Five stand-out companies

Rockwell ECD www.ecd.rockwell.com Transcend - A PC-Based ACD

The ACD has always been the telecommunications equivalent of the mainframe. Like ACDs, mainframes are expensive and proprietary but very reliable. In the last few years, PC/PBXs and ACDs have been introduced that boast many useful features at a lower price point than traditional ACDs. What was really needed to legitimize the market, however, was a major player to introduce a PC-based ACD or PBX.

Transcend from Rockwell Electronic Commerce Division (ECD) is a PCbased ACD running Microsoft Windows NT that conforms to the ECTF S.100 specification. Transcend represents Rockwell's initial entry into the small call center market.

Rockwell, more well known as a conservative company, has recently become as nimble and as quick as any small CTI company in the industry. I would be hard pressed to think of another company of its size and product breadth that has come up with as many useful, leading-edge CTI products as of late. Now that we have seen what Rockwell has done with Transcend, it is obvious that every PBX and ACD manufacturer must offer an alternative to stay competitive. If any PBX or ACD vendor is not working on a competitor to Transcend, I believe they will be in big trouble.

What sets Transcend apart from its competitors is the fact that Transcend gets the famous Rockwell Spectrum ACD interface including reporting and monitoring features. Rockwell has been making ACDs since the dawn of time it seems, and they have tremendous experience in ACD design, interface and reporting functions. Many of the original engineers who were involved with ACD installations over 20 years ago at Rockwell are still at Rockwell aiding in new product development. There are few companies that have this amount of ACD experience embedded in their ranks.

Without getting mired in the details of the technology, suffice it to say that Rockwell made a very educated selection by deciding to base their Transcend product on a the ECTF S.100 specification through Dialogic's CT Media. Think of CT Media and S.100 as the standard that allows a company to leverage its investment in one switching server architecture for use by all switching applications in the call center.

Think how modularized a typical call center is. They may have an ACD, a PBX, an IVR system, fax-on-demand, fax server, Web click-through/Internet telephony server, predictive dialer, etc. This was how the computer market used to be as well. You used a mini or mainframe for database work, a workstation for graphics and a Wang word processor. Computers were also once specialized, just like call center products of today. S.100 is the specification that will free the call center from being dependent on expensive proprietary solutions. The PC standard helped the computer industry take off by allowing multiple programs to run on the same hardware. Companies could concentrate on writing to the same platform and did not need to learn multiple computer architectures. S.100 will allow call center developers to write to the same standard while sharing the same underlying server. As customers, you will benefit from greater flexibility and more options, which will translate into better value over time.

The full benefits of Transcend can only be seen if others decide to jump on the S.100 bandwagon. This is the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma. Some other major telecommunications players have announced S.100 development and we will soon see how this shakes out. Pricing was not available as of this writing.

Telrad www.telradusacom Agent-C

In the August 1997 issue of CTI(TM), we reported on the revolutionary switch-based server architecture that Telrad proposed and has subsequently implemented. Instead of external CTI links that rely on proprietary or even open standards, Telrad takes CTI one step further by integrating the PC server right into the PBX.

Leveraging the power of the switch-based server has allowed Telrad to introduce Agent-C. With this new release, they bring a unique shrink-wrapped package that is "plug-and-play" to the desktops of call centers. Having the server so tightly integrated with the PBX allows database searches to take place immediately, without incurring any network delay.

The ability to bring up customer history, and set triggers for a variety of applications based on Caller ID, ANI, DID and DNIS, allows predetermined events to take place before a call is answered.

Telrad is one of the few PBX manufacturers that harps on integrating voice telephony with data communications on the network. This is a very logical extension of the core PBX functions and I have been promoting the concept of a unified telecommunications and data communications infrastructure for some time now. This is a very impressive direction coming from a PBX company and I believe that most PBX vendors will be forced to follow their lead eventually. For more information, please see www.telradusa.com.

Quintus www.quintus.com Two Maier Acquisitions Completed

Recent acquisitions by Quintus Corporation have truly positioned this company to become a leader in the call center and customer care market. Quintus claims to be the most comprehensive provider of enterprise call center technology and services by enabling an end-to-end call center solution.

