CCU + OCS: FURTHERING CONTACT CENTER REACH INTO THE ENTERPRISE

Enhancing Access to Experts Outside of the Contact Center via
Seamless MS Office Communications Server Integration

Earlier this year CosmoCom announced advancements in enterprise -wide unified customer communications with the launch of CCU 6. Now we further expanded its capabilities to unify the contact center and the rest of the enterprise by tightly integrating Microsoft's Office Communications Server (MS OCS) into the CosmoCom agent's desktop environment. The integration enables contact center personnel to reach out to non-contact-center experts across the enterprise, allowing for the two user communities to have rich media communications using text chat, voice, and video. This complements and expands upon CosmoCom's ReadyRep™ and Business User solutions which also enable non-call-center personnel to be woven into the fabric of enterprise-wide Unified Customer Communications.

CosmoCall Universe™ (CCU) is a unified, IP-based, multimedia contact center platform that empowers enterprise-wide consolidation of all contact center locations and applications into one virtual platform. MS OCS is a unified communication platform which includes instant messaging, voice and video communication, as well as presence management across the enterprise. Together, these two products enable a unified environment where contact center agents and enterprise experts share presence information and communicate with each other in a manner transparent to the user.

MS OCS functionality is now seamlessly integrated into CCU's CosmoDesk, which is the primary application for CCU users to manage their communications. The user directory is now expanded to include the names and availability of CCU-only users, CCU + OCS users, and OCS-only users. CCU and OCS users can consult via instant messaging, voice, or video. OCS-only users can be assigned to CCU groups in the same manner as CCU users. When a CosmoDesk user filters the agent list by group, both CCU and OCS users will appear with current presence status. The integration also enables "shared presence", so that agent status can be managed from either CosmoCom's CosmoDesk application or the OCS Communicator, with an update in one application immediately reflected in the other.

"Enabling agents to leverage knowledge workers, outside the four walls of the contact center, can increase first call resolution rates and dramatically improve customer satisfaction," said Daniel Hong, Lead Analyst of Customer Interaction Technologies at Datamonitor. "CosmoCom's work in this emerging area and tight integrations will have strong appeal among those enterprises considering or committed to Microsoft OCS."

Learn more about the CCU Contact Center Integration with Office Communication Sever now.

MISSED NEW HORIZONS IN TELEHEALTH?

CosmoCom and Datamonitor Webinar Recording Now Available

On June 3, CosmoCom, Datamonitor and special guest, CTO of the University of Kentucky presented a complimentary webinar called "New Horizons in Telehealth," to a packed virtual auditorium.

The field of Telehealth is growing rapidly in both size and scope. The Telehealth of today and tomorrow encompasses much more than video conferences with doctors, store-and-forward radiology, and home monitoring systems. Exciting new applications are emerging that draw upon voice response and multi-channel, multi-tenant contact center technologies to improve the quality and availability of care while reducing its cost. With the right tools, providers can now unify all facets of patient-provider communication.

Together Christine Chang (Datamonitor), Doyle Friskney (University of Kentucky) and Steve Kowarsky (CosmoCom) collectively addressed the question, "Could the simple telephone could be the big health technology breakthrough of the decade?" Why not view the Telehealth Webinar recording and see for your self?

SIMPLIFYING CONTACT CENTER INTEGRATIONS

The Office Communications Sever (OCS) story above is only one example how easily CosmoCall Universe (CCU) can integrate with other technologies. Although CCU is a unified, all-in-one contact center suite that can power advanced contact center implementations without the need for third party software, it was architected in a way that simplifies integration with other applications when desired. This is a powerful benefit that we sometimes take for granted since it is such a core capability in the platform.

CosmoCom recognized early on that most enterprises and organizations utilize one or more CRM or business applications as integral parts of their operations, and how important it is to be able to connect these applications to the contact center infrastructure for optimal agent performance and customer experience. It is also clear that CTI, or Computer-Telephony Integration (the umbrella term for the methodology used to connect the various piece parts of a complete call or contact center system) usually comes at great expense and hassle to the enterprise. From the beginning, addressing these two points for our customers has been a prime consideration in the design of CCU.

Because of the unity in the platform, much of the integration required in legacy call centers and competing technologies is unnecessary with CCU. Everything from IVR, ACD, Call Recorder, Predictive Dialer, and Agent are automatically synchronized and always have the same complete call-related information available.

Integration to external systems such as CRM is also greatly simplified because of this unity. External systems only need to exchange information and synchronize with one point in the system, the Agent application, while legacy CTI integrations require a separate CTI server to coordinate the actions of ACD, IVR, Agent, etc. with the external application. Integration is facilitated by CCU's rich set of open, standards-based interfaces, which are easy to use and well understood by a large number of programmers. CosmoConnector, an integration enabler further simplifies the process of pairing CosmoCall Universe with leading CRM applications (like Siebel, SAP, RightNow, Microsoft CRM, Salesforce.com and others) as well as specialized home grown CRM and business applications like those used in healthcare, helpdesk and other industries The result is that IT integration is completed more quickly and much less expensively than in the legacy environment, typically in hours or days, rather than weeks and months.

Furthermore, CosmoCall Universe uses standard VOIP interfaces and interoperates with all standards-based VOIP network infrastructures.

