while maintaining the same high level of customer experience and satisfaction.”
It also has features which ensure a positive customer experience no matter where the employee is located including tracking unacceptable content and alerting management if an issue has occurred. It also includes many helpful tools to help the at-home employee do their jobs well including a built-in chat module to allow the remote workers to chat with their supervisors, a learning knowledgebase, and an announcement board.
"We're pleased to add Nomad TMMS to our technology solution offerings," said Ronnie Mize, Vice President of Etech Technology Solutions. "ETS was developed to help businesses accelerate service delivery while maintaining cost-effectiveness. Nomad TMMS is one great example of an application that will cost-effectively help companies expand to offer remote agent support. It is especially suited to the at-home customer service agent model that many e-retailing companies are looking to implement."
To learn more about Etech, Inc., visit www.etechinc.com.
About Etech
Etech is a leading provider of intelligent sales and service solutions utilizing inbound and outbound voice and web chat. We understand the importance of customer relationships. That’s why all of our solution strategies are driven by the ‘voice of the customer’. Our stringent QA process ensures an ever-improving customer experience. We also gather critical business intelligence data from each customer interaction. And we do everything with the highest integrity and quality possible. These differences allow us to provide industry-leading service, stellar CSAT scores, and high performing sales and service solutions that enable our clients to increase revenue and delight their customers. For more information: www.etechinc.com
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Co-nexus adds desktop analytics to CXM Recording Solution
XM Discovery allows Contact Centers to “Trim the Fat” and optimize the agent workstation
HOUSTON, TX — Co-nexus announces the addition of Cicero XM Discovery to the award winning CXM Call Recording and Quality Monitoring Solution. XM Discovery is a lightweight and configurable tool designed by valued CXM business partner, Cicero, Inc. XM Discovery provides contact center managers and IT manager’s operational visibility into desktop activity for process improvement and cost reduction.
“Trim the Fat”
XM Discovery is a lightweight, cost effective service installed on desktops which captures a variety of activities or events from agent log in to log out. This powerful feature provides transparency into precisely how agents use desktop applications. Contact center mangers and IT managers are empowered with the ability to quickly and accurately report what web pages and applications are accessed throughout the business day. Furthermore, XM Discovery can provide details on the frequency in which these tools are utilized. With this valuable data, administrators can quickly determine which software is no longer needed. The result is eliminating excess annual software licensing and/or software maintenance expenses, effectively “Trimming the Fat” from operation expenses.
Optimize
Contact centers regularly deploy generic PC builds to new workstations. Often these builds include most, if not all, software being “utilized” in the contact center. This generic build and deployment method is less than optimal; often resulting in longer than desired build times and lackluster PC performance. With XM Discovery, IT administrations can quickly and accurately report on which applications are truly required for a particular business group, therefore eliminating the need for unneeded software to be licensed, loaded, deployed, and maintained. Furthermore, PC optimization is easily achieved and maintained thanks to XM Discovery’s ability to identify system performance impediments, issues, bugs and inefficiencies in real time.
The Impact
Whether you are incorporating XM Discovery as a standalone solution or incorporating it with CXM Recording, Screen Capture, Live Monitor, Performance Evaluation and Coaching modules, XM Discovery will benefit you simply by;
• Reducing Average Handle Time (AHT)
• Reducing Network Costs
• Improving Agent Productivity
• Improving Customer Satisfaction
• Rapidly Diagnose System Issues
• Reducing Implementation Costs
• Reducing Operating Expenses
Key Features
XM Discovery helps identify inefficiencies and answer the question, “What are my agents really doing?” XM Discovery features and competitive advantages include;
• Captures data about desktop application activity from log in to log out
• Central data store, reporting engine hosted on- or off-premise
• Use with third-party analysis tools (e.g., BAM, BPMS, WFM)
• A store-and-forward of data when disconnected
• Non-invasive: no development or changes to applications
• Transparent to end-user, no visible footprint on the desktop
• Highly scalable, minimal network impact, runtime footprint
• Configurable to capture the values of specific fields
To discover more, visit www.4cxm.com or call 866.400.4296.
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ETECH, INC LAUNCHES TECHNOLOGY DIVISION
Etech Technology Solutions launched to help organizations maintain and maximize technology potential while driving down technology costs.
Nacogdoches, TX – Etech, Inc., a global business process outsourcer, today officially launched Etech Technology Solutions (ETS). Etech recognized that in today’s competitive market, many organizations continue to face challenges in not only maintaining their existing IT infrastructure but in scaling to meet the needs of a global market.
Matt Rocco, Chief Operating Officer stated, “ETS was developed to help businesses accelerate service delivery while maintaining cost-effectiveness. For the last ten years, Etech’s internal technology team did just that for Etech and many of our clients as an add-on service. The solutions we developed enabled Etech, and our clients, to maximize system and infrastructure potential.”
After careful consideration and persistent demand from new clients, Etech officially launched this newest division as a stand-alone offering. ETS will complement Etech’s other core services involving contact center solutions and back-office processing.
Rocco added, “I am pleased to announce that Ronnie Mize will lead this new division as the Vice President of Etech Technology Solutions.” Promoted from within Etech, Mr. Mize has over 20 years of experience in various technology leadership positions as well as extensive experience in technology development and deployment along with implementation of business processes and defined methodology.
“I’m excited to expand our technology service offering to additional businesses looking for IT support,” said Ronnie Mize, vice president of Etech Technology Solutions. “Our contact center and BPO clients have been benefiting for years and I’m pleased to now offer this as a stand-alone service offering. Through our global delivery model, proven methodologies, standard operating practices and change control mechanisms, I’m excited to offer solutions that cover the entire scope of a project and give organizations a maximum return on investment.”
A selection of the offerings from Etech Technology Solutions include:
• Technical Project Management
• Application and Reporting Design and Development
• Local and Wide Area Network Design and Administration
• Data Infrastructure Design, Set-up and Calibration
• Data Systems Administration
• Computer Telephony Engineering
• Telecommunications and Circuit Infrastructure and Spending
• Tier 1 and Tier 2 Help Desk Support (Hardware and Software)
The ETS team contains certified IT service management and experienced resources. They offer a multi-location, global, follow-the-sun 24 x 7 support network. In addition, they are highly flexible and offer customized service offerings depending on the unique customer needs.
“It’s our goal to be the first choice technology solutions provider for both partners and clients,” said Mr. Mize. “We want to remain consistent in our delivery of service excellence and high quality, high value, best-in-class technologies that exceed the expectations of our valued customers.”
To learn more about Etech Technology Solutions, visit www.etechinc.com
About Etech
Etech is a leading provider of intelligent sales and service solutions utilizing inbound and outbound voice and web chat. We understand the importance of customer relationships. That’s why all of our solution strategies are driven by the ‘voice of the customer’. Our stringent QA process ensures an ever-improving customer experience. We also gather critical business intelligence data from each customer interaction. And we do everything with the highest integrity and quality possible. These differences allow us to provide industry-leading service, stellar CSAT scores, and high performing sales and service solutions that enable our clients to increase revenue and delight their customers. For more information: www.etechinc.com
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