RFI Analysis: IP Contact Centers

Avaya, Concerto Software, CosmoCom, Genesys

Telecommunications Laboratories, Interactive Intelligence, Nuasis, Siemens Communications and Telephony @ Work agreed to participate in our RFI analysis. We also invited BT, a managed IP contact-center provider, to complete the RFI. Because evaluating BT's hosted contact center wouldn't be an apples-to-apples comparison, we discuss it separately (see "BT Offers a Hosted Twist for Contact Centers"). Digisoft Computers and ShoreTel were invited, but their products don't fit our requirements. Mitel Networks agreed to participate but never sent back the RFI. Aspect Communications, Cisco Systems, EADS Telecom (now Aastia Intecom), NEC and Nortel Networks didn't respond to our invitation.

We evaluated the overall contact center and integrated components in four major areas: system design, agents, reporting and price. System design encompasses architecture, business rules and routing, queuing and waiting, and enterprise integration, and it accounted for 60 percent of the score. Business rules and routing are especially key to increasing customer satisfaction in that they can move contacts into appropriate queues. We evaluated the products' ability to prioritize contacts, route callers to skilled agents, create rules and handle multimedia messages. We were glad to see that all the vendors could handle multimedia contacts without requiring completely separate business rules.

Kodiak also would like to move contacts within a queue, change priority for calls within queues and interrupt agents with higher-priority tasks, and it wants to alert customers to their places in line. The setups from Avaya and Interactive Intelligence could respond to e-mail contacts and list estimated wait times automatically, while Siemens' product can announce wait times for Web contacts and integrate speech recognition with IVR (interactive voice response). To match that functionality, the other vendors must integrate their wares with third-party IVRs that offer speech support.

For enterprise integration, we evaluated how well the proposed setups work with Kodiak's existing TDM system, which TDM products they support, and each vendor's recommendation for Kodiak's existing PBX. We also considered integration with multimedia contact points, such as e-mail, fax and Web chats. CosmoCom was the only vendor to specify support for streaming video.

Although some vendors officially support or certify "any" fax server and others list just a few, we suspect there's no technological reason for this. Rather, it is a conscious decision for simplifying technical support (if they don't officially support a fax, they don't have to mess with it) or indicates different definitions of support. All vendors should support any fax server that turns incoming faxes into an e-mail. At that point, you're dealing with standard e-mail, not proprietary fax devices.

One important aspect of a contact center is integration with CRM (customer relationship management) software. Every vendor says integration of business apps can be done quickly and easily. We're skeptical, but verifying integration ease goes beyond the scope of this RFI. CosmoCom, Interactive Intelligence, Nuasis and Telephony@Work offer free developer kits with their products, but no matter which vendor you choose, you'll probably have to write some code or use professional services to get the contact-center product talking to your CRM application. CosmoCom, Siemens and Telephony@Work have the most extensive lists of supported CRM apps, followed by Genesys and Interactive Intelligence. If you're looking for support on a specific CRM suite, check out questions 18 and 20 in our full RFI responses.

All the participating vendors support Microsoft Exchange, and all but Concerto and Genesys support or certify Lotus Domino/Notes. Avaya is the only vendor that doesn't support Apache Web servers. The People Factor

Kodiak considers its agents a big part of its success and wants to make sure they can provide industry-leading customer service. The company lists two must-haves: First is the ability to take advantage of CTI (computer-telephony integration). All the setups proposed could display basic caller information, wait time and any information returned from database queries, but we were excited about Telephony@Work's CTI. Its interface includes support for opening and loading agent scripts and FAQs. In this context, script refers to a standard greeting or procedure the agent reads to the caller.

With telecommuting options as our second must-have, we gave bonus points to Avaya for being the only vendor to offer built-in VPN capabilities. All the other responses require separate VPNs and can't encrypt all the way from the end client to the VoIP (voice over IP) gateway. Overall, we were disappointed that the companies gave short shrift to security: When asked how the products would provide for secure telecommuting, we got passing references to using a VPN. No vendor mentioned anything about advanced authentication, token support or ensuring the integrity of the agent's PC.

