Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions Serge Hyppolite Director

Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions Serge Hyppolite Director, Product Management Aspect Software Serge. Hyppolite@aspect. com www. aspect. com

A History of Innovation Converged voice/ data network Voice, email, and Web front- and back-office integration Voice and data integration Voice ACD Workforce Management Mid Voice Only Mid Voice and Data Unified Communications Vo. IP/SIP

Trends Rising Customer Expectations Workforce Globalization Customer Care Rapid Pace of Technological Change Technology Convergence

Implications to the Contact Center § Global and remote workforces § Agent Productivity § Distributed and Virtual Contact Centers § Intelligent Applications and Services Workforce Globalization Rising Customer Expectations Rapid Pace of Technological Change Technology Convergence § Increased efficiency, reduced infrastructure costs § Simplified Application and Business Rule Development § Consolidated Administration and Analytics § Enterprise Integration

Analyst Projections IP in the CC SIP Adoption After the initial hype, IP is finally Multimedia hitting the call center By year-end 2006, CC’s 50 percent of UQ and mainstream; by 2007 there will Extended enterprise IP telephony and be over one millionunified IP agent the surveyed companies, messaging. Of systems will Enterprises Workforce positions in operation and by support SIP as an 82. 4 option percent reported that they Globalization 2008, IP ACD revenues will (0. 8 probability) support multiple media types in By 2006, leading enterprises will have overtaken traditional TDM their contact centers. This be investing in contact center revenues… Demand for offshore call center indicates that multimedia for all employees outsourcingtois growing and contact centers (astechnology opposed to help them measure, track east and to countries across telephony-only "call centers") shifting have entered the mainstream. manage their own Europe and will also grow in the The large percentage of communications (0. 7 probability) APAC region through 2007 multimedia contact centers does not imply equal adoption levels of universal queue (UQ) systems (30. 1 percent of contact centers report having UQ Datamonitor: June 2004 capability) Gartner: June 2003 Gartner: May 2004 Gartner: March 2004 Datamonitor: December 2003

Value of Contact Center to Enterprise Increase profits by 2 of customer losses related to poor customer service/sales interaction 1 Decrease defections by Sources: 1. Forum Corp 2. Harvard Business Review

The Converged Contact Center “Even though my call centers are distributed, I now have a single, centralized cross-media view of the total customer experience. ” PO R O C IT A G EN T TE A R “Now I can not only solve the customer’s problem the first time I talk to him, but I can suggest helpful upgrades. ” U C ER M O ST “Whether I contact them by email, Web, or on the phone, I always get the answer, fast!” “I can deploy a call center anywhere, easily interface to my business applications, and manage it all from my desk. ”

Compelling Reasons for IP Analysts indicate IP is viable and growing: § Growth in overall Vo. IP o Over the next five years, analysts expect significant growth in the number of IP-architected call centers, with all new switches sold in 10 years to be IP switches. § Demand for hybrid Vo. IP add-ons o o Enterprise call centers will migrate to IP slowly (2005 -08), due to reluctance to add risk to customer-facing activities. Large call centers are more likely to demand Vo. IP remote agents and hybrid solutions to protect existing investments. § Demand for continued support of PSTN switches o Enterprises, especially large enterprises, will require continued support and add-ons for their PSTN switches. Sources: Frost 2003, Yankee Group 2003, Datamonitor 11/2002, Giga 2003

Compelling Reasons for IP § Advantages of Vo. IP in contact centers o o o Support of anywhere agent Support of remote sites and virtual contact centers Reduced telephony charges Unified development and administration Reduced network and operating costs as voice and data networks converge § Two main types of IP contact center solutions o o Hybrid IP/circuit-switched Pure IP-centric

What if you could… Cut telephony costs by routing voice traffic over IP networks? Locate agents in regions with low labor and facility costs? Deploy Vo. IP agents using your existing Call Center? Administer your PSTN and Vo. IP agents using the same management tools you use today? § Use the same reporting tools you use today for PSTN or Vo. IP? § Move to Vo. IP without rewriting or retraining your staff? § § You can!

