Genesys Exhibits Key Capabilities of Dynamic Contact Centre at VoiceCon

  • Branch, Remote and Expert Agent Solution Extends Customer Service Beyond the Walls of the Traditional Contact Centre

Wokingham, March 8, 2007 - Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., an Alcatel-Lucent company (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), today unveiled key capabilities of the Dynamic Contact Centre (DCC). The DCC showcases how customer service can be elevated to a strategic business asset designed to increase overall customer loyalty and business value. A DCC stops customer frustration, drives contact centre efficiencies and accelerates business innovation.

VoiceCon attendees will have the opportunity to observe a DCC implementation powered by the Genesys 7.5 Customer Interaction Management Platform at booth 1004 at the Gaylord Palms Hotel, March 6-8, 2007.

As contact centres become increasingly important corporate assets, customer service organisations must transform themselves into service centres that automatically optimise customer traffic, internal resources and business outcomes. Most companies are challenged with breaking the traditional "zero-sum game" of tradeoff balancing and instead establish appropriate measures of these needs to simultaneously improve the customer experience, increase agent productivity and satisfaction and drive revenue, enhance loyalty and up-sell customers.

The recently released Genesys 7.5 (widely available in April 2007) is the platform for a broader set of capabilities that Genesys and its partners will deliver over the next 18 months. Genesys 7.5 takes advantage of Open IP and SIP standards and is the first contact centre software to incorporate presence through IM, chat and IP telephony.

One Genesys customer, FinecoBank of Italy, found that Genesys Open IP and SIP solutions fit well with Fineco's online delivery model. Because it can connect the contact centre with business applications, Open IP helps businesses extend customer service beyond the traditional contact centre, leveraging customer data and knowledge from across the enterprise. Open IP also brings the contact centre closer together - linking Fineco's remote offices and agents to better align service goals across regions.  

"We wanted to create an open, transparent communication line, moving our customers to the appropriate expert to solve their problem or answer their question," said Massimo Maggioni, CRM strategy developer, FinecoBank. "We want to create strong relationships between Fineco, our financial planners and our customers. The bank gives customers direct access to those in CRM, the front office and the back office."

At VoiceCon, Genesys will showcase this component of 7.5 to support the development of a DCC infrastructure:

Branch, Remote and Expert Integration
Sometimes the right expert for a customer service call is located well beyond the contact centre in a branch, remote, home, virtual or back office. This new extension capability leverages field experts selectively, regardless of location, reaching out to available resources to respond to customer enquiries that require expert attention. For example, high-value clients might be routed to a highly-skilled resource located within a branch office, rather than the general call centre.

In Genesys 7.5, the Genesys SIP Server provides the flexibility to connect callers to agents or service experts anywhere at anytime, routing calls to the correct expert using agent presence information. Customer service experts are no longer tied to the physical contact centre but can exist outside the traditional walls of the centre. With SIP Server, remote agents are managed as if they are sitting across the hallway, and these agents still have every advantage of leveraging the entire contact centre infrastructure and Genesys Agent Desktop. Ultimately, the SIP Server consolidates and virtualises agent resources. In addition, no additional client software is required on agents' personal computers and devices because the Genesys Agent Desktop is browser-based.

Breaking Down the Walls of Banking and Insurance Contact Centres
Consider a bank customer calling to learn more about a home equity loan. An agent in the front-office may not have the in-depth knowledge necessary to respond to the customer's questions; the contact centre may not have agents with the necessary skills on hand to respond either. Rather than potentially lose revenue due to inadequate staffing, Dynamic Contact Centres are able to leverage expert resources periodically, whenever called upon. Genesys 7.5 instantaneously sends the call to an expert agent regardless of location, rather than allow the prospective customer to remain on hold or call back another time.

In another example, a person needing to file an automotive claim contacts their insurance company. This person also needs a field agent to review an estimate or examine damage done to the vehicle.

In insurance claims, there are typically several insurance company representatives involved, and customers need to interact with those that are not on the front-line of customer service in the contact centre, yet are every bit as critical to fulfillment of the claim, and every bit as valuable to the customer service experience. With Genesys 7.5, calls can easily be routed to appropriate agents when outside expertise is needed.   

From Silos to Stand-Alone Experts
To respond to increased customer expectations, contact centres should tap into a broader pool of integrated knowledge-workers that have the expertise to respond to more involved customer queries. In a DCC, expert agents are "on call" and at the ready. Branch, remote, home and expert-agent integration results in:

  • Superior customer service - By connecting the customer to an appropriate agent using presence-based routing the call, call resolution time is reduced and the quality is improved.
  • Reduced cost - Leveraging a broader pool of resources and being able to allocate each step of the customer interaction to the right resource results in cost savings for contact centres.
  • Improved agent experience - The agent experience is improved, giving agents the option and flexibility to work at a branch or remote location. Regardless of the location, the agent has the same Genesys Agent Desktop, resulting in retained productivity, just as though they were working at the same physical contact centre location. Additionally, expert agents can control how customer interactions are submitted to them, an advantage over the traditional ACD "push" model in which agents had minimal control over quantity and type of interaction received.

"The Genesys DCC validates the company's expansion in process optimisation," said Daniel Hong, lead analyst, Voice Business, Datamonitor plc. "Through DCC, Genesys introduces new capabilities and texture around agent integration, core routing and communication elements. When combined together the message of customer-centricity is a powerful one."

"The evolution to SIP and voice over IP is a key enabler of location-independent contact centre operations," said Sheila McGee-Smith, president and principal analyst of McGee-Smith Analytics. "Genesys customers that have implemented SIP Server are often making the transition to support an increased number of agent locations without proliferation of hardware systems."

Genesys recently commissioned McGee-Smith Analytics to discuss the implementation of SIP Server with some of its customers. A white paper available from Genesys, "Customers' Expanding Reliance on the Genesys Suite," offers a summary of these discussions:
http://genesyslab.com/public/retrieve/?item=B2BDC3D6C9CCCFD2C5D8BBCA3541B0C4&view=item&autoforward=http://genesyslab.com/public/retrieve/?item=B2BDC3D6C9CCCFD2C5D8BBCA3541B0C4.

About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent company, is the only company that focuses 100 per cent on software to manage customer interactions over the phone, web and in e-mail. The Genesys software suite dynamically connects customers with the right resources – self-service or assisted-service - to fulfill customer requests, optimise customer care goals and efficiently use resources. Genesys software directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day for 4,000 companies and government agencies in 80 countries. These companies and agencies can leverage their entire organisation, from the contact centre to the back office, to improve the overall customer experience. As a result, Genesys helps stop customer frustration, drive efficiency, and accelerate business innovation. For more information, go to www.genesyslab.com 

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications, and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move.  With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organisations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved adjusted proforma revenues of Euro 18.3 billion in 2006 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris.[All figures exclude impact of activities to be transferred to Thales]. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
or visit the industry blog at www.betterinteractions.com

Media Contact:
Lucille Jackson, Genesys, 0118 974 7144, ljackson@genesyslab.co.uk

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