At Aspect, we had recognized the significance of unified communications as a platform for transforming customer-company interactions. Microsoft saw the implications of UC in the contact centre to deliver a competitive advantage for organizations looking to streamline their customer-facing business processes and partnered with Aspect, the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact centre.
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As a deliverable from this alliance, we introduced Seamless Customer Service with the new Ask an Expert ™feature that utilizes the instant messaging and presence technology available in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. This solution enables contact centers to seamlessly escalate customer interactions to different channels – phone, IM, e-mail or conferencing – while addressing reliability, scalability and reporting needs.
With this feature, agents can identify available experts in the enterprise based on specific skill sets to address customer inquiries, therefore streamlining business processes and improving first-call resolution.
Also, to demonstrate the value of unified communications across a global organization, we have completed the deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 across our global offices and 1,700 employees, including the sites in India. We are already seeing aggressive ROI numbers, including reduced conference calling costs of $75,000 per month and additional cost savings resulting from the use of session initiation protocol (SIP) Trunking.
With regard to support for customers on this new technological advancements, we have built a professional services and systems integration practice - unified communications services. This service will help customers with planning through implementation and support of Microsoft unified communications products, including Office Communications Server in their contact centers and throughout their enterprises for software-powered voice, instant messaging, presence and conferencing.
