Avaya Offers New Cloud Contact Center Solution for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses
Contact centers have rapidly evolved over the past few years. Gone are the days when contact centers were seen simply as call-taking centers, which relied on big, expensive, and space-consuming on-premise solutions whose sole purpose was to handle customer calls. But today, these contact centers have transformed and grown to become the ultimate customer experience hub in most organizations, delivering support across multiple channels such as the web, social media, phone, email, mobile and live chat. And these developments are all thanks to the popularity of the cloud and cloud technologies.
More Contact Centers are Moving to the Cloud
Initially viewed as a vague concept or just another tech buzzword, the cloud has become crucial to the performance and success of many businesses today and is seen by many as a superior alternative to on-premise solutions. In fact, a number of surveys reveal that cloud-based contact centers are gaining traction. The latest report by Research and Markets also suggests that the cloud-based contact center market is expected to grow from $5.43 billion in 2016 to $15.67 billion by 2021.
Various factors can be attributed to the growth of cloud contact centers. Aside from the fact that cloud-based technologies are quicker and cheaper to deploy compared to traditional systems, they also give enterprises access to a wide range of features and functions that enable them to route calls and interact with customers efficiently. Research and Markets also reveal that disaster recovery, flexibility of cloud solution, and the need for compliance management are other factors that drive the growth of cloud contact center solutions.
But Not All Cloud Contact Center Solutions Are Created Equal
Along with the increased demand for cloud-based technologies also comes the explosion of different contact center solutions -- all promising cost savings, scalability, and a host of other business benefits. Not all services are able to deliver the features as functionality that businesses require, though. But there is one cloud contact center provider that continues to consistently stand out from the rest: Avaya. Recognized by Gartner’s Magic Quadrant as the number 1 contact provider solution in the world, Avaya recently introduced the newest version of its contact center platform, the Avaya IP Office Contact Center 10.
Avaya IP Office Contact Center 10 is a simple and robust omnichannel contact center application optimized for use with the Avaya IP Office platform and is specifically designed for small to mid-sized businesses.
Highlights of the Avaya IP Office Contact Center 10 Solution
The new release boasts the following features and improvements:
Multi-channel contact center application - the platform supports voice, email, and web chat channels.
Skill-based routing - users can use skills-based routing to direct callers to the most competent agent fit to handle the issue. It also includes presence to determine the status of each user.
Real-time and historical reporting capabilities - Historical reporting allows supervisors to determine agents’ strong and weak points, and therefore, identify areas for improvement. Real-time reports also enable supervisors to monitor what’s happening so they can react quickly and move agents from groups and reallocate as needed.
Auto telemarketing outbound campaigns - depending on the call volume, the solution lets users begin auto telemarketing outbound campaigns to offer sales promotions and upsell opportunities. It also automatically allows agents to make outbound calls to potential clients with defined prospects.
IVR self-service solution - through customer interaction with a virtual receptionist, they can get routed to the appropriate department/service agent to reduce wait times.
Integration with various CRM platforms - these include Salesforce and SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP PI). More integrations are planned for future releases.
Michael Butts, Product Marketing Manager for Avaya, said businesses who have not yet made the switch to a contact center platform must get started now. “People expect a good customer experience, and [that] makes it easy to do business and creates a seamless customer journey. The businesses that offer this will rise above the competition,” said Butts.
Avaya believes that customer experience is now the number one objective of contact centers. Thus, it has become vital more than ever for enterprises to deploy a solution that allows them to interact with their customer base via multiple channels as well as to tap features to nurture these interactions. "The customer experience starts with a single interaction and contributes to the overall experience. It is the sum of all interactions that contribute to the customer experience, which drives higher engagement and more customer lifetime value," said Butts. And Avaya’s IP Office Contact Center 10 clearly ticks all the right boxes and makes it easy for businesses to make the most out of their customer engagements.
The Avaya IP Office Contact Center 10 is globally available in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. Customers can choose from a variety of deployment models, including premises-based, pure cloud, or even a hybrid deployment.
For further details about the application, please visit Avaya’s website.
About Avaya
Avaya is an award-winning global leader in business communications for the digital age. Avaya’s portfolio of solutions and services include systems and technologies for team and customer engagement, collaboration, unified communications, contact center and customer experience management, and networking. Avaya offers solutions for every business size and industry, and are designed to be highly secure, reliable, flexible, and scalable.