COSMOCOM AND NEC BRAZIL SIGN DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT

 System Integrator Offers Leading Hosted Contact Center
On-Demand Platform to Top Carriers in Brazil

On May 30, CosmoCom announced an agreement with NEC do Brasil under which the Sao Paolo-based systems integrator will resell its CosmoCall Universe contact center platform in Brazil with a focus on the nation's major carriers and other contact center opportunities. According to Datamonitor, Brazil is the largest contact center market by far in Central America Latin America (CALA), with more than half of the CALA total.

As an end-to-end systems integrator for major network operators, NEC do Brasil is well positioned to offer CosmoCall Universe, because it is the platform most selected by top tier operators worldwide for their hosted contact center on-demand services. NEC's unique approach encompasses everything carriers need to support services, from basic infrastructure to high-level applications, and has earned them a major supplier role with Brazil's biggest telcos.

"We searched for a carrier-grade contact center product because several of our major telco customers were looking for such a platform," explained Herberto Macoto Yamamuro -- COO & Carrier Business Unit -- General Manager NEC do Brasil. "We chose CosmoCom because we recognized it as the best contact center platform for carriers, and also because some of our customers requested CosmoCom by name. CosmoCom's support of our partnership has been exemplary, and we look forward to a great future working with them."

Read the release at http://www.cosmocom.com/pressreleases/PressReleases2006/pr05302006.htm 

WIDELY DISTRIBUTED GLOBAL CALL CENTER WITH SMALL SITES

 Is this Feasible? 

By Meir Yaniv, SVP Market Development, CosmoCom - When we talk about global call centers, we always think about a large multi-national company operating several large sites with heavily invested local infrastructure. Then, we think about a complex pre-routing facility operated by a global Service Provider distributing the calls between the sites.

While expensive to implement and expensive to operate, this might work when large local sites are required. But what if the application requires many small sites? Is it still possible to build an effective global call center?

The customer, a national "semi-government" agency of one of the biggest countries in Europe, has been tasked with the responsibility of promoting tourism abroad. They do not sell travel or tourism packages, but rather provide information to interested callers.

To achieve the desired results, the agents need not only to be knowledgeable about the facilities and sites within the destination country, but also to speak the local language and understand with the local mentality -- if possible, to be local people. Considering also the need for the calls to be handled at minimum cost, both for the caller and for the agency, the customer decided to implement many small call centers located in the countries from which the potential tourists are coming. However, a dozen or so separate call centers would not only be expensive to implement and operate, but also almost impossible to monitor and ensure the high quality of service which is the agency's primary mandate.

The other alternative was to build a global call center made of many small sites. But was this feasible? Would it be economical? And would it be possible to ensure a high quality of service?

Fortunately, with CosmoCall Universe ("CCU"), an IP-based product that has a purely distributed architecture, this is not only feasible, but also economical and easy to manage. To date the customer has implemented a system with sites at the following locations:

• Amsterdam
• Berlin
• Brussels
• Dublin
• Hong Kong
• London
• New York
• Paris
• Stockholm

and is planning additional locations in:

• Madrid
• Milan
• Sydney
• Tokyo

Most of these locations have 5 - 7 agents.

The implementation of the system was straightforward and effective. The core CCU system (ACD, databases, etc.) was located in the capital of the destination country. Within each remote location, the customer installed a Voice Connection Server (VCS). The potential tourist would make a local call to the local VCS. When a local agent becomes available, the caller is connected to him/her. Even though the ACD that routes the call to the appropriate agent is located in Europe, a call in Hong Kong, for example, is a local call.

The local VCS is also providing IVR support and is capable of routing calls to other locations as well. For example, a potential tourist calling from Belgium will be greeted by the local IVR that will ask the caller his/her preferred language. If the caller chooses French, the call will be transferred to Paris, if Flemish to Amsterdam and if English to London. This is all done over IP links, so the cost remains low.

The system is a perfect example of a "virtual call center". The Call Center Manager has full visibility of the operation of the various sites and of the individual agents in each site. He/she can monitor them, assess loads and performance and respond as needed. The next step the agency is considering is using home-based agents, which can be plugged into this architecture with no changes.

