4 Steps To Take Now – If Not Ready For A Cloud Contact Center Just Yet

Posted by Joe Salisbury on August 10, 2023 Posted in Cloud, Contact Center, Customer Experience Tagged cloud, Contact Center, customer experience

Moving to a cloud-based contact center is a significant decision. One that requires careful consideration and planning.

If you’re not prepared for such a change just yet, that’s fine. Stay on-premises. But there are things you should start doing now to elevate your on-prem capabilities and to ensure you’re ready for the cloud if or when the time comes.

Conduct a thorough assessment of your existing infrastructure. With a comprehensive understanding of your current setup, you’ll have a firm grasp of what’s working and what’s not. From this you can prioritize a roadmap on how to improve your existing contact center performance and establish a clear path for future cloud adoption. Don’t have the resources or expertise? Keep reading. I have a solution for this.
Optimize your on-prem contact center with a modernization strategy. By maximizing the capabilities of your current operations you can position your organization to deliver the best possible customer experiences, bridge service gaps and equip your agents and supervisors to be most responsive and productive. This – especially if you migrate to an omnichannel on-premises model like the one offered by NEC through its alliance with T-Metrics – will set a foundation for a smoother transition to the cloud when the time is right.
Consider a hybrid approach by combining on-premises services with cloud alternatives. This will enable you to strategically leverage the benefits of the cloud selectively while maintaining control over your existing contact center experiences. This gradual introduction will better familiarize you with the capabilities and advantages cloud services offer and determine the best-fit solutions for your organization, its call agents and ultimately – and most importantly – your customers.
Take advantage of third-party free assessment offers. They provide a unique opportunity for a fresh perspective, a deeper understanding of emerging technologies and alternative approaches to what already exists. It’s access to insight and expertise that might not be readily available in-house or go unnoticed during an internal evaluation. We offer such free assessments so reach out if interested.

While you may not be ready for the cloud at this moment, these steps will help ensure your contact center stays relevant. Plus keep it aligned with the needs of your business and the service expectations of your customers … while better preparing you for a cloud move if or when the time comes.

Whether on-premises, in the cloud or a prem-to-the-cloud experience, NEC can help. Learn about our full contact center capabilities.

Reach us directly at 1-844-NEC-SAVE or use the form below.

FedRAMP & StateRAMP Authorization – It isn’t just for government agencies

Posted by Joe Salisbury on July 10, 2023July 26, 2023 Posted in Cloud, Contact Center, Customer Experience, Government, Security Tagged cloud, Contact Center, customer experience

Despite being primarily developed for government use, FedRAMP and StateRAMP authorized solutions offer undeniable potential that extend far beyond federal, state and local government agencies.

These programs require service providers to undergo rigorous assessments and adhere to strict security controls for their cloud-based products and services. By opting for a vendor that is FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorized – or in the case of our NEC and T-Metrics omnichannel contact center solution which is both FedRAMP and StateRAMP authorized – private sector organizations can be certain they are working with a responsible business partner. One committed to highly secure cloud offerings and cybersecurity best practices.

Explore How NEC & T-Metrics Are Advancing Omnichannel Contact Centers
with a next generation FedRAMP and StateRAMP authorized solution

SECURITY		By selecting a FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorized solution, users have peace of mind knowing that it is capable of effectively mitigating cyber threats and security risks by adhering to the demanding standards set by both programs.
TRUST		As a user of a FedRAMP and StateRAMP authorized solution, companies can position themselves as an organization to be relied upon for secure and reliable service, differentiating themselves from their non-user competitors to strengthen trust among customers, partners and stakeholders.
SAVINGS		FedRAMP and StateRAMP based services also minimize user need for extensive security audits. Valuable time and resources can be saved as ongoing security assessments are central for service providers to maintain authorized status.
OPPORTUNITIES		Opting for a FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorized offering can even unlock valuable business opportunities. This is especially true if looking to grow business within specific industries that place a strong emphasis on stringent security measures and regulatory compliance.

So as you can see, FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorization isn’t just for government agencies. It’s just as relevant to organizations across any industry that values reliability and security.

Interested in seeing a FedRAMP / StateRAMP contact center solution in action?

Connect with us directly @ 1-844-NEC-SAVE or reach out using the form below.

