Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

In an attempt to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) enhance customer care and increase customer loyalty, 4ward, a Hong Kong IT and communications outsourcing company, will offer an advanced unified communications solution from Microsoft and Nortel as a hosted service.

 

The combined Nortel and Microsoft Innovative Communications Alliance solution will run from 4ward's two resilient data centers. SMBs will pay a monthly fee to access unified communications applications including email, instant messaging, telephony, conferencing, video, web and file sharing. Employees can use the features from anywhere, on an extensive range of devices so that they can concentrate less on technology and more on providing better customer service.

 

"Unified communications breaks down the barriers between voice, email, conferencing, video, and instant messaging," said David Wong, managing director, Hong Kong, Macau and South China, Nortel. "However, acquiring unified communications in-house requires a significant investment in applications and skilled staff. By offering this solution to SMBs as a hosted service, 4ward is helping businesses gain the benefits of unified communications, without the complexity of managing the services in-house."

 

4ward has also just implemented a joint Nortel and Microsoft unified communications platform within its own business to provide consistent management of customer contact via phone calls, the Internet, mobile phones, email, voicemail, and instant messaging. Thus, the joint solution has enhanced 4ward's resolution of customer queries, streamlined its business processes, and improved the efficiency of everyday communications among employees, customers, suppliers and partners.

 

The Innovative Communications Alliance unified communications solution is based on Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 and its client application, Microsoft Office Communicator 2005. Both integrate with the Nortel Communication Server 1000E and Call Pilot to offer full-featured telephony and unified communications capabilities.

 

"Collaborating with Nortel has helped us encapsulate advanced unified communications functionality in a cost-effective solution that scales from the largest business down to the smallest," said Adam Anger, senior director, Business and Marketing Organization, Microsoft Hong Kong. "We continue to work closely with Nortel to provide 4ward and its customers with solutions that deliver competitive advantage by simplifying and transforming their business communications."