contact center

Interactive Intelligence has released an enhanced version of its Customer Interaction Center (CIC). CIC, an all-in-one IP communications software suite, has been improved to make deployment and management of the software easier and more cost-effective.

Included in the enhancements for CIC 4.0 are expanded web administration capabilities, site-specific administration of centralized infrastructures, and improved reporting for customer feedback management.

Genesys has launched a new customer care solution, an application that connects smartphone users with agents in contact centers and beyond instantly. Genesys Mobile Engagement, introduced at Genesys' G-Force customer event, is designed to empower customers who need live support quickly, and provides increased context to help personalize the mobile customer experience while empowering agents with the information they need.

It's been about two years since analysts and industry watchers fervently started writing about the use of social media in the contact center to provide customer service. The idea that a company can listen to the conversations that happen on social media sites, monitor what is being said about their company and their competitors, and cull actionable data from those feeds is very compelling, especially when interactions can be sent to an agent just like a customer phone call.

Aspect has announced that its Aspect Unified IP 7, a platform designed to power Aspect's unified communications applications for customer contact, has been made available. With this release, Aspect can provide significant new functionality for contact centers, serving as a foundation to deliver next-generation communications for customer service, collections, sales, and telemarketing organizations, while enhancing collaboration between the enterprise and contact centers.

Aspect has announced that it will deliver a software-based product for small and mid-sized contact center applications, with Microsoft Lync serving as its media server. It's a value-priced, turnkey option for virtual sales teams, IT Help Desks, branch offices, corporate departments, and small and mid-sized contact centers.

Siemens Enterprise Communications has announced the release of OpenScape Fusion Social Media Integrations, an integration service solution that lets companies combine public and cooperate social media tools with customer contact centers, unified communications, and collaboration solutions.

Two years ago it was all about unified communications, last year it was all about collaboration, and this year it's all about video (with some collaboration, and pretty much no UC). Cisco's Collaboration Summit in Phoenix was filled with sessions about its collaboration vision and products, with a heavy emphasis on video. It makes me wonder if next year's conference will be called Cisco Video Summit. The key themes of the conference were pervasive video, desktop virtualization, and customer service combined with social media.

Avaya announced a suite of new and enhanced products and services based on Avaya Aura, intended to redefine the economics and effectiveness of real-time multimedia enterprise communications. With these new services and tools, users can speed up decision making and achieve financial impact, while enterprises gain a more people-centric approach to collaboration.

ShoreTel has recently released Contact Center 6, a new version of its call center software. This new software makes for easy integration of contact center activities with exiting core business processes, and promises to help call centers improve responsiveness and flexibility.