The products from Genesys and Nuasis work strictly by VoIP for remote agents, though they do support TDM for home-office use. Kodiak would prefer PSTN support for remote agents because not everyone has access to reliable broadband. The other vendors offer this capability. Interactive Intelligence and CosmoCom support clientless PSTN agents, where agents don't need an IP connection to the contact center, though they'd lose out on CTI functionality. Kodiak is also concerned about reporting from both productivity and regulatory standpoints. The company wants supervisors to monitor agents for efficiency, speed and type of calls received. We also rated the proposals on call recording, sampling and whispering capabilities. Sampling involves random recordings of whole or partial phone conversations. Whispering, or coaching, lets a supervisor listen in on a call and talk to the agent without the customer hearing the conversation. Only Genesys and Nuasis don't offer built-in call recording or monitoring, but both can integrate with third-party products. All the other vendors could record all calls or record on demand. We gave CosmoCom and Telephony@Work bonus points because their systems can randomly record calls; Concerto, CosmoCom and Telephony@Work support whispering/coaching.

Our final grading criteria included system price and maintenance. Siemens' and Avaya's proposals were the least expensive, solidifying their high rankings. Avaya gave us two price quotes; the first was for the contact-center system only, at $284,850; the second was an $865,880 quote for a complete implementation, including redundant hardware and a full-blown VoIP setup. The full system, including recommended transition to VoIP, put Avaya at the high end of the proposals reviewed, but not out of the ballpark. And Avaya included an extensive ROI analysis in its submission to help Kodiak IT justify going to VoIP across the enterprise. Shops that have Avaya or Siemens VoIP systems should consider staying with these vendors for the contact center.

In our final analysis, all the vendors offered Kodiak a similar core set of features. All can route multimedia messages in methods similar to telephone messages. Business rules can be shared across sites, and the setups support integrated blended messaging across e-mail, phone and fax. All the products offer secure messaging through third-party VPN connections but encrypt communications only between VPN concentrators. Avaya is the only option for endpoint-to-gateway encryption.

All the vendors support softphones, and all but Siemens support SIP for CTI. Avaya, CosmoCom, Genesys and Telephony@Work offer H.323 support. Although we've declared SIP the winner of the VoIP standards wars (see "SIP Packs a Punch"), our reader poll shows SIP still being used only slightly more often than H.323.

Kodiak would be well-served by any of the participants, but we gave our Editor's Choice award to Avaya. Its Interaction Center has the best mix of features, integration with existing systems and reasonable price. Check out all the vendor responses at ID# 1611rd1. Avaya submitted the most detailed response to our RFI, and it included a 21-page ROI addendum detailing cost savings over five years. We suspect Avaya would push Kodiak hard for full VoIP because those benefits are listed in most of the ROI analysis.

Agents can connect to the system through the existing TDM PBX system and move to IP phones over time. Softphones are also an option, and telecommuters can use IP or PSTN. Add the built-in VPN, and you'd have what we consider the best proposal for telecommuter support.

Kodiak's users are given a fat local client or a server-based thin client for CTI. Aside from the standard contact and wait-time info, Kodiak could place suggested canned responses into the interface for the agents' benefit. The products from Interactive Intelligence and Telephony@Work have similar features.

We weren't as impressed with Avaya's system integration. It supports only three fax servers, a small handful of IVR and ACD (automatic call distributor) systems, and only Avaya products are officially supported for VoIP gateways. Routing rules can be developed with a drag-and-drop GUI, a common setup among the responses. Avaya also would let Kodiak IT drop into lower-level programming and access custom APIs as a workflow step. The workflow designer application allows for simulating and testing scenarios before committing.

With Avaya's Interaction Center, Kodiak could assign some logic to overflowing queues. For example, if a service agreement can't be met for a specific queue, a pool of reserve agents can be transferred to it. An agent can work simultaneously on two tasks, such as a phone conversation and e-mail, if business rules allow, and agents can be interrupted from e-mail for priority phone calls. Callers can be informed of their estimated wait times, leave a callback number and enter an IVR self-service module without losing their spot in the queue. Web contacts receive wait-time messages as well, and e-mail users can receive instant replies showing their place in the queue.

