Amazon Web Services Announces Amazon Connect

29 Mar 2017

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) has announced a new cloud-based contact center service: Amazon Connect. This is a self-service solution designed to help businesses deliver customer service at an affordable cost, based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates around the world.

Amazon Connect is intended to let customers set up a cloud-based contact center with a few clicks from the AWS Management Console. It’s designed to provide a “Virtual Contact Center,” with no need to deploy and manage infrastructure, allowing users to scale it up or down as needed. It can host up to tens of thousands of agents, although users only pay for the time callers are interacting with Amazon Connect, give or take the associated telephony charges.

Additionally, Amazon Connect allows users to adjust their contact flows based on information retrieved from AWS services or third-party systems. Customers can also build natural language contact flows via speech recognition tools such as Amazon Lex, so callers can state what they’re looking for, rather than navigate menus.

Amazon Connect integrates with a wide range of AWS tools and infrastructure, such as Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Simple Storage Service, allowing it to be embedded into applications agents are already using. Customers can also work with AWS Partner Network Consulting Partners to create additional integration support.

According to Blair Pleasant, co-founder of UCStrategies, “AWS Connect is totally disruptive, and is going to have a big impact on the contact center market and vendors. With its per customer per minute pricing model, AWS Connect can be very cost effective for organizations, and the AWS brand will help win over new customers, especially those that need a scalable and global solution.” She added, “The initial version is somewhat limited in that it’s voice only, and AWS won’t reveal its roadmap, but I would expect additional channels such as chat and email to be added shortly.

Amazon Connect is available now in the United States and 18 countries throughout Europe. Prices are based on pay-by-the-minute for usage and telephony costs. For more information, visit https://aws.amazon.com.

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