Contact Centers: BT Extends Relationship With Avaya To Deliver Flexible Future For Contact Centers
BT and Avaya recently announced the launch of BT Avaya OnNet, a new service designed to enable organizations to transform their contact center operations. It will enable organizations to optimize their contact center resources, responding immediately to peaks and troughs in consumer demand.
Businesses will no longer need to make a capital investment in premises-based contact center infrastructure. Instead, the new hosted ‘pay-as-you-go' service means capacity and geographic location can be flexed in a cost-efficient manner, with the necessary technology accessible as consumer demands change.
Tom Craig, President IP Networking, BT Global Services, said: "BT Avaya OnNet will be of particular benefit to financial services, retailers and utility companies, who experience significant seasonal demand. Outsourcers, as well, need to flex depending on the volume of contracts being managed at any one time. Organizations will be able to provide more resource at specific times, without the need for up-front capital expenditure.
"Historically, this has been a considerable problem for businesses, struggling to find a balance between having the right amount of contact center resource and keeping the business cost-effective. You can bring in additional workers on contract when demand rises – but enabling them with additional necessary equipment has been another matter entirely. As contact center strategies rapidly evolve from a model based on capital expenditure to one based on operational expenditure, the flexibility offered by OnNet is crucial."
The new service will play a key role in the ‘virtual' future of contact center strategy. Employees anywhere in the business can be tasked to help manage customer contact. Whether they work within the contact center, the branch or at home, consistent levels of operation and service will be possible.
Morag Lucey, VP Marketing EMEA at Avaya, said: "This offering moves us one significant step further away from the view of contact centers being big buildings in isolated locations and towards one of networked, ‘virtual' contact centers across smaller sites or even at home. Combined with the rise of presence-based technology, intelligent routing is possible ensuring the person with the right expertise and language capabilities answers the call. This enables organizations to think more laterally about how they manage their customer service and helps them enhance it."
The solution is targeted at customers who have multiple sites or a distributed estate. The customer will typically have more than 750 seats across their operation and may have sites in different countries or regions.
About BT
BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include networked IT services, local, national and international telecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and internet products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.
In the year ended 31 March 2006, BT Group plc's revenue was £19,514 million with profit before taxation of £2,040 million.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. For more information, visit
www.bt.com/aboutbt
About Avaya
Avaya is a leading global provider of communications networks and Contact Centre solutions. Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than one million businesses worldwide, including more than 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500®. Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet Protocol (IP) telephony software applications, systems and services.
Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications - and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services - Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website:
www.avaya.com.
SOURCE: BT and Avaya