In its response, Avaya skimped on reporting. Reports can be generated only for a service class, queue, agent or work item. On the positive side, Kodiak could store up to 10 years of call-history data cumulated into months, or five years of daily data. Find Avaya's full response at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi1.pdf. Avaya Interaction Center R6.3, S8500 Switch. Avaya, (800) GO-AVAYA. www.avaya.com

Siemens, another huge name in the VoIP market, submitted a low-cost but feature-rich proposal. When Kodiak factored in the estimated cost of required hardware, software licenses and databases, Siemens' setup still came in as the least expensive option at $338,542.

The system lets Kodiak create routing rules based on performance or business criteria. For performance, standard metrics like average wait time, queue size and service levels are factored into call distribution. Business rules, such as caller information, IVR inputs, abandonment rate and time of day, serve more for creating conditional routes than for dynamic responses to the current call environment. Different media types can be prioritized against other forms of contact, both inbound and outbound. Rules, agent configurations and agent features are configured in a graphical environment, and supervisors can dynamically move agents into different groups, force calls to designated agents or change routing on a call-by-call basis. Kodiak could use role-based access control to limit the administrative capabilities of different supervisor tiers.

One feature unique to Siemens' proposal is the ability to time out a transferred contact. If a voice call is not answered within a specified amount of time, the caller can be transferred to a designated extension to leave a message or placed back into the contact-center queue. If an e-mail message is forwarded to a topic expert and remains unanswered for a predetermined period of time, the message is returned to the original handling agent. Phone and Web callers can be told their queue positions and estimated wait times, and can enter an IVR system without sacrificing their spot. The Siemens IVR, manufactured by Intervoice, lets Kodiak's customers enter data by touch-tone or voice command, offers text-to-speech support and can deliver fax-back confirmations and information. Supervisors can keep tabs on all queue sizes, average wait times and service-level compliance.

Siemens lost a few points for enterprise integration. It's the only vendor that lacks SIP and H.323 support, instead favoring CSTA (Computer-Supported Telephony Application). Fax support is limited to Interstar Technologies, Omtool and through a Siemens fax card. PBX support only Siemens products, though there are connectors for third-party PBXs. Siemens did redeem itself by offering Kodiak extensive support for Web servers, messaging platforms and back-end applications. See its complete response at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi2.pdf.

HiPath ProCenter Advanced Suite 5.1. Siemens Communications, (800) 765-6123, (561) 923-5000. www.usa.siemens.com/communications The CallCenterAnywhere suite, like all the top finishers in this review, can migrate between conventional TDM and VoIP systems as needed. The layout configuration proposed for Kodiak supports TDM PBX, VoIP to agents, Centrex and direct PSTN calls. Additional support for multiple third-party PBXs, Web servers, fax servers, OSs, databases and messaging platforms make this product one of the most universally compatible offerings we saw and earned Telephony@Work a perfect enterprise integration score.

Like most of the other offerings, CallCenterAnywhere handles system management primarily through a Web interface. Siemens and Interactive Intelligence were the only vendors that didn't list Web-based management. Pull-down menus in a questionnaire let Kodiak IT easily provision call flow. All contact forms can be treated equally, or some media types, like voice or Web chat, can be prioritized over e-mail and fax. Callers in a queue are told their expected wait times and can leave a voicemail or place callback information without losing their queue spot. Wait-time announcements can be disabled on a queue-by-queue basis.

With CallCenterAnywhere, Kodiak can use IP phones, softphones or analog phones. When an agent receives a call, a screen pops up showing the caller's basic contact info. Support for an opening call script, loading call scripts, loading FAQs, conferencing in other agents and integrating with CRM packages are all part of the standard interface. The caller's contact history is also displayed. Notes, transcripts, recordings and transfers are all available from the contact history screen in the CTI client. Nice. Telephony@Work had the most impressive reporting as well, earning it another perfect category score. Kodiak could record calls on a scheduled or on-demand basis, and the system supports random recording. CosmoCall was the only other product to support random recording. Supervisors could silently listen to a call, coach agents or join a call in progress. If needed, supervisors can also send text chat to an agent, view the agent's desktop or lock the agent out. Reports include average talk time, number of calls, abandonment rates and service-level compliance. CallCenterAnywhere can match features with the leaders, but it took third place because it is more expensive than the offerings from Avaya or Siemens. See Telephony@Work's response at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi3.pdf.