Factors to Consider When Evaluating Solutions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Breadth of Applications Flexibility Rich IP Features Investment Protection Company Viability

(1) Breath of Applications § The IP Contact Center solution must offer the rich set of capabilities that the Contact Center Environment requires: o o o § ACD Predictive Dialing IVR Multi Channel Functionality (Chat, Email, Workflow) Recording and Quality Monitoring Reporting “To the Operations team, it doesn’t matter what the underlying infrastructure is, but the business applications are critical. ”

(2) Flexibility § “Anywhere” access for agents o o § § § Agents at home Branch office Call Center Knowledge Workers Scalability from tens to thousands of users Standard interface support Across technologies; PSTN/Vo. IP

Flexibility - Agents Anywhere Agents connect to IP PBX LAN/ WAN Home-based Agents Customer IP PBX SIP PSTN SIP SIP Toll-Bypass Gateway Internet LAN/ WAN SIP IPEnabled Call Center Agents in Call Center Home-based Agents TDM Agents connect to PSTN PBX Customer PSTN PBX

Flexibility - Multi-Site Networking via IP Calls can be sent from one call center to another via Vo. IP technology IP-Enabled Center Managed Corporate Network IP-Enabled Call Center IP-Enabled Center LAN/WAN

(3) Rich IP Features Must offer Advanced voice quality and telephony features § § § § § SIP v 2. 0 compliant Automatic Gain Control Echo Cancellation Silence Suppression to conserve bandwidth Comfort Noise DTMF tone detection and generation Configurable, dynamic and adaptive Jitter control Flexible packetization rate Qo. S

Rich IP Features - Standards Support § § § Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [RFC 3261] Session Description Protocol (SDP) [RFC 2327] Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) [RFC 1889] DTMF digit detection and generation [RFC 2833] CODEC Support: o o o G. 711μ-law G. 711 A-law G. 729 A / G. 729 AB

Rich IP Features - Audio Codecs § G. 711 provides best audio quality o o o 64 kbps (payload) Good with low call volume A-law and u-Law setting based on country • Set μ-Law in Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, United States • Set A-Law in other countries § G. 729 compression reduces bandwidth required o 8 kbps (payload) § Codecs selected in order of preference based on capabilities of connecting device

Rich IP Features - IP Network Interqueue IP Network Inter. Queue Seattle Portland Chicago SIP Trunks WAN VPN San Francisco Voice and Inter. Queue Data Exchanged over IP WAN/VPN Route to any agent off any Call Center! Miami

(4) Investment Protection § § § Must support both TDM and IP to enable seamless transition Must provide standard interfaces for connectivity Must offer interfaces to existing desktop, front office, and back office applications Routing rules, administration, reporting remain same for PSTN or Vo. IP transport Must offer support for standard IP phones - Aspect, Cisco, Siemens, Pingtel, Snom or ‘soft’ IP Phones (MS Windows Messenger) Allow companies to migrate at own pace

(5) Company Viability § § Proven - Must have expertise and focus in Contact Center Astute Innovators – must provide leadership in innovating technologies in this market Customer Driven - Must have a history of delivering superior customer service Always There - Must have the financial discipline and viability to be a trusted long-term business partner

Summary and Close § § The benefits of moving to IP are clear and IP is here now In evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions, companies must consider: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Breadth of Applications – must offer the full set of contact center applications that the business requires Flexibility – must provide the level of scalability and deployment flexibility to address grow as the business needs expand Rich IP Features – must offer complete set of IP features and standards interfaces Investment Protection – must allow companies to migrate to IP at their own pace Company Viability – must deal with a vendor with the expertise, good reputation, and viability needed to be a long term business partner.

Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, visit us at www. aspect. com