Surveying the Market: Bridging the Enterprise and Contact Centers
Author: Andy Bezaitis, Senior Vice President of Product Management
Since I’ve moved into my new role as head of product management at Aspect, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with several companies from around the globe and gain more insight into what they’re planning for 2010 and beyond for their contact centers. One common trend that I’ve noticed is that more organizations are looking at the bridge between the enterprise and the contact center— through unified communications.
The companies that I’ve spoken with are not alone in these plans. In a recent survey of more than 1,300 participants, Nemertes Research found that more than 52 percent of organizations will be bringing unified communications into the contact center in the near future. I found this stat to be very telling on the direction of the contact center industry. Clearly, companies are moving to architectures that support unified communications strategies, and are looking at technologies such as IP infrastructures, presence engines, instant messaging tools and other applications that can help manage virtual contact centers or remote agent workforces.
The report also surveyed the participants for feedback on contact center vendors. They gave the highest marks to those vendors that offer professional services and systems integration offerings to support UC deployments across the enterprise and the contact center. This is seen as a clear differentiator in this market – a vendor that understands the broad need of the enterprise and the contact center.
The voices of hundreds of companies were heard loud and clear: organizations have been integrating (or will soon deploy) UC technologies into their contact centers, and the right software and services are key to their vendor selection. They want platforms that standardize their investments across the Enterprise and allow for software integration to their many systems. Services experience deploying mission critical voice will be table stakes as these customers select their suppliers.
Where is your organization in terms of bringing in unified communications into your contact center operations? What are the key services and capabilities that will be key to your rollout strategy? How does software figure into your long-term strategic thinking?
Author: admin
Catergories: Contact Center Technology, Customer Service/Consumer Demands, Unified Communications
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2:37 pm on November 17th, 2009
Enterprise communications, both on the landline and wireless are increasingly about two things: software applications and customization. I’m just wondering why the other 48% of contact centers are willing to give up market share, since UC is a big competitive advantage from a collaborative perspective.