Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

Contact center functionality: customer care, support, and sales are no longer limited to contact center staff, with field reps, subject matter experts, and retail employees now having the ability to handle customers’ inquiries. CosmoCom is expanding its capabilities to do just that by tightly integrating Microsoft's Office Communications Server (MS OCS) into the CosmoCall Universe (CCU) CosmoCom agent's desktop environment by using text chat, voice, and video. This complements and expands upon CosmoCom's ReadyRep and Business User solutions introduced earlier this year, which also enable non-contact-center personnel to be woven into the fabric of enterprise-wide unified customer communications.

 

MS OCS functionality is now seamlessly integrated into CCU's CosmoDesk, which is the primary application for CCU users to manage their communications. The user directory is now expanded to include the names and availability of CCU-only users, CCU + OCS users, and OCS-only users. CCU and OCS users can consult via instant messaging, voice, or video. OCS-only users can be assigned to CCU groups in the same manner as CCU users. When a CosmoDesk user filters the agent list by group, both CCU and OCS users will appear with current presence status. The integration also enables ‘shared presence’, so that agent status can be managed from either CosmoCom's CosmoDesk application or the OCS Communicator, with an update in one application immediately reflected in the other.

 

The ReadyRep solutions can link subject matter experts and others outside the contact centers, directly through the ACDs or indirectly via presence. It also has application integration for screen pops and the tracking for management reporting. In short the ReadyRep has all the same features as the CosmoCall Agent yet it is available at lower cost. That is because CosmoCom has priced this license based on less expected usage as compared with dedicated contact center agents.

 

The Business User solutions are basic extensions. Similar to ReadyRep they are part of the contact center user community, but unlike it are not connected into the CCU 6 ACD. The Business User licenses expands the CCU into the business universe by connecting administrative and back office staff such as in accounting, data processing, HR, and marketing, thereby spreading out the outlay and increasing the ROI.

 

CosmoCall Universe is a unified, IP-based, multimedia contact center platform that empowers enterprise-wide consolidation of all contact center locations and applications into one virtual platform. MS OCS is a unified communication platform which includes instant messaging, voice and video communication, as well as presence management across the enterprise. Together, these two products enable a unified environment where contact center agents and enterprise experts share presence information and communicate with each other in a manner transparent to the user.

 

“Enabling agents to leverage knowledge workers, outside the four walls of the contact center, can increase first call resolution rates and dramatically improve customer satisfaction,” says Daniel Hong, Lead Analyst of Customer Interaction Technologies at Datamonitor. “CosmoCom's work in this emerging area and tight integrations will have strong appeal among those enterprises considering or committed to Microsoft OCS.”