This application is interesting because it demonstrates that with CCU, implementing a widely distributed global call center with small individual sites is feasible, simple, and cost effective. It also proves that the strategy of distributing the VCSs of such a system in the localities of the individual small sites is a simple and cost effective strategy. In fact, this global virtual architecture will work with any number of sites, and any mix of large and small sizes.

A VIEW FROM THE CORNER OFFICE

Unified Customer Communications

By Ari Sonesh, CEO -  Recently there has been lot of talk in the industry about Unified Communications, which is a very broad term related to the current revolution in communication technology.  A specialized subset of this term is Unified Customer Communications, which refers to the technology that CosmoCom invented and patented in 1996.   A quick search on Google shows that CosmoCom also invented the phrase Unified Customer Communications, essentially defining a new industry to come.  

By 2000, we had already claimed leadership in this space and were promoting the concept in our Unity is Beautiful advertising campaign.  But our vision of unity is reflected in the very name of the company.  Cosmos means an orderly, systemic Universe.  It is derived from the Greek word meaning everything.   The word Unity means undivided or unbroken completeness.   Cosmos and Unity are very similar in meaning.   And, of course the Com in CosmoCom stands for Communications.  In other words, CosmoCom means Unified Communications.  To further emphasize the point, we named our product CosmoCall Universe.

In response to the recent industry buzz about Unified Communications, I would like to compare and contrast this term with the more specialized term Unified Customer Communications.    In exploring these terms, we will be exploring how the disruptive technology VOIP and the convergence of voice and data networks into one IP network are changing the ways we will all communicate, and especially the ways we will communicate with our customers.

Unified Communications is about unifying all communication channels at the personal and organizational levels to communicate more effectively.   It refers to the unification of all the forms of voice communication, such as fixed and mobile phones, video, chat, email, voicemail, Fax, SMS, and collaboration tools such as conferencing and screen sharing.  It also implies unifying the communication channel itself with other information, such as caller identity, caller state or presence, caller location, etc.

Unified Customer Communications is about systematically offering unified communications to an organization's customers, so that they may interact with it more effectively and efficiently, creating customer satisfaction and loyalty, growing revenue, and reducing costs.   Unified Customer Communications includes Unified Communications, plus facilities such as  Automatic Call Distribution, Queuing, Self Help  IVR and IVVR (Interactive Voice and Video response),  Unified Recording (recording of all the channels),  Unified Reporting , and Unified Management and Supervision -- all focused on the customer. 

But it's really much more about the process than the technology.   Unified Customer Communications is unifying and streamlining the business process across all communication channels and across all locations, all the way to the individual employee.  Implementing it unifies the organization's workforce, goes beyond the boundaries of the call center to create informal call centers or, in other words, a true virtual call center.   Every employee can and should be part of the Unified Customer Service process.  

Finally, it's about a Unified Customer Experience, in which customers can select any communication channel and receive the same quality of service, supported by the same process, by people with access to the same information, including the history of previous communication sessions with that customer via any and all channels.  

 Let's explore in more detail what it takes to create Unified Customer Communications:

Unified Queue: When customers call using any of the channels, they don't know specifically who they want or need to reach.  An ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) is needed to connect the customer with the right person in the organization.   To support unified customer communications, a new kind of ACD is needed, an ACD that supports Unified Queue, yet another innovation that came from CosmoCom. 

Unified Customer Information Access: An employee that communicates with a customer needs to have all the customer's information and interaction history at his fingertips.  This is information is fetched from a database (e.g. a CRM), actually, in most cases, from several databases.  Unified Customer Communication must support Unified Information Access to all the relevant database across all channels, with a unified view.  This capability is one of the hallmarks of our technology supported by facilities such as CosmoConnector,  which enables multiple screen pops. and  our  many XML based APIs to integrate with an organization's IT infrastructure.

Unified Self Help:  IVR and IVVR (IVR + Video) are good example of unified self help across communication channels.   With our recent introduction of Video to IVR, customers can now call using their mobile video-capable telephones or other video terminals and expect the same functionality they would get with voice, but with the added efficiency of video to see selection choices instead of just hearing them, and to receive information visually instead of just hearing it.   All this is supported in a unified way by our graphical process design tool CosmoDesigner.