Quintus, a company traditionally known for providing excellent customer care and support, has acquired two companies that have allowed them to have a complete suite of call center products. Quintus' acquisitions of Nabnasset Corporation and Call Center Enterprises allow them to fulfill almost any call center software and service need.

Nabnasset was one of those companies that had great products and a great reputation in the CTI market but didn't promote themselves too well to the media. I often heard their customers, partners and even competitors praising them. I don't hear that too often. It's nice to know that their product line will now be subjected to the Quintus PR and marketing machine, which has done a great job of promoting Quintus through all of its varied announcements.

The differentiator at Quintus is the end-to-end solution they provide. Nabnasset's technology and Call Center Enterprises' consulting service will be integrated into the overall Quintus line of offerings, CustomerQ (shown above), WebQ and ImpaQ, will be available as a suite or as individual components. Nabnasset's VESP line of computer-telephony integration tools has been renamed Nabnasset CTI and will be featured in Quintus product enhancements and new releases throughout the coming months. The Call Center Enterprises business consulting services will be enhanced as part of Quintus' new QSolutions consulting organization. QSolutions provides services for the life of a call center, from analysis and design through implementation and long-term support.

Siebel Systems, Inc. www.siebel.com Scopus Acquried

Siebel is a company that seems to have come out of nowhere to become one of the highest flying public companies in our market in an amazingly short amount of time. The have recently continued this momentum with the acquisition of Scopus technology for $460 million dollars. Siebel has purchased Scopus so it can combine Scopus' customer service and call center solutions with Siebel's sales automation products.

The architectures of both the Siebel and Scopus solutions were very similar from the start, allowing the unification of the two disparate product lines to soon be combined without requiring a huge learning curve from the installed base. Both products use visual tool sets and a general repository or database.

Scopus brings some interesting features to the Siebel product line by dynamically connecting clients to applications and reconnecting clients after server failures. Other features that Scopus brings to the table are database replication; multiple database support and the ability to run distributed applications across an entire enterprise.

Some of the features that both products share are their reliance on accepted, open computer standards. Some examples include the ability to be customized through Microsoft's Visual Basic and the ability for the clients of both products to support Java.

As you can see, these products are pretty complementary and similar at the same time. Siebel's goal is to create a single, unified integrated environment that expresses the best of both technologies including a common set of development tools and a common interface across the entire product family.

The following example should illuminate the potential impact this partnership will have on their clients. Both systems currently use workflow managers that are capable of generating events for each other, based on operations that take place within each system. An escalated service request from Scopus' Support Team could drive a salesman's customer contact activity through Siebel's Sales Enterprise. If your needs are sales-, service- or callcenter-centric, you should investigate the new product portfolio of Siebel to see some of the best integration in the industry.

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. www.genesylab.com The Genesys Suite

Genesys has recently upgraded its entire Genesys Suite of applications. Of special interest is their announcement of the new Genesys Email module, which was formerly the Adante e-mail product line from the recently acquired Forte. This new Email option allows a blended multiple media option for customer interaction networks and allows enterprises to integrate e-mail handling into their existing telephony infrastructure.

In addition to e-mail routing, Genesys Email's content analysis, response library and customer history features drastically reduce the time needed to manually respond to large amounts of e-mail. Customer information can be automatically delivered to an agent's desktop so that the agent has the right customer information as they receive the e-mail.

Genesys has also added a new remote option that moves the call center beyond the corporate office boundaries. Their remote option extends the call center to branch offices without PBXs or to agents working from home or in other locations outside the formal call center. As a result, enterprises experience an increase in agent productivity, retention and effectiveness. Remote agents allow companies to be much more flexible with regards to their hiring and location strategies.

Finally, Genesys has added an outbound scripting option to its Campaign Manager application. The outbound scripting option allows the dynamic creation, distribution and modification of agent scripts. These scripts optimize customer interaction and increase revenue by stepping agents through a consistent sales dialog, giving them instant guidance for handling objections, and helping them recognize and take advantage of cross-selling opportunities. This new tool also brings consistency and responsiveness to the messages delivered in an outbound campaign.

Sincerely yours,

Rich Tehrani Group Publisher in rtehrani @ tmcnet.com

Copyright Technology Marketing Corporation Apr 1998
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