Contact Center Agents Using Presence? 66,000 Strong at ConvergysContact Center Agents Using Presence? 66,000 Strong at Convergys
They may not call it UC, and none of the likely suspects may be involved (Avaya, Nortel, Cisco, Siemens, Microsoft, etc.), but Convergys has one heck of a lot of agents using instant messaging and speech-to-text applications every day.
November 8, 2008
They may not call it UC, and none of the likely suspects may be involved (Avaya, Nortel, Cisco, Siemens, Microsoft, etc.), but Convergys has one heck of a lot of agents using instant messaging and speech-to-text applications every day.
Before sailing (figuratively) off to San Francisco for VoiceCon, and its promise of more unified communications sessions, demos and related keynotes than you can shake a stick at, I want to report on a couple of interesting solutions I learned about at last week's Convergys Analyst Day in Cincinnati. They may not call it UC, and none of the likely suspects may be involved (Avaya, Nortel, Cisco, Siemens, Microsoft, etc.), but Convergys has one heck of a lot of agents using instant messaging and speech-to-text applications every day.You may recall that Convergys, a company with a significant contact center outsourcing business, acquired Intervoice earlier this year. Intervoice has become part of Convergys' Relationship Technology Management (RTM) business unit, headed by Mike Betzer. RTM's goal is not only to support its very significant internal customer, Convergys, but to sell the company's technology to enterprises as well.
Fellow No Jitter bloggers and I have talked about Intervoice solutions in earlier blogs, and these solutions are the foundation of RTM's portfolio. At the meeting I got insight into applications that were initially created as custom solutions for Convergys's own contact centers but are now being marketed for implementation in company-owned centers.
QuickConnect offers instant messaging capabilities within the contact center; from agent to agent, agent to supervisor and agent to expert. It offers session logging, tracking and a privilege and security model. The benefits are obvious: agents don't have to put people on hold to talk to their team lead, and issues can be resolved without the caller being transferred or put on hold.
Federation of instant messaging among companies? Convergys has already done this by selling QuickConnect to some existing outsourcing customers. With it, Convergys agents can ping experts or tier-two type agents and hopefully resolve issues without having to actually transfer a customer to the contact center of Convergys's client.
Another internally-deployed solution available for purchase is Call Notes Automation. It allows agents, during or after a call, to speak (as opposed to type) the notes they need to make about the call. The comments are then transcribed and appended to the call record. During the call the agent does this by muting the line, speaking the comment, while continuing to listen to the caller. In a business where saving 5 seconds a call can mean millions over the course of the year, the benefits are obvious.
Betzer likes to say that he has an unbelievable demo lab for products he intends to roll out to the broader market. That demo lab also has some interesting gems just waiting to be attractively packaged and more broadly marketed.They may not call it UC, and none of the likely suspects may be involved (Avaya, Nortel, Cisco, Siemens, Microsoft, etc.), but Convergys has one heck of a lot of agents using instant messaging and speech-to-text applications every day.