Unified Agent Client:   Communication is also unified for the Customer Service Representative (CSR), also known as Agent or Advisor.  This requires a unified agent client that supports all the channels (voice, video, chat, email, voicemail, fax, etc.), collaboration, unified access to information, and is truly universal and accessible everywhere.   With our introduction of the Agent Web Services and a Web-based agent client, a CSR and a Supervisor can now work from any device, including mobile devices that support a web browser.  Organizations can benefit from installing the Unified Agent Client on every desktop and notebook in the organization. 

Unified Supervision:  To ensure quality customer service, the entire process has to be supervised. With the advent of unified communications, supervisors need unified access to agents and data across all channels and locations.   This means that supervisory tool such as monitoring, whispering, real time views, historical reports, and recording facilities need to be unified across all the channel and locations.  

Unified Administration:  Many people don't realize the huge cost of provisioning and administering IT systems.  Unified Administration makes Unified Communications sensible and manageable.   Unified Administration must use and integrate with corporate directory services such as Active Directory or LDAP.  In CosmoCall Universe, all facilities are defined via the universal access of the web, universally across all the channels and location.  Integration with other provisioning systems is also supported.

Unified Applications Infrastructure:   To make Unified Customer Communication cost effective, requires unified infrastructure for all the applications (in this case, all the call centers) that an organization may need.   Unification supports agility, enabling the organization to roll out new applications (i.e. new call centers) fast.   When technology is location-independent, relocation is not an issue.   Furthermore, an contact center can now include its own outsourcers, truly unifying the customer service environment.   In CosmoCall Universe, we support location-independence, multi-tenancy, and self provisioning tools creating any number of autonomous and secure virtual call centers within one platform.  This capability is the most important differentiator of CosmoCom vs. all other vendors.

NEW OUTBOUND DIALER WHITE PAPER AVAILABLE

CosmoCom is pleased to announce the availability of a new white paper called "Outbound Campaigns, Predictive Dialing, Agent Productivity, and Compliance". This new paper, written by Steve Kowarsky, looks at the important differences between CosmoDialer and legacy dialers where productivity and compliance are concerned. 

Legacy predictive dialers were designed when nuisance calls were unlimited. These dialers can comply with recent regulations limiting nuisance calls, but they cannot do so while maintaining the agent productivity gains that justify their existence in the first place. This white paper explains why lab tests and real life experience differ dramatically for legacy dialers, and why CosmoDialer, designed from the ground up for agent productivity with compliance, gives you more of what you are paying for in a predictive dialer.  

The paper is now available on the CosmoCom website.

UNIFIED CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS WEB CAST

Streamline your Contact Center and the Customer Experience

As Ari mentions in his View from the Corner Office above, for contact centers, no Unified Communications program is complete unless it includes a Unified Customer Communications system.

Systematically offering unified communications to your organization's customers allows them to interact with your company more effectively and efficiently, leading to greater customer satisfaction and loyalty, growing revenue, and reduced costs. On July 20, 2006 at 1:00pm EST spend 60 minutes with CosmoCom and CRMXchange as we examine the key elements of Unified Customer Communications and explain how IP-unified contact center technology unifies the customer experience by enabling consistent businesses processes across all communication channels and all locations.

Register for this web cast

FROM OUR READERS

Congratulations to Rob Innes, of SBS, CosmoCom customer in the UK, who writes:

You might like to know that the campaign which I showcased at CosmoCommunity has just won some awards at the Institute of Direct Marketing's Business Performance Awards. We won the award for Data Targeting, came runner up in the award for Data Customer Insight and received joint fourth place overall (out of 27 shortlisted entries).

http://www.theidm.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=contentDisplay.&chn=1&tpc=5&stp=482#data

It is important to note that these are not Call Centre awards - there were no other call centre operators shortlisted - it is for marketing organisations that can demonstrate significant business improvement through the intelligent use of information.

The campaign ran entirely on the CosmoCom platform and the thing that allowed us to win was the open access we had to data - being able to select customer profile information and easily match it with customer interaction data allowed us to generate insights that would have been much, much more difficult on non-integrated platforms. This is a great strength of CosmoCom: support for turning data from the call centre into actionable intelligence. This is the area we intend to exploit in our consulting business.

 BITS & PIECES: SOME VOIP FACTOIDS

Gateway and Softswitch Markets to Reach $8.4 Billion in 2010
According to a recent report by In-Stat (www.in-stat.com) the global market for media gateways and Class 4 and 5 softswitches will jump from $2.7 billion in 2005 to $8.4 billion in 2010,.