CallCenterAnywhere 7.1. Telephony@Work, (888) 854-4224, (858) 410-1600. www.telephonyatwork.com CosmoCom was supportive of Kodiak's plans to migrate to VoIP and add home users. Both TDM and VoIP are fully supported on the enterprise side, and agents can connect by IP phone, softphone or analog.

As with offerings from Avaya and Genesys, CosmoCall business rules are created in a Web drag-and-drop interface. Caller-identity information, database queries, IVR and Web-page entries, e-mail contents and agent and queue status all can be used to determine routing. Telephone users also can leave a callback number and message, and outbound calls can be prioritized so they will not adversely affect incoming calls when Kodiak runs out of available agents.

CosmoCom sports an impressive list of products with which its product integrates: Five IP PBXs, 16 VoIP systems and all major messaging, fax and Web servers are supported. Integration with PeopleSoft, Siebel, Microsoft CRM, Remedy and other CRM suites is available. CRM support can be built in to the agent CTI interface using a software developer's toolkit, letting an agent get a full or partial view of the customer's CRM information. Kodiak would have liked OS support beyond Microsoft Windows, however. Click over to CosmoCom's complete response at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi4.pdf.

CosmoCall Universe 4.5. CosmoCom, (631) 940-4200. www.cosmocom.com Interactive Intelligence's proposal allowed for PSTN and VoIP agents and let Kodiak choose whether to replace its existing PBX. The system is managed through a Windows application, with user authentication handled through the Windows 2000 login. Business rules are created using a menu-driven system, rather than through a drag and drop interface. Web chat, telephone and e-mail contacts can be told their places in the queue and the estimated wait time. Real-time interactions can be bumped in front of non-real-time traffic, like e-mail or fax.

A feature unique to CIC lets Kodiak agents see the presence information of all other agents. Status messages like available, gone home, on vacation and away are easy to set, and all logged-in agents are visible as well. A supervisor can use this information to see the status of his or her team--a useful feature in an environment with heavy collaboration and call forwarding among agents. Agent status viewing can be restricted to particular workgroups. A "follow me" feature lets you forward an agent's desk phone to a mobile or home number. Siemens' product has a similar feature. Users can change their presence information by dialing into the system, and supervisors can change the status of other agents remotely. In terms of price, Interactive Intelligence comes in at the middle of the road, costing as much as Nuasis' NuContact and a bit less than Telephony@Work's CallCenterAnywhere. See the complete Interactive Intelligence response at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi5.pdf.

Customer Interaction Center. Interactive Intelligence, (317) 872-3000. www.inin.com Concerto's was one of the most expensive proposals, but offers strong support for routing, telecommuting and reporting. The system is managed through a Windows application and Web browser. Incoming calls are first routed into queues based on contact information, system settings or database information. Natural-language processing and Boolean logic are available for routing e-mail messages. You can weight call priority using 11 different metrics. Once assigned to a queue, a call can be routed within the queue, weighted by priority or assigned to an agent with specific skills. Contacts can be distributed to agents by round-robin, terminal routing (agents at the top of a list are always assigned contacts first) or longest idle agent. Unfortunately, a contact cannot enter an IVR service and maintain his or her spot in the queue, though the caller could be re-queued and re-prioritized after exiting the IVR system.

Concerto supports a limited number of back-end systems. Microsoft Exchange/Outlook is the only certified messaging package supported, though Concerto says EnsemblePro will work with any POP3/IMAP-compliant e-mail system. Likewise, Captaris RightFax is the only supported fax server, though integration with others is available as a professional service. Apache and IIS Web servers are supported. Concerto's complete response is at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi6.pdf.

