Contact centers are in a state of flux as new customer demands expose the inadequacies of aging infrastructure for current operations. These emerging communication channels driven by customers’ use of social networks and mobile applications create challenges for contact center managers who realize that they must upgrade their infrastructure to support emerging channels and richer functionality to meet current and future needs. As a central hub for customer interactions of all media types, companies cannot afford to wait for long term planned system replacements and need to rapidly move forward to meet the requirements of its customers in the short term. The good news is that major contact center vendors are coming to market with solutions that are easier to implement and reduce the requirement for extended implementation times and high professional service fees for upgrading their contact center platform. The middle market contact center from 100 to 1,000 agents will especially benefit from these new offerings with shorter install times and improved flexibility.
With increased interest in cloud solutions for contact centers there are many service providers now offering these capabilities. They are often bundled with network services and provide long term value in terms of rapid deployment and fixed costs over a period of time. However, premise based solutions are also not going away and many companies favor this option. Regardless if you r preference is cloud or premise solutions, you should consider solutions from the following vendors who recently announced significant product enhancements for the midmarket contact center.
- Genesys’ One simplifies premise solution with its rapid deployment offering. This offering provides a quick installer approach (30 days or less) and uses instant routing and reporting templates to enable customers to get up and running with significantly lower costs including fixed pricing for professional services. It incorporates its SIP Server in the same server as its contact center application to reduce complexity and includes its Best Practices in its solution. For customers preferring cloud services Genesys also recently launched its Genesys’ Cloud Connect SaaS and partners with SalesForce.com for CRM integration.
- Interactive Intelligence’s recently announced MarketPlace offers an e-commerce website for shopping ease. This solution simplifies access to a wealth of supporting partner products and reduces the deployment cost for these services. It enables contact center managers to add key applications that support specific vertical solutions, such as financial services, collections and utilities and be assured these products support Interactive Intelligence’s Customer Interaction Center(CIC. ) Initial offering supports 36 products with custom reports and process templates.
- Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise (CCE) Supports Up to 1,000 Agents. This offering includes call routing, reporting call control and service on Cisco’s UCS-C260 platform. It also supports many options considered essential for contact centers including multichannel, social media, speech and call recording. Should a customer need additional capacity the CCE is upgradeable to Cisco’s full Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) solution. Benefits of CCE include simplified management and reduced implementation time. Solutions also contain Cisco’s Unified Intelligent Center for reporting and Cisco Finesse desktop software.
