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Thursday, 31 January 2008

Avaya Vs Genesys

Having worked in both Avaya Interaction Center (AIC) and Genesys, I would like to compare them. Please note that these are my personal opinions and you should consider your business needs to select the product.

EPABX:

Avaya Interaction Center (AIC) seamlessly integrate with Avaya EPABX and would be the first choice, if you have Avaya end to end solution in your environment. 

 If you have any other environment (Nortel, Siemens etc), you should go with Genesys call center solution. 

Routing:

I feel that Genesys routing is better than Avaya (even the user interface IRD vs workflow designer). Genesys Routing solution have more options and features to select the target than Avaya. I am particulary impressed with Genesys cost based routing solution (from version 7.5 onwards).  To get more details about cost based routing, please refer to my blog.

Reporting:

As always, you will find the discrepancies in the call center reports (generated by EPABX) and call center applications like Avaya OA & Genesys (CCPulse+).

Avaya reporting system (OA) is web based and is preferrable.

Genesys have ICON to get mroe insights about your customer.

Installation:

Avaya recommends only particular version of Java (even though latest versions are available) for their solution installation. While integrating with third party products like Siebel, it is better to check the pre-reqs of both the products.

I will be adding more in this blog as I further dig into each products.

Cost based routing : New offering

Cost based routing.. Good concept !! If implemented correctly, it can be boom for many call centers / organizations. 

What is cost based routing solution?

Cost based routing is new offering from Genesys 7.5 version onwards. In this scenarios, routing decisions are based on total routing cost of an interaction. It calcualtes intrastructure cost and resource cost (of course, we need to define these in config manager) before  routing an interaction.

Very interesting !! You will find more information about this on "Routing solutions guide" from Genesys. 

I am planning to implement the same in my lab environment and will post more information :-)

Monday, 28 January 2008

verification_time : configuration parameter

"verification_time" specifies the amount of time that must elapse to consider the agent as available in Genesys to receive interactions from URS (even when the agent is in available mode in PBX).

For ex, consider the verification time as 15 seconds.

  • Agent (agent1) logs into the softphone and make himself available at 10:00:00 AM

  • PBX will show the agent state as "Ready"

  • When the verification time elapses i.e) 10:00:15 AM, URS will consider the agent as "Ready" to receive interactions.


This allows agent to prepare for the next call. Please note that this applies every time the agent moves into ready state.

Special thanks to Reinoud, Accenture for making corrections.

About "transition_time": Configuration Parameter

Minimum time URS will wait before using the same target.  It is recommended to have 3 seconds or higher to avoid routing to the same target.

Avaya Contact Center Express (CCE)

Avaya Contact Center Express is a Microsoft Windows-based software suite that enables companies to turn one-dimension call centers into multi-media contact centers. Using the phantom call capability supported by Avaya DEFINITY, Multivantage or Communications Manager switches, Contact Center Express 3.0 allows end customers to contact the company via phone, email, text or instant messaging. Whether your customers like texting on their mobile phones, sending emails or chatting over the internet, their preferred method of communicating will be treated exactly the same as a traditional phone call. It will be placed in a priority queue and distributed to an agent with relevant skills and knowledge. What’s more, the agent can reply using the same method of contact, conducting a helpful conversation, just like you would expect over the phone.

Easy to implement and simple to use, Contact Center Express also delivers:


  • Out-of-the-box desktop applications for supervisors



  • Framework applications, including intelligent routing, interaction data and centralized configuration



  • Outbound preview dialing, either automated or agent-initiated



  • Powerful application development tools for complete customization and integration



  • Simple and fast wizards for desktop screen pops and routing rules



Contact Center Express products fall into three major categories:


  • Desktop - Contact Center Express Desktop, Supervisor, Agent, Wallboard, Contact Center Express Reporting and MS CRM Connector



  • Server - Media Director, Preview Contact Media Store, Email Media Store, Simple Messaging Media Store, MSN Messenger Gateway, AOL Instant Messenger Gateway, Short Message Service Gateway, Web Chat Gateway, License Director, Application Management Service, Configuration Server, XML Server IVR Server, Call Routing Server, Interaction Data Service, Contact Database, SQL Plug-in, Rules Plug-in, SOAP Plug-in, Script Plug-in



  • Developer - Developer



Source: www.avaya.com

About Avaya Interaction Center (AIC)

Interaction Center is the Avaya Customer Interaction Suite software platform for enterprise class management of multimedia communications: voice, video, email, web chat, and IP telephony.


What's New With This Release


SIP Services is an optional configuration within Interaction Center 7.1 foundation software. It introduces SIP within the context of a true multi-channel contact center environment. Advanced Interaction Center capabilities for routing, integration, context delivery, and reporting are used within a full end to end SIP solution.

Business Benefits



Optimize customer experiences and agent effectiveness and efficiency


Uniformly support any end customer preferred media - voice, video, email, web, SMS, self service


Utilize enterprise business rules and customer segmentation data to define contact treatment and achieve service level objectives


Centralize management and administration of business rules, workflows, agents work items and task loads



Source: http://support.avaya.com

Why I started this blog?

My search to resources in contact center technologies (Avaya, Genesys, Cisco) lead to creating a site. In this site, I planned to update Job Offers,Tips & Tricks from Avaya, Genesys and Cisco.

As of now, this blog will have the below mentioned products

* Avaya IP Telephony

* Avaya Interaction Center

* Avaya Workflow Designer

* Avaya Contact Center Express

* Genesys Framework

* Genesys Reporting

* Genesys Routing

* Cisco ICM

* Cisco IPCC

* Cisco IP Telephony

If you are looking for job or want to add any tips/tricks in the above mentioned technologies, please send an email to ctiworld@gmail.com