"As interest in VoIP grows for both end users and carriers, the migration of circuit-switch networking to IP has increased," said Daryl Schoolar, In-Stat analyst. "The drivers for this migration include not only cost savings for subscribers and network operators, but also the promise of new applications that will enrich the communication experience."

One of the advantages of media gateways and softswitches is that they cost less than traditional equipment, In-Stat noted. It also creates carrier infrastructure to support future services.

Call Centers Ready to Migrate to IP Telephony
Most customer service organizations are poised to invest heavily in IP telephony in the call center over the next three years, but only if they are able to use their existing software and telephony equipment, according to a new survey of global enterprises sponsored by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc., an Alcatel company.

IP telephony is gaining momentum, said Wes Hayden, CEO of Genesys, but "customer service organizations have very different needs than the enterprise as a whole. It's not 'if' but 'how' [IP telephony] is embraced that is the most critical issue for customer service organizations."

Survey respondents indicated a strong preference for SIP and open IP standards, Genesys found. Open IP was highly regarded because of its ability to provide ongoing interoperability among business applications, databases and telephony equipment.
The shift to IP telephony in contact centers is moving quickly, with 60 percent of respondents expecting to deploy it in at least one contact center within a year, and 82 percent within two years, although most will only migrate some contact centers initially, according to the survey.

Most organizations expect to have a mixture of traditional circuit-switched telephony and IP-packet switching telephony across their operations for some time, as they continue to use existing infrastructure rather than taking a "rip and replace" approach. Forty-one percent of organizations planning or deploying IP contact centers will migrate existing contact centers rather than add new ones.

Next-Gen VoIP Equipment to Continue Strong Growth
Worldwide service provider next-generation voice and IMS equipment revenue dropped 7 percent to $722 million in the first quarter of 2006, but is up 48 percent from the first quarter of 2005, according to Infonetics Research's latest Service Provider Next Gen Voice and IMS Equipment report (www.infonetics.com).

Strong annual growth will continue over the next few years, the firm reported, driven by media gateways and softswitches. The total next-gen voice market will hit new highs each year until it reaches $6.2 billion in 2009.

WHO'S TALKING? RECENT INK

Sign of the Times
The June issue d of CRM Magazine features a great article called "Sign of the Times" by Coreen Bailor that takes a look at how CosmoCom customer CSD (Communication Services for the Deaf) is using video technology to help hearing impaired callers stay connected.  CSD has been offering Video Relay Services (CSDVRS)  since 2002 to enable deaf and hearing persons to communicate with each other over the phone with the assistance of video interpreters using American Sign Language.

More recently CSD solved the problem of deaf callers not being able to tell whether or not they were connected or in the call queue by implementing IVVR, which deaf callers to "see" what is happening in the IVR and while on hold. This has had a very positive effect on caller satisfaction and a decrease abandon rate.

Read more in the article which can be found online on the Destination CRM site or on page 43 of the June print issue.

NEW MEMBERS OF THE COSMOCOM FAMILY

CosmoCom Germany

Oliver Block has joined the German CosmoCom office as Sales Support Manager. Oliver holds a University Business Degree and has several years experience in Administration, as well as Sales and Marketing.

TRADESHOW NEWS: COMING ATTRACTIONS

	APAC Contact Centre Excellence Congress 2006 22-23 August 2006 Edsa Shangri-La Manila, Philippines http://www.apac-contactcentre.com/ Visit CosmoCom partner ePLDT (a gold sponsor of the event) as they demonstrate their CosmoCom-based solution. CosmoCom's Rayman Wong will also be a presenting a session on the benefits of Contact Center On-Demand.
	ACCE (Annual Call Center Exhibition) September 11 - 13, 2006  Washington State Convention and Trade Center Seattle, WA, USA http://www.accecmp.com See CosmoCom in Booth 516
	VON Fall September 11 - 14, 2006  Boston Convention Center Boston, MA, USA http://www.von.com/ See CosmoCom in Booth 1637
	RECORDED WEBINARS
	View recordings of our Webinar events including "Hosted Contact Center for Outsourcers", "Contact Center On-Demand" and "Telecom Customer Care"

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