Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

September 02, 2009

ITEXPO Keynoter Brown Says Businesses Should Take a Lesson from the Contact Center

By Paula Bernier


The enterprise as a whole could learn a lot from the contact center, keynote speaker Dr. Don Brown of Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) told the ITEXPO West 2009 crowd this afternoon.
 
“Contact centers are unbelievable, and we know what everybody is doing in them,” said Brown, InIn’s co-founder, chairman and CEO. “How many other places in the organization do we have that kind of discipline and that kind of flexibility? Not very many.”
 
Brown aims to change that. “At Interactive Intelligence we want to use communications technology to build all- in-one process automation platform.”
 
That entails creating process and bringing communications into the mix so work is done more efficiently, he said. The value in communications is in getting more work done with fewer people, he continued. “To me this has to be the goal of any revolution in technology.”
 
So how can a business achieve that?
 
Brown says first you need to figure out what data is needed. Then you create end user forms. Then you need to lay out a process flow that explains the stages through which work goes and the actions involved in each of those stages. One of those actions could be the ability to invoke web services (both internal and external), to obtain a customer’s credit score from Experian, for example, Brown said.
 
Once you set up this framework for how work is done employees can be presented with work via their computers. They can see on the form what they need to do at each step along the way, just like call reps do in the contact center. And that process can be launched in various ways using different technologies, but there’s a standard process for actually doing it, he said.
 
Not only does that allow employees to keep track of work, it also allows supervisors to see what’s going on.
 
“A supervisor can see work and whose desk it’s sitting on – whose desk is holding up that lead from that important customer,” Brown said.
 
Process automation can also be helpful in the execution of government audits, he added.
 
In the future, Brown said he envisions something like the Apple (News - Alert) App Store where you could buy access to a web service that provides some critical link to a government healthcare information system or some other function provided by third parties, and communications systems that don’t think in terms of phone calls and texts, but also looks at process automation, e-learning and business analytics.
 
“At that point the phone system takes over the business,” he said.
 
All of this involves communications technology applied in a way that relates to real-life business challenges and the bottom line. Brown said that’s a much better approach to selling communications than is hyping as new what are often just renamed communications capabilities.
 
Interactive Intelligence is a global provider of unified IP business communications solutions, providing innovative contact center software – often referred to as call center software, and delivered as a hosted service or on-premises product; IP telephony - including application-rich IP PBX and messaging functionality that can scale to meet the needs of your entire enterprise; and business process automation - providing the automation of multi-step, people-centric processes across a variety of vertical industries; as well as document management solutions designed specifically for the insurance industry.
 
Interactive Intelligence is a platinum sponsor of ITEXPO West — the biggest and most comprehensive IP communications event of the year. ITEXPO (News - Alert) West will take place in Los Angeles, Sept. 1 to 3, 2009, featuring three valuable days of exhibits,conferences, and networking opportunities you can’t afford to miss. Visit InIn at booth #413 in the Los Angeles Convention Center exhibit hall. Don’t wait. Register now!

Follow ITEXPO on Twitter: twitter.com/itexpo



Edited by Michael Dinan


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