Avaya announces new initiatives for mid-size contact centre market

Avaya today announced new initiatives related to its flagship contact centre solution for mid-size businesses - Avaya Contact Centre Express- that enable organisations to deploy the sophisticated customer service capabilities of larger businesses in a simplified, fully-integrated and more cost-effective way.

Avaya, a leader in business communications applications, systems and services, acquired Agile Software NZ, the developer of the Avaya Contact Centre Express solution. [1] With this agreement, Avaya gains full ownership of Avaya Contact Centre Express, which will help enable the company and its partners to accelerate their growth in the mid-market space.

Avaya also released Avaya Contact Centre Express 4.0, the latest version of its mid-market contact centre solution. This new release provides users with a host of advanced multimedia, reporting and self-service capabilities designed to enhance customer service and agent productivity for mid-sized companies or divisions of large organisations.

Mid-size companies face a unique set of customer service challenges since they have a fraction of the agents, administrators and budgets of larger businesses - yet may still require a more sophisticated set of features and services. Avaya's acquisition of Agile Software will help the mid-size customers of Avaya Contact Centre Express overcome these challenges and improve contact centre operations through a fully-integrated solution delivering more capabilities, easier installation, and a simplified migration path.

"Our acquisition of Agile Software - and the evolution of Avaya Contact Centre Express - reinforces our strong commitment to the mid-market contact centre space," said Bridget Kelly, country manager, Avaya SA. "Combining the expertise of Agile Software and Avaya will enable us to deliver more new and innovative solutions to our mid-market customers."

The "out-of-the-box" Avaya Contact Centre Express solution provides mid-size businesses with features such as a unified desktop display, advanced multimedia tools, and integration to leading CRM software, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The solution is powered by Avaya Aura Communication Manager, the company's voice and video telephony software delivering next-generation business communications.

New capabilities of Avaya Contact Centre Express 4.0 include:

* Enhanced reporting: Enhanced multimedia performance reporting on real-time and historical activity in a contact centre environment. Voice reporting is also added to existing e-mail and IM reporting, enabling companies to gain the robust reporting required for top-tier customer service. Users can choose from a range of standard reports or use custom reporting tools to create reports tailored to their specific needs.
* Speech self-service improvements: Integration with Avaya Voice Portal - the award-winning platform for automated voice, speech self-service and video customer care - provides seamless self and assisted service offerings.
* More automated features: More automated capabilities used by large contact centres are extended to the mid-market space. For example, a "customer requested callback" feature lets customers who cannot hold on the line to request a callback, automatically scheduling a return call from an agent.

Avaya Contact Centre Express has been installed by many companies worldwide, including Seattle, WA-based Free & Clear, the healthy behaviours company. Free & Clear had specific needs to address in creating a customer service operation that among other activities, could help patients quit tobacco use by scheduling "quit smoking" dates and providing supportive counselling via the phone. Avaya Contact Centre Express provided an integrated platform for inbound and outbound customer service that easily evolves as Free & Clear grows.

"Avaya's mid-size solution is ideal for our current and future needs," said Leif Haslund, telecom manager at Free & Clear. "It provides an effective way to deliver personalised, professional treatment to customers across 18 US states. We currently have two contact centres with more than 300 agents, and as we expand, we're confident Avaya Contact Centre Express will help us do so with ease and agility."