CCU 6 FEATURE OF THE MONTH

Screen Recording

This month in our ongoing series of CosmoCall Universe version 6 (CCU6) features of the month we'll take a look at CosmoCom's new screen recording technology.

CosmoCorder™ is the multimedia recording component of CosmoCom's unified contact center suite. The new screen recording functionality captures the entire user desktop during contact sessions of all channels including telephone, email, and chat, providing a record not only of what is said during a call, but also of what is done. This information is valuable for compliance recording, for dispute resolution, and for agent training and coaching that has become so important to industries like collections, healthcare, financial/banking and more.

The screen recording feature of CosmoCorder has several advantages over competing screen recording offerings in the market. First and foremost, like CosmoCorder itself, it is a unified product that works seamlessly with the overall contact center, not a separate system that requires costly integration, separate maintenance, and complex diagnostics to fix the blame when issues arise. Also, the screen recordings use the common WMV format that makes them viewable on any PC with standard, no-cost media players and no proprietary codec. This makes recordings easy to share with anyone who might need to see them.

Unlike many similar products, CosmoCorder's screen recording works well in a distributed virtual contact center environment. It supports agents at home and hosted contact centers from service providers, where conventional recording tools, especially screen recording, can be very problematic. Its architecture allows for central storage of screen captures without creating a security issue. Also, the transfer of recordings to central storage is a background process that uses only spare bandwidth and does not create its own great demands on network capacity.

"With screen recording, CosmoCorder is now an unbeatable alternative to expensive third party add-on recording tools," said Steve Kaish, CosmoCom's VP of Product Management. "And in distributed virtual contact centers, or in enterprises with strong security requirements, it is really the only viable option."

Learn more about CosmoCorder Unified Contact Center Recording Technology.

TEAM SPIRIT AT THE ANNUAL CALL CENTER OPEN

Anybody who reads the CosmoChronicle or has first-hand experience with anybody from CosmoCom knows that teamwork is an important undercurrent in everything we do - both within the company as well as with our customers and partners with whom we strive for mutual success. Here is an example of a different kind, demonstrating how we took that teamwork outside of the normal business environment with one of our partners.

In the Netherlands, our own Wiebe Vink teamed up with Steven van Dijk, Product Manager for CosmoCom service provider, Mtel, to burn up the tennis courts in the Annual Call Center Open. The event, which is in its sixth year, took place in Amsterdam on 4 June at Amstelpark and claims to be the biggest tennis event in the Netherlands.

The competition was tough, but the pair fought hard right down to the final game where they narrowly missed taking first prize. While they pair may not yet be ready for Wimbledon, they sure held their own, taking second place in the top category. At the risk of a few groans, I guess that makes them a different type of "VoIP server" technology.

MOVING AND SHAKING

While some of us were teaming up with partners on the tennis court or meeting healthcare customers and prospects in the virtual world at our successful Telehealth webinar, other team members were moving and shaking on the road, meeting and greeting face-to-face.

As we ended May, CosmoCom Asia Pacific VP, Andie Rees, joined our Japan office in Tokyo for a press conference to introduce CCU 6 to regional analysts and journalists. The event was well attended and local press and analysts left inspired with a good understanding of the powerful and flexible contact center technology. Feedback indicates that we can look forward to seeing some good press in the region in coming months.

Half-way around the globe, we kicked off June in Austin, Texas at the ICMI Contact Center Management Conference. Our executives and sales team met with and demonstrated CCU 6 to many interested prospects. One commented that he was "blown away" by the power of the technology. We look forward to many productive follow-ups.

On the tail end of June, our Northeast American reps had a presence at the Telx CBX (Customer Business Exchange) at the Marriott Marquis in Time Square, New York City. This one day, invitation only event was a great opportunity to network with hundreds of existing [and dare we say future] service provider and enterprises customers from more than 21 countries.

WHO'S TALKING? RECENT INK

NEW MEMBERS OF THE COSMOCOM FAMILYY

CosmoCom Americas

Israel Nisenbaum, has joined CosmoCom in the role of Global Chief Accountant. Israel is a very experienced accountant and manager who has worked extensively with CosmoCom on a consulting basis. He knows the company, our systems, and many of our people, especially those in accounting. Israel will be the responsible manager for all accounting personnel worldwide. Prior to CosmoCom he held accounting management positions at international corporations including Sbarro, Noodle Kidoodle, Greenman Bros. and Contel Executone.

Jorge Espinoza, is the latest addition to our support team in Melville. He joins us a TAC Engineer, bringing with him hands on experience in systems and network support and administration. He hold a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems from Stonybrook University in New York.

TRADESHOW NEWS: COMING ATTRACTIONS

	SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT September 1, 2009 Los Angeles Conventions Center Los Angeles, CA, USA   CosmoCom will be part of the Unified Communications in the Contact Center session (CC-01) at 9:00 am on September 1.
	RECORDED WEBINARS
	View recordings of our Webinar events including "New Horizons in Telehealth", "Consolidation 2.0", "Hosted Contact Center for Outsourcers", "Contact Center On-Demand" and "Telecom Customer Care"

	SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
	Please pass this issue of CosmoChronicle on to others who might be interested. If you are not already receiving the monthly CosmoChronicle you can sign up now. This and past issue are also available in the CosmoChronicle Archives.