Jan 03 2011 -- "You are in a queue. Please hold on. Your call is important to us." Sounds familiar and equally depressing after being put on hold eternally. This is the level of customer service we get despite the introduction of 24X7 customer care services, interactive voice responses and self-help menus.

But, this may soon change with unified communications technologies, say industry experts. "The next innovation wave about to happen in contact centres is the introduction of social media tools," said Jangoo Dalal, president of Avaya India.  "From what we see, customers may want video and chat features while interacting with call centre executives. What used to be call centres is now contact centres and is transforming into ‘context’ centres."

Avaya’s contact centre solutions focus on improving the overall customer care experience of both callers and agents by providing management tools, he added.

The ‘next generation contact centre’ solution is a multimedia routing application that connects software and their information to the right agent through multiple communication modes such as voice, email, web, chat and SMS. The solution will help to reduce the annoyance caused by asking customers to repeat information as they connect from one contact centre representative to another.

It works on the open-source SIP architecture (session initiation protocol), which allows seamless communication between devices and networks of different vendors, Dalal said.

Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, news correspondent
Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com