Voice 2.0 and the Contact Center
Did you catch Dr. Alan Baratz's keynote at VoiceCon? There were many facets to his presentation— leveraging email-like control over real-time communications, new chameleon devices, and new approaches to enterprise collaboration. Baratz masterfully wove them together in spelling out Avaya's vision of a Voice 2.0 enterprise. Afterwards, I realized that many Voice 2.0 features are already available. You'll find them in the contact center!
The main idea underlying Voice 2.0 is to take the real-time communications that employees find comfortable in their role as consumers—IM, SMS, social media, video— and infuse them into daily business communications.
We're not quite there yet. But it was revealing to see much of this technology on display during Baratz's demo of Avaya one-X Agent® contact center software. Agents have a powerful desktop interface that integrates voice with instant messaging and Presence, and lets them control the connection (using, for example, clickable conference, forward, and send to IVR buttons) in far more sophisticated ways than is available to the average deskphone user.
What works in the contact center isn't necessarily the right approach for office workers. As Baratz pointed out, business users would rather handle voice communications from their phones, not their PCs.
Baratz closed his keynote by announcing a no-compromise solution to this PC vs. phone dilemma. Avaya has come up with a new chameleon-like device that will have the properties of both a desktop computer and desktop phone!
This versatile software-controlled appliance will boast a high-res video screen that’ll support video conferencing capabilities found on bulkier PCs. Instant messaging will be built in, along with the ability to add new applications.
In other words, you’ll soon have at your disposal the power of contact center agent call control software in a convenient small footprint component. It’s Voice 2.0 for the rest of us.
There’ll be more news on the “chameleon” in the next 6 to 9 months. Stay tuned!
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