The changes will save partners hours in deployment time, and by reducing time to value, should also please customers. The changes will save partners hours in deployment time, and by reducing time to value, should also please customers

Today, Avaya is announcing Avaya IP Office Contact Center 10, the latest version of their module for IP Office which adds contact centre capabilities. The new release contains significant enhancements to the UI and to reporting capabilities. Possibly the most important enhancement, for both partners and customers, are changes which make the installation much simpler and quicker out of the box.

“We listened extensively to both customers and partners in designing this new version,” said Mike Butts, Product Marketing Manager at Avaya. “We have made it much easier to deploy for end customers, while also making it easier for partners here as well. Everything from an out-of-the-box configuration wizard to a new enhanced user interface and web administration are all designed to get contact centres up and running very quickly.”

The Avaya IP Office Contact Center 10 module provides for a full omnichannel strategy, including proactive outbound capabilities, and multi-channel self and assisted service, routing customers to the agents best qualified to handle them. It is aimed at both SMB and mid-market IP Office users who want a contact centre capability, but which are not businesses that are primarily a contact centre.

“Its market is positioned at anywhere from 1 to 250 agents,” Butts said. “It is designed to fit inside an organization where they need a contact centre solution on top of IP Office. It’s not really for intense contact centre businesses, who would more typically user something like Avaya Contact Center Select. This is positioned for the customer that needs a contact centre but whose business is not led by it. That also means though, that since there are more than 500,000 IP Office deployments, that all of these could theoretically add this call centre application on top to differentiate themselves.

Avaya IP Office Contact Center 10 responded to both customer and partner requests to simplify deployment.

“What we really did this time was make it easier for channel partners and customers to deploy it quickly,” Butts indicated. “Out of the box configuration wizards significantly reduce the amount of time needed to design call and IVR flows. One partner told me that it saves up to ten hours in the original configuration time.” That can reduce the install time required by as much as 80 per cent.

“Quicker deployment time is so important for partners,” Butts said. “In addition to cutting their costs, it creates more opportunities for partners to create happier customers. We expect that partners will be vey excited about this.”

This version also adds enhanced real-time and historical reporting capabilities, which include more than 30 ready-to-use report templates that can be accessed in as little as four clicks.

“Real-time historical reporting also helps customers figure out what they should measure, and shows them ways to improve that,” Butts said. “We have also totally refreshed the report viewer.”

The user interface and web administration have been simplified and enhanced, and now include installation and configuration wizards for multichannel services and other frequently used features. Other enhancements include customer callback features that hold their place in the queue and give customers more control over their time. The ability to make changes to call flows on-the-fly is new to this version. Support for VMware HA has also been added.

Avaya IP Office Contact Center is available now. It comes in multiple deployment options, including premises-based, hybrid or pure cloud, and in English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian.