Transcript Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions

Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions
Serge Hyppolite
Director, Product Management
Aspect Software
[email protected]
www.aspect.com
A History of Innovation
Converged voice/
data network
Voice, email, and Web
front- and back-office
integration
Voice and data
integration
Voice ACD
Workforce
Management
Mid
Voice Only
Mid
Voice and Data
Unified
Communications
VoIP/SIP
Trends
Rising
Customer
Expectations
Workforce
Globalization
Customer
Care
Rapid Pace of
Technological
Change
Technology
Convergence
Implications to the Contact Center
 Global and remote workforces
 Agent Productivity
 Distributed and Virtual
Contact Centers
 Intelligent Applications
and Services
Workforce
Globalization
Rising
Customer
Expectations
Rapid Pace of
Technological
Change
Technology
Convergence
 Increased efficiency, reduced
infrastructure costs
 Simplified Application and
Business Rule Development
 Consolidated Administration and
Analytics
 Enterprise Integration
Analyst Projections
IP in
the CC
SIP
Adoption
After the initial hype,
IP is finally
Multimedia
hitting the call center
By year-end 2006,CC’s
50 percent
of UQ
and
mainstream; by 2007
there
will
Extended
enterprise IP telephony and
be over one millionunified
IP agent
messagingOf
systems
will
the surveyed
companies,
Enterprises Workforce
positions in operation
and SIP
by as an 82.4
support
option
percent reported that they
Globalization
2008, IP ACD revenues
will
(0.8 probability)
support multiple media
typesleading
in
By
2006,
enterprises
will
have overtaken traditional TDM
their contact centers. This
be investing in contact
center
revenues…
Demand
for offshore call center
indicates that multimedia
for all employees
outsourcingtois growing and
contact centers (astechnology
opposed to
help
them measure,
track east
and to countries across
telephony-only "call
centers")
shifting
have entered the mainstream.
manage their own Europe and will also grow in the
The large percentage
of
communications
(0.7
probability)
APAC
region through 2007
multimedia contact centers does
not imply equal adoption levels
of universal queue (UQ)
systems (30.1 percent of
contact centers report having
Datamonitor: June 2004
UQ capability)
Gartner: June 2003
Gartner: May 2004
Gartner: March 2004
Datamonitor: December 2003
Value of Contact Center to Enterprise
Increase
profits by
2
of customer
losses related to
poor customer
service/sales
interaction1
Decrease
defections
by
Sources:
1. Forum Corp
2. Harvard Business Review
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.”
“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.”
“Whether I contact them
by email, Web, or on
the phone, I always get
the answer, fast!”
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
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
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!
Factors to Consider When Evaluating Solutions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Breadth of Applications
Flexibility
Rich IP Features
Investment Protection
Company Viability
(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.”
(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
Flexibility - Agents Anywhere
Agents connect to IP PBX
LAN/
WAN
Home-based
Agents
Customer
IP PBX
SIP
PSTN
SIP
SIP
SIP
Toll-Bypass
Gateway
Internet
LAN/
WAN
SIP
IPEnabled
Call
Center
Agents in Call Center
Home-based
Agents
TDM
Agents connect to PSTN PBX
Customer
PSTN PBX
Flexibility - Multi-Site Networking via IP
Calls can be sent from one call
center to another via VoIP
technology
IP-Enabled
Center
Managed
Corporate
Network
IP-Enabled
Call Center
IP-Enabled
Center
LAN/WAN
(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
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
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
Rich IP Features - IP Network Interqueue
IP Network InterQueue
Seattle
Portland
Chicago
SIP
Trunks
WAN
VPN
San
Francisco
Voice and InterQueue Data Exchanged over IP WAN/VPN
Route to any agent off any Call Center!
Miami
(4) Investment Protection



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
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
(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
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:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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.
Thank you for your time.
If you have any questions, visit us at
www.aspect.com