Concerto EnsemblePro 5.2. Concerto Software, (800) 480-2299, (630) 227-8000. www.concerto.com

Nuasis NuContact Center lags behind competitors on features. Although its system supports TDM PBXs and routes voice traffic over VoIP, agents connect to the system only through IP. All remote agents use browser-based softphones, because Nuasis doesn't support PSTN, IP hard phones or mixed-agent environments.

Although NuContact Center listed extensive support for routing calls and enterprise integration, we were disappointed with its reporting and numbers reported under scalability. We found no mention of support for call monitoring or recording, though third-party integration is available. This is a major

shortcoming considering that Nuasis' cost is comparable to that of setups that offer recording. We were also leery of the product's limited scalability: The current system supports only 500 agents--150 agents per site with a maximum of five sites. Nuasis says the architecture will eventually scale to thousands of agents, but offered Kodiak no time frame. View the complete Nuasis response at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi7.pdf.

NuContact Center 2. Nuasis Corp., (888) 868-2747, (650) 318-2200. www.nuasis.com Kodiak was shocked at the price Genesys quoted--more than $1 million for 300 agents! Genesys is the only vendor in this group that charges on a per-seat basis for each contact type--voice, e-mail, Web and fax, in addition to per-seat costs for the agent software and telecommuting. If our price quote for 300 seats of each contact type was broken down to 150 voice seats, 75 e-mail, 50 Web, 25 fax and 100 telecommuters, the price would drop to about $834,000, which is still comparatively high, especially for a setup that limits flexibility.

Genesys 7 offers some unique features, such as integrated spell-checker, extensive enterprise integration and support for SIP and H.323. Calls can be routed to outsourced partners as well, though contact info and data associated with the contact will transfer only if your partner has a Genesys T-server installed. The feature set is on par with the other offerings we reviewed, but lacks support for PSTN remote users and call recording. Genesys' full proposal is at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi8.pdf. Genesys 7. Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, (866) GENESYS, (650) 466-1100. www.genesyslab.com

Michael J. DeMaria is an technology editor based at Network Computing's Syracuse University's Real-World Labs®. Write to him at [email protected].

BT sent us an RFI response outlining its managed IP contact center. It isn't a conventional outsourced offering--BT hosts all the hardware except for agent workstations and phones. You supply those and, of course, the agents. Although it supports VoIP and analog agent phones, BT requires a direct IP connection to your agents for CTI (computer telephone integration) support. You're spared managing integration with legacy PBXs, ACDs or IVRs--these functions are handled on BT's end. Agents make and receive calls using the TDM PBX, and BT provides a VoIP gateway.

BT offers extensive support for routing, queuing and CTI. All communications are encrypted using 128-bit SSL and HTTPS, and the system provides integration with Microsoft Active Directory. BT's professional services division can handle third-party application integration and support.

After reading its RFI, we believe BT's offering can go toe-to-toe--or feature-to-feature--with any of the other vendors' offerings to satisfy all of Kodiak's requirements. The only exception is with reporting; BT didn't mention support for call recording, monitoring or coaching. For its managed service, BT sets pricing on per-seat usage--customers are charged monthly based on the maximum number of simultaneous agents logged in. The cost for your contact center could change monthly, but you'd have the flexibility to easily add or remove agents as needed. Scalability isn't a problem as it can be with an in-house-managed product.

We didn't specify Kodiak's hours of operation, so BT assumed a 24-hour cycle with three shifts. In its pricing, BT assumed that for Kodiak's 300 call-center agents, a maximum of 93 agents would be concurrently logged in. This came out to $14,000 per month, or $168,000 in the first year, plus $10,000 for initial setup. CRM integration is extra, but BT says it averages in the mid-five-figures. Maintenance and support are included with the service.

Over five years, the direct costs of BT's offering would be more than the quoted prices of the own-it-yourself vendors. However, the need for additional staff, administration time and procurement of hardware and network services does raise the actual costs of owning your contact center. In addition, outsourcing eliminates the worry about upgrading systems, purchasing too many licenses or dealing with network interconnections. However, you don't get the benefits of capital depreciation, and monthly expenses will fluctuate. IT and networking support are provided by BT's Global Services arm, which operates in more than 130 countries and offers international carrier services.

