"The flexibility of IP allows contact centres to distribute the work to where it makes the most sense, regardless of geographic region, and allows them to quickly react and be proactive regarding changing business conditions, as well as meet regulatory and compliance requirements without compromising customer satisfaction or cost," said Ralph Breslauer, executive vice president of global sales and marketing, Concerto. "Our focus is to continue providing solutions that enable contact centres to take advantage of those IP capabilities, in an evolutionary fashion, thereby still allowing companies to achieve their strategic business objectives in collections, customer service or sales and telemarketing."
The new releases of the products will include support for the session initiation protocol (SIP) to connect the agent to the contact centre and the contact centre to the network. The products offering new IP capabilities that will enable customers to increase agent productivity and reduce costs without compromising existing technology investments, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction, include:
- EnsemblePro
- Spectrum ACD
- Unison Predictive Dialer
- Conversations Predictive Dialer
Using SIP as the standard protocol in new versions of the Concerto products enhances the IP capabilities currently built into EnsemblePro and Spectrum ACD enabling users to initiate and receive communications and services from any location and for networks to identify the users regardless of their location.
SIP also provides companies with an easier and more efficient method for communicating with other third-party applications, such as, PBXs, existing phone sets, or presence services, enabling them to achieve flexibility in the contact centre without compromising quality of service and customer service.
In addition to yielding greater connectivity options and agent productivity, the new IP capabilities in these Concerto products also provide strategic business benefits.
"When companies move to an IP infrastructure, it doesn't mean they have to sacrifice features and functionality to gain the cost benefits associated with VoIP. This is one of the reasons we've chosen to integrate SIP, which has matured into the technology that we feel confident offering to our customers, while providing the same comprehensive routing, reporting and monitoring features that are synonymous with Concerto," said Roger Sumner, Concerto chief technology officer.
"With the opportunity to now fuse presence with customer-facing processes, SIP is also making it possible for companies to think about the way they operate their businesses in a completely different way," added Sumner. "SIP is the enabler allowing companies to build a flexible architecture to bridge the gap between customer and company by extending connectivity outside the contact centre to remote branch office or home agents to heighten the level of customer service."