There is a level of excitement in the call center space I haven’t witnessed since VoIP began transforming the call center into the contact center. Over the years, we have seen technology after technology change the way contact centers work, and we are at the point today where IP communications affords us the opportunity to distribute call centers and agents at will. But VoIP seems so yesterday. The latest revolution to come to contact centers is unified communications. I recently wrote about how Aspect introduced a unified communications platform that will allow call centers to increase service, sales and first call resolution levels (see www.tmcnet.com/1853.1).
Just a few days after my article appeared, Microsoft decided to invest in Aspect and, moreover, the two companies decided it made sense to collaborate on a suite of contact center solutions integrating the best of Microsoft OCS and Aspect’s UC solutions (see www.tmcnet.com/1854.1).
In an interview with Mike Sheridan, SW of Strategy for Aspect, and Microsoft’s Clint Patterson, Director of PR for Unified Communications, I had a chance to learn more about this agreement between the operating system and contact center software leaders. The duo believe that the synergies afforded by this collaboration will be great. They view it as transformational — they see peoples’ lives improving because of better call center service levels.
While on the surface it is easy to dismiss such comments as “PR speak,” one of the most frustrating experiences many of us deal with on a regular basis is communication with rock-bottom contact center agents who are still digging. An improvement of even a few percentage points in customer service quality will likely make our lives a bit easier.
The two companies have entered a five-year agreement that encompasses a collaborative roadmap between Aspect Unified IP and OCS. Microsoft will help improve the…