Outbound Call Center Featured Article

TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review

By Linda Dobel
TMCnet Contributor

Not yielding to the lure of summertime sloth, major players in the outbound call center market were busy this week alerting TMCnet editors of major announcements. Topping the list of ambitious announcements, Avaya (News - Alert) (NewsRajani Baburajan, because forty percent of consumers prefer alternate methods of contact for customer service, Avaya's new contact center applications are designed to enhance service across many modes of communication. She quoted Onkar Birk, general manager, Contact Center Division at Avaya, as saying, “Today's consumer interactions travel across many more communications modes – e-mail, text, video and now social media. As these multimedia requirements evolve into transmedia needs characterized by the seamless transfer of information across all kinds of communications, companies must effectively integrate all of these modes for consistency.” - Alert), a provider of business communications and collaboration solutions and services, revealed  it is bringing several new outbound call center-related products to market. It said the new products help improve both agent-assisted and automated service to drive more personalized and seamless customer experiences across media channels - including social media. According to the report from TMCnet’s Contributing Editor

Among the products joining the Avaya Aura Contact Center Suite is Avaya Aura Contact Center 6.2. It is a multimedia assisted-care application designed to enable businesses to solve customer issues by bringing all key parties along with customer information into a session. This fits with the thoughts of Gartner (News - Alert) Research Vice President Drew Kraus who was quoted in Baburajan’s piece as saying, “Ensuring quality customer service across multimedia channels increasingly means the creation of sessions that not only bring together customers, agents and experts in a fast, efficient way, but also retain a customer's context. The use of this approach to serve the heightened expectations of consumers is a differentiator for leading businesses.”

Another noteworthy development this week was reported  by TMCnet Contributing Editor Rahul Arora. He imparted the news that Global Alert Network (GAN), a national mobile platform that provides automatic, hands-free audio alerts to a user’s mobile phone, has come up with its first-ever hands-free audio alert application that will enable Boston residents access the latest local traffic and weather updates without ever touching their mobile phones. According to his report, the new audio-alert application provides the information automatically. The alerts are geo-targeted to the user’s location ensuring timely, accurate information about traffic conditions, weather or other future services to which the user subscribes. Alerts currently available in the Boston area include traffic, weather and certain local emergency information such as Amber alerts. “Global Alert Network’s highly personalized hands-free audio alerts push incredibly relevant, necessary and potentially lifesaving information in a way that cuts through to the driver without distracting them,” said Scott Hughes (News - Alert), president of Global Alert Network.

On the subject of mobility, TMCnet’s Rajani Baburajan also picked up the news that AltiGen Communications, a provider of integrated Microsoft (News - Alert)-based Unified Communications (News - Alert) solutions, said that Alexander Open Systems (AOS) will offer its mobility and contact center solutions for Microsoft Lync Server 2010. Her article noted that AOS will offer AltiGen's (News - Alert) (News - Alert) iFusion docking station, as well. The iFusion is said to enable customers to remove what the company characterized as an expensive IP phone, and allow them to leverage their smart phones as extensions of the corporate phone system. The article highlighted the fact that before selecting AltiGen Communications, AOS reportedly reviewed all available smart phone applications and contact center solutions that integrate with Microsoft Lync Server 2010. The company’s vice president of sales, Mike Plummer, was quoted in the article as saying, “AOS will provide significant presence for us in the Midwest. The company has a great reputation and has demonstrated repeated success in providing corporations end-to-end solutions.”

Repeated success is what outbound call center solutions are all about so more solutions will undoubtedly hit the market next week. TMCnet editors will therefore stay on the beat to continue to keep you abreast of new outbound call center developments throughout the coming week.