Genesys 8: Tackling Usability Head-OnGenesys 8: Tackling Usability Head-On

In San Antonio, TX this week, Genesys is hosting its largest G-Force user group ever - 1,300 attendees from 32 countries. Over the next few months, the company will take this show on the road to Berlin, Bangkok, two locations in China and Australia, so hundreds if not thousands more will participate in the annual event. As a self-proclaimed contact center techie, I most looked forward to the product roadmap presentation and I wasn't disappointed.

In San Antonio, TX this week, Genesys is hosting its largest G-Force user group ever - 1,300 attendees from 32 countries. Over the next few months, the company will take this show on the road to Berlin, Bangkok, two locations in China and Australia, so hundreds if not thousands more will participate in the annual event. As a self-proclaimed contact center techie, I most looked forward to the product roadmap presentation and I wasn't disappointed.The session was delivered by Paul Lang, Vice President, Product Management. Paul came to Genesys two years ago from another major contact center solution provider. Paul admits that in that prior life he often attempted to sell against Genesys by disparaging its ease of use. While this is an area many vendors could improve upon, Paul made it his personal and professional mission to deliver a complete refresh of Genesys design, administration and agent interface tools.

With Genesys 8, which begins rolling out in the summer of 2008, the look and feel of Genesys for application designers, administrators and users will be brand spanking new. The first two elements will be delivered with Genesys Voice Portal 8, the first release to combine the original Telera-based GVP with the solution from the VoiceGenie acquisition. Composer, a new design tool, and Administrator, a new deployment and provisioning tool, will eventually support all of the remaining applications in the Genesys suite, including inbound and outbound voice, multichannel and business process routing work items.

Most exciting were the early screenshots of a new agent desktop based on widget technology. Imagine a desktop created from dragging and dropping a series of role-appropriate widgets. Partners, e.g., IBM or Siebel, will be able to use the same widgets to drop capabilities into custom desktops or CRM applications.

The widget paradigm addresses especially well the notion of experts being an extension of the contact center. Experts can work in their preferred desktop application environment, adding only those capabilities required to become part of a given interaction. This new widget-based agent desktop is a great example of Enterprise 2.0 capabilities being used in customer service.