BT's proposal is at https://twimgs.com/nc/1611/graphics/1611rfi9.pdf.

• BT Multimedia Contact Centre, $14,000 per month for 93 concurrent agent connections, plus a one-time installation charge of $10,000 (support included). BT, (800) 587-4687. www.bt.com

Kodiak Corp. is bearish on keeping PCs cool worldwide. Its fans, heat sinks and temperature sensors are used by two of the top five PC manufacturers, and its CoolITdown line of water-cooled workstations and midrange computers are popular in the niche markets of computer gaming and engineering. Kodiak wants to expand CoolITdown into enterprises while continuing to sell directly to consumers over phone, fax, e-mail and the Web, and through independent retail stores. The company has decided that all these disparate contact methods are hindering its goal of global domination in thermal management. It wants to establish an IP-based contact center capable of routing multimedia communications over IP. However, it's not yet ready to deep-six its legacy TDM (time-division multiplexing) PBX; rather, Kodiak wants to invest in a new platform that integrates with the TDM PBX and reduces toll charges while providing a smooth migration path to a VoIP (voice over IP) infrastructure.

Kodiak's manufacturing, testing and support facilities are located in Death Valley, Calif. Customer sales and service outlets are in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where calls come in and are routed to sales and service specialists. All support calls are blind-forwarded to Death Valley. Local calls are assigned a lower priority than long-distance calls to reduce costs, but a callback messaging capability lets customers choose to receive a callback if the wait time is extensive. Kodiak uses call blending to serve both incoming and outgoing calls through a predictive dialer.

Support calls are routed from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Death Valley over the PSTN. Over the past year, the Death Valley office has piloted a number of VoIP initiatives to take advantage of T1 data trunks running between offices, but no decision has been made about using VoIP. An RFP for a VoIP system in Death Valley is in progress.

During peak sales periods, Kodiak adds seasonal agents--a heavy burden on the physical plant but necessary to handle call volume. The company would like to set up agents in home offices or scope out a partner to outsource seasonal contact center agents. Although Kodiak is looking into the benefits of outsourcing or offshoring contact center agents, it has no definite plans to do so.

(vital stats) • Employees: 1,500

• Agents, full-time: 200 (100 each in Los Angeles and San Francisco)

• Agents, seasonal (November-January): 100 (50 each in Los Angeles and San Francisco)

• Agents working remotely: 0 now, but desire 100 post-implementation

• Remote sales and service outlets: 2 (in Los Angeles and San Francisco) • Contact methods: Phone, Internet (e-mail and chat), fax servers at each site

• Network infrastructure: Gigabit backbone with 100-Mbps connections to desktops. IEEE 802.3af (Power over Ethernet) available on desktops; QoS (Quality of Service) strategies include IEEE 802p/q (Managed Objects) and support for either DiffServ (Differentiated Services) or ToS (Type of Service)

• Corporate data stores: Microsoft Active Directory, SQL Server and Exchange databases replicated across each site

• Telco: PSTN trunks with ANI (Automatic Number Identification) services connect to TDM-based PBXs in Los Angeles and San Francisco. PBXs linked over ISDN lines. ACD (automatic call distributor) and IVR (integrated voice response) systems in both locations provide front-end voice processing, switching and a self-service customer response system, and act as hot backups in case one fails.

To be eligible for inclusion in this RFP, the product must support: • Both TDM (circuit) and IP (packet) switched voice networks

• Multimedia routing for voice, e-mail, Web and fax communications

• Call blending that supports inbound and outbound calling

• Look-ahead routing logic (interrogate queues and estimate call wait time)

• Priority queuing • Queue escalation

• Skills-based routing

Avaya Interaction Center R.63, S8500 Switch

Siemens Communications HiPath ProCenter Advanced Suite 5.1

Telephony@Work CallCenterAnywhere 7.1
CosmoCom CosmoCall Universe 4.5

Interactive Intelligence Customer Interaction Center Concerto Software

Concerto Software Ensemble Pro 5.2

Nuasis NuContact Center 2

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Genesys
BT Multimedia Contact Center

R E V I E W

IP Contact Centers

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