Customers of Genesys (News - Alert) Telecommunications Laboratories deservedly renowned workflow solutions will now be able to extend VoIP into their contact centers thanks to a partnership with CounterPath.

Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent company, will integrate CounterPath's (News - Alert) Software Development Kit (SDK) into its Agent Desktop product suite to bring improved VoIP to contact center customers worldwide. Genesys will use CounterPath's C++ Edition SDK to create Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) endpoint connection functionality. As part of its next-generation desktop software, this new SIP endpoint connection makes it easy for Genesys customers to extend VoIP services to their centers. Members of the Genesys developer community will also be able to integrate this SIP endpoint connection to customize and deploy their own applications.

CounterPath's C++ Edition SDK now supports Visual Studio 2008, which takes the developer experience one step further by empowering more innovation across next generation Windows applications. CounterPath also offers COM Edition and ActiveX Web Edition SDKs which enable flexible, rapid application development options for creating desktop softphone clients, Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and telephony extensions into existing enterprise and web applications. CounterPath SDKs are built on open standards, leveraging SIP to create, run and terminate multi-media sessions.

The Genesys/CounterPath partnership and integration is timely in that many firms are now switching from TDM to VoIP to achieve cost savings, greater flexibility, and better service. Many TDM switches are at the ends of their functional lifespans and cannot be easily adapted to new technologies. Also more solutions such as call recording are built for VoIP rather than TDM.

An article on SIP in the contact center that appeared in the May 2009 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions reports that VoIP achieves these results by eliminating separate voice networks including switches and cabling, and management. There are also reduced network management fees and lowered carrier fees.

 

Also VoIP makes working with multiple channels: e-mail, chat, web form, and social networking more effective as all of these applications can be blended into a single stream. This gives improved interaction consistency and better service. It delivers presence/unified communications to sales staff and subject matter experts, and enables informal agents such as in bank branches, much more seamlessly because the channels are in the same pipe.

 

These benefits are coming together in home agent deployment, which is growing in popularity. The cost savings, channel integration, and presence/UC connectivity to offices, teams, and supervisors make home working more feasible. Home-based contact centers provide net gains of $10,000 to $20,000 per agent/year according to The Telework Coalition through shrinking facilities costs and obtaining higher productivity by recruiting and retaining higher quality staff.

 

IP also meshes with another emerging trend: voice architecture centralization with minimal redundancy just as there is with data. Instead of ACDs: TDM or VoIP in each of 10 contact centers networked together there are 1 or 2 IP ACD servers. One server would carry most of the load with the other as a backup for spikes and redundancy, or handle satellite offices or home agents: which is how data is architected. The benefits are lowered capital and operating costs and improved customer service by being able to optimize the network better through more easily supporting virtualized queues across different sites.

“Call centers are primarily focused on two things: delivering excellence in customer satisfaction and improving operational efficiencies,” says Robert Brown, Vice President of Marketing for CounterPath. “The combined solution of Genesys’ call center software and CounterPath's SDK empowers call center managers to leverage innovative VoIP technologies to enhance collaboration, dynamically scale their workforce and increase agent productivity. Together, we are putting value added technology directly into their hands.”