Call Centers

Internet search leader Google unveiled its latest set of online business tools Thursday, aiming to snare a bigger piece of the enterprise market dominated by Microsoft. Google already has at least one player onboard: IP telephony firm Avaya. Avaya, a top provider of Internet phone switchboards for b...

Genesys has introduced a major upgrade to its contact center product line, the Genesys 7.5 Customer Interaction Management Platform, and also released VoiceGenie 7.1, which offers built-in support for video contact centers. The contact center application builds upon several earlier developments Gene...

RightNow Technologies has added new capabilities to its voice application, which it first introduced in June 2005 when it acquired Convergent Voice, a voice automation vendor. In this major upgrade, the firm has enhanced the application's inbound functions and has begun developing outbound features,...

Autonomy has introduced a new contact center application, the Intelligent Contact Center, which provides a range of higher-end capabilities, including the ability to detect anger or emotion in a call, multichannel analysis at the point of interaction and real-time agent support. The rollout, Autonom...

Service centers get a lot more calls with complaints and criticisms than they get showers of praise. All telecom companies experience churn rates way above those of many other industries -- it isn't unheard of for 30 percent of an average telecom company's customers to switch providers in the course...

CosmoCom has upgraded its IP-based contact center software platform to version 5. Called CosmoCall Universe, the system has been enhanced to address multiple contact center channels in a unified fashion, according to Steve Kowarsky, executive vice president of CosmoCom. It also improved functionalit...

Avaya on Thursday made two related announcements: the acquisition of enterprise mobility software maker Traverse Networks; and a new product strategy centered around unified communications. Avaya's unified communications solutions give corporate users easy access to all of their communications appli...

In considering whether or how to reorganize customer service and back-office functions offshore, the option to open a captive subsidiary service center may not receive full consideration in comparison to outsourcing options. Here we look at the case for Western companies to establish their own dedi...

ATG has announced that it will acquire e-commerce best-of-breed vendor eStara in a US$48.3 million cash-and-stock transaction that will increase ATG's market share and bring new niche functionality under its umbrella. eStara specializes in click-to-call technology -- an online e-commerce tool that l...

Most people can visualize the classic customer service environment: hundreds of agents sitting side-by-side in a large contact center, all working off the same script, working the same shifts and being monitored in the same manner. The mass media has reinforced this vision of customer service facili...

A new product from eTalk, Qfiniti Assist, provides contact center agents with knowledge management support while they are on the line with a customer. The tool combines speech recognition and enterprise search technology to identify the information the agent needs in order to answer a client's quest...

CosmoCom has introduced Version 4.6 of its Universe contact center software platform. New enhancements include improved reporting functionality, IP Centrex integration, and new networking functionality -- namely, the introduction of a new, proprietary NAT Traversal capability. Also, this version co...

CTI Group, a provider of online billing, self-care and communication management applications, has released a hosted call recording product. In general, on-demand contact center applications have been proliferating over the last year. CTI Group's new product, called "SmartRecord IP," differentiates i...

Salesforce.com has unveiled its Winter 07 upgrade, which features first-time support for softphone -- that is, computer telephony integration, or CTI -- connectivity. It also includes new interactive calendar design and task management capabilities, as well as additional integration tools. A new AJA...

Avaya has updated its flagship contact center software application, Interaction Center, with new features that make it easier for developers to build agent portals to their own specifications and needs. This latest iteration of the application, version 7.1, is taking aim at a pain point that many ve...