TMCnet Contact Center Solutions Week in Review

This past week I was at Interactions 2012, the name for Interactive Intelligence’s (News - Alert) annual meeting with customers, partners, prospects, analysts, consultants and media. It started with Clayton Christensen, internationally renowned innovation and growth expert and distinguished professor at Harvard Business School, who kicked things off by telling a standing room only audience that all of the buzz and attention to the customer experience might be misguided and missing several critical issues that could hamper a company’s success.  

Along with updates on the broad portfolio of Interactive Intelligence offerings, customer discussions of their deployments of premises and cloud solutions, and sneak peeks at what was on the roadmap for the future (which I will be discussing in the next several weeks), I was fortunate to be in a session with Interactive Intelligence CEO Don Brown. Dr. Brown, in responding to questions from a select group of industry analysts, consultants and the media, had some fascinating things to say about the state of the industry – what is going on with his company and his views on the cloud, mobility, social networking and security. As a company with feet planted firmly in both premises and as a leader in moving communications and the contact center into the cloud, I recommend reading about what he had to say given his unique position in the industry as well as perspective.

And speaking of recommendations, I hope you enjoy reading my piece, Ask the Experts: Panel Discusses Current and Future Contact Center, UC and PBX Issues. Interactive intelligence CMO, Joe Staples, puta series of questions about industry challenges and opportunities toan impressive panel of industry experts that included: Blair Pleasant (News - Alert), president and principal analyst, COMMfusion; E. Brent Kelly (News - Alert), PH.D, vice president and principal analyst constellation research; Jim Burton, founder and CEO, CT Link, LLC; Diane Holliwell, SperCo, contact center specialist,; J.R. Simmons, COMGroup, president; and, Steve Leaden (News - Alert), president of Leaden and Associates. As might be expected there was consensus and divergence of opinion on everything, but where and why is great food for thought.

There was also news coming out of Indy with Interactive Intelligence’s announcements regarding:

·         Interaction Edge, a combined gateway, media server and SIP proxy appliance

·         The company’s participation at the upcoming Middle East Call Center (MECC) conference 2012 where it will be exhibiting its all-in-one Customer Interaction Center (CIC) version 4.0 and the recently introduced Interaction Mobilizer along with it full suite of business optimization capabilities.

·         Gerber Life Insurance Company, which provides juvenile life insurance and other financial product, successful deployment of Interactive Intelligence solutions that have reduced costs and improved customer service.

News

Indianapolis may have been a hotspot this past week for industry developments but it certainly was not the only place where there were interesting developments to report on. These included:

• 1st Source Servall, one of the largest distributors of appliance parts in North America, announced it has launched a new state-of-the-art ordering and customer service system which allows customers to inquire and purchase any of the company's thousands of appliance parts through their preferred communication channels, including social media platforms such as Facebook and SMS texting, while receiving the return communication in the same format used to place the inquiry or order.  
• TMCnet Contributor Tracey Schelmetic looked at the partnership between CSG International and Phoenix-based Enghouse Interactive, which produce AgentHub . The AgentHub solution combines CSG’s multichannel, software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert))-based, interactive messaging platform – including IVR, SMS/text messaging and broadcast e-mail campaigns – with Enghouse Interactive’s CosmoCall Universe, a contact center software suite designed to unite all customer contact locations, functions and personnel – including outsourcers and home agents – on a single unified multichannel customer communications platform.
• Jacada (News - Alert) announced the beta availability of Jacada Mobile Agent that is designed to enhance customer service by reducing inbound call volume.
• Desk.com has created a contact center solution that will enable communication in 39 languages and regional dialects. The feature will help agents communicate with customers in their preferred languages. Calls will be routed to an agent who is fluent in the same language as the customer. The solution will use case or customer attributes to detect and set language preference. Additionally, all e-mail boxes, phone cases, chat cases, tweets and Facebook posts will be visible in the customer’s language of choice.

Finally, Schelmetic also had an interesting look at a Forbes piece by Susannah Breslin about social media being the great equalizer in customer interactions with companies. It has empowered people to be able to “light a fire” and woe to the company that is not monitoring and reacting promptly to the buzz about its band online.  

As is my custom for closing these weekly recaps a few pointers and reminders. If you have not already done so, sign up for a free Contact Center Solutions eNewsletter. Plus be sure to check out the links on the community to videos, podcasts, eBooks, and white papers. Recommendations include: the Interactive Intelligence CaaS Quick Spin demo, and check out the Ask the Expert area where Jesse Clark, Partner & Technology Leader, Revelant Technology, and Rachel Wentink, Senior Director, Strategic Initiatives, Interactive Intelligence have a terrific piece entitled “Humanizing Business Process Automation: Optimizing Performance for Employees and Customers.”