For businesses that still rely on a hardware-based TDM infrastructure, the contact center may be costing more than they realize. They know about the tradeoff between customer service goals and the costs of TDM. But, TDM simply can’t meet evolving customer service expectations, in an age where one bad experience can send customers to a competitor.
Moving to a software-based IP solution allows businesses to deliver a level of customer service that isn’t possible with TDM – optimize resources, and lower delivery costs.
IP solutions intelligently leverage resources across the organization to differentiate customer service. Customer problems can be solved immediately, whether that means using home-office agents to reduce wait times, transferring the call easily to a back-office expert.
With the use of SIP, customer service operations can also benefit from richer customer communication that operates simultaneously across multiple communication mediums, Including e-mail, IM, or video queries.
Unlike traditional telephony, IP migration doesn’t require rip and replace or a disruption in customer service. It can overlay the existing infrastructure in a way that is transparent to customers.
Genesys IP solutions, built on the open SIP standard, are evolving enterprise customer service to meet customer expectations. Genesys SIP integrates with Genesys Routing for a comprehensive solution that leverages resources throughout the organization to create intelligent customer contact.
Genesys SIP :
- simplifies the integration between front and back office
- enables the integration of branch office workers and at home agents as needed
- handles customers IM and Video communications
- separates the application from the telephony, so the contact center can be incorporated into IT best practices for substantial savings
Genesys SIP eliminates vendor lock-in. SIP allows contact center solutions to achieve the long-term goal of interoperability. It allows enterprises to select contact center solution based on their function and price, instead of being forced to buy from a single vendor at a marked up price.
Businesses are free to choose the contact center solutions that meet business objectives including service differentiation, increased sales, budgetary constraints, and rollout timelines.
Genesys also allows full control of when and where to deploy IP without interrupting customer service operations. Businesses can deploy VoIP in remote branches without migrating existing contact centers, enable expert contact or home agents, or even convert the communications to VoIP one contact center or one agent at a time.
Make a Business Case for Increased Customer Satisfaction
Moving Beyond Cost Containment
The cost benefits of IP Telephony are common knowledge, but the true value of the IP contact center goes beyond toll charges and reduced “cost per call.” The increased functionality raises the level of customer service, increasing loyalty and offering new avenues for revenue and growth. A strong business case for the IP contact center can be built around three areas:
Effective Management
- IP simplifies administration by substituting an extensive infrastructure that required placement and management of hardware in multiple locations with a software that can be centrally deployed, managed, and scaled across numerous sites. Staff can be added to easily accommodate call fluctuations. Remote branch sites can be brought online much faster. Real-time changes to single agent or agent group allocation can be adjusted with drag-and-drop remote management, without making changes to local equipment, such as a telephony switch. In this way, IP drives both customer satisfaction and agent efficiency while optimizing all contact center resources.
Business Agility
- Standards-based IP provides visibility and flexibility previously unattainable. With IP, customer service operations enjoy a deeper integration between the front and back office, providing a more personal and rewarding customer experience. It does this, not by trying to make experts out of your agents, but by enabling the intelligent routing of customer contacts to experts within the enterprise. They become an integrated part of your customer service operation. The ability to use new interaction methods like video, IM, chat, co-browsing and push-page technologies lets customers communicate in the mode they prefer, and allows agents to quickly resolve common questions. Service quality during peaks, call spikes and disasters is also enhanced with the ability to extend the call center to remote agents and branch offices.
Cost Reduction
- An IP contact center saves salary, real estate and communications overhead — all without compromising customer satisfaction. Agents can be added online only when necessary, reducing salary overhead. Adding home workers and branch offices to the contact center helps manage real estate expenses. And by using IP trunking (transporting calls over a WAN) multi-site contact center environments, especially global service organizations, can reap significant savings in call charges.
Migrate Your Contact Center at Your Own Pace
Genesys IP allows you to add the functionality your organization needs at the pace that makes sense – from a small pilot program to a complete infrastructure overhaul. Understanding the different contact center deployment scenarios will help you decide which path meets the demands of your enterprise.
TDM Contact Center With IP
- Connect existing telephony switches to servers running IP software. This allows call routing via a circuit-switched infrastructure to an agent's telephone or from a packet-switched infrastructure to a softphone on a PC, or an IP phone. This is common when companies want to run a pilot or migrate slowly to a complete IP solution.
Proprietary IP Contact Center
- A contact center solution with no circuit-switched infrastructure using an IP-PBX on an IP network. Voice calls from the PSTN are converted to IP via a gateway, and managed as packet-switched communications. If the gateways, phones, PBXs and software are proprietary, a CTI link is likely required to communicate with third-party applications.
Standards-based IP with Soft ACD Deployment
- Standards-based IP applications and infrastructure work together (unlike proprietary IP-PBXs) without the need for tailored, complex links. Software based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) applies the same logic and provides identical centralized agent configuration management, regardless if the agent is connected to a proprietary IP-PBX or an IP-based softswitch. A SIP-enabled IP contact center integrates with the existing PBX infrastructure. This allows innovative capabilities by separating the ACD from the PBX and replacing it with a SIP solution. Eventually, the hardware switch is irrelevant and can be entirely replaced with a softswitch.
Standards-based IP with PBX Switch
- Leverages the benefits of SIP alongside an existing PBX infrastructure by replacing the closed, proprietary ACD in the PBX with ACD-like capabilities in the SIP-enabled software solution. With this path, contact centers can leverage existing investments while implementing open standards-based IP components.
Switchless Standards-based IP Deployment
- When traditional telephony capabilities are not needed (e.g., when agents don't require personal voice mail or non-contact center telephone features) replacing the PBX entirely makes a lot of sense. In addition to moving to an open IP-based software solution, contact centers can eliminate proprietary hardware, simplify administration, and reduce hardware and maintenance costs. A managed services model can fit this scenario particularly well. As leading managed services solution providers adopt open standards, rich functionality such as speech applications, skills-based routing, and screen pop are now available as components. With modular access to deep functionality, complexity is no longer a barrier to using new applications.
Deploying Flexible, Cost-effective Genesys IP
The Genesys IP Contact Center:
- Frees you to use any hardware infrastructure and contact center applications
- Supports your migration from TDM to IP by integrating with 42+ PBXs and switches, IP PBXs, and SIP standards-based PBXs and switches
- Leverages your existing infrastructure investment - no need to "rip and replace"
- Allows you to migrate at your own pace without compromising reliability
- Delivers the full promise of open-standards IP: centrally manage multiple sites; deploy
applications on demand; integrate new capabilities without significant infrastructure investments
- Provides a proven path to customer service excellence through the Dynamic Contact Center
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Dynamic Contact Center for Dummies