How Artificial Intelligence Can Take Customer Service to New Heights

Posted by Jessica Andrews on September 13, 2022 Posted in Analytics, Cloud, Contact Center, Customer Experience, Hospitality Tagged #AI, Contact Center, customer experience, NEC, UNIVERGE BLUE

A Look at the New Interaction Analytics and Evaluator AI Features in UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE

You have probably heard some of the recent buzz around Contact Center Artificial Intelligence (AI) – how it is the wave of the future for Contact Center technology and smart business. Emily Potosky, Senior Research Principal for Gartner’s Customer Service & Support practice, describes in the 2022 Gartner report entitled “3 Ways AI Benefits Customer Service Organizations” that “Customer service and support leaders are optimistic about the value AI can provide and plan to substantially increase their adoption of AI capabilities over the next two years.” At the same time, she explains how there are conflicting messages about the real benefits of AI and the right solutions in which to invest. According to the report, insights, user experience, and process improvement are three key ways that AI can benefit customer service organizations going forward.

Contact Centers as Critical Touchpoints

As you certainly know, your business thrives on creating and retaining satisfied customers. Your Contact Center is a critical customer touchpoint, where the quality of your interactions can determine whether a customer becomes a passionate, lifelong company advocate or chooses to exit your customer base forever. This is why the power of AI to offer accurate insights into your Contact Center’s daily customer interactions is an appealing way to maintain oversight and drive continuous improvement for customer service, experiences, and processes.

Consider the immense value it would have if your organization could gather meaningful, actionable insights from the voluminous inbound and outbound calls your agents handle each day. Your collection of customer conversations holds tremendous value. However, no one in your organization has the time to review each and every customer conversation manually, and random sampling will simply provide an incomplete picture. The beauty of AI is that it makes the impossible possible.

Gather Actionable Insights and Enhance Customer Experiences with UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE

UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE from NEC is a Contact Center as a service (CCaaS) solution offering not only the benefits of enhanced call center functionality and remote-office flexibility for a low monthly fee per user, but also a powerful suite of AI features that are reason enough to move your entire Contact Center to the cloud today.

The Interaction Analytics feature for ENGAGE uses Artificial Intelligence to enable Contact Center supervisors and your leadership team to easily identify and focus on those conversations that matter the most to your business. By analyzing and tagging customer conversations for sentiment and designated keywords, the guesswork eliminated. Supervisors can gather powerful insights about customer experiences, review recorded and transcribed conversations of interest, act quickly to address trends or issues they see, and move your business ahead of customer demands and expectations. Insights from ENGAGE Interaction Analytics can also be leveraged to help with coaching and training employees and improving customer satisfaction overall.

Evaluator, another AI-powered tool for ENGAGE, utilizes sentiment analysis to monitor the performance of frontline agents and helps supervisors to easily identify those agents requiring additional training or coaching, allowing them to act instantly on specific conversations as needed. The tool also allows supervisors to provide constructive feedback to agents and for agents to respond to this feedback within the application, as a way to build employee skills and improve customer service levels and retention rates.

The benefits of AI can extend to every area of your business, through an effective keyword tagging strategy. For example, a customer service manager could stay informed of any conversations containing keywords like “cancel” or “unhappy,” to see how frontline users are handling these difficult conversations. Sales and marketing could flag competitor names or review conversations that have been flagged for positive or negative sentiments to identify new product value propositions or customer pain points. Product development could tag for keywords like “broken” or “missing,” to identify opportunities for product improvements or new features.

ENGAGE: Real Benefits, The Right Solution

According to a recent research study conducted by Salesforce, 88% of customers indicate that the experience a company provides is as important as its product or services, and 94% indicate that a positive customer service experience makes them more likely to purchase again. These customer statistics are really not surprising, but definitely help to explain why the right AI solution for any Contact Center needs to offer the real benefits of insights, user experience, and process improvements – as the Gartner report mentioned earlier explains. ENGAGE Interaction Analytics and Evaluator AI are the right solution for tapping into the wealth of information that is currently hiding in your daily customer interactions – insights that will allow your Contact Center and business to continually improve, create positive customer experiences, and soar to new heights.

Ready to learn more about UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE?

Contact Us Today

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Fill out the form, and we will get back with you.

Stop Struggling With Global Connectivity

Posted by Joe Salisbury on June 2, 2022July 5, 2022 Posted in Cloud, Customer Experience, Intelligent Call Routing Tagged Contact Center, enterprise communications, Global Communications, Global Connectivity, Network Connect

International call routing should be simple but it isn’t.

Take for instance a U.S. phone call to a call center in Delhi, India. Before reaching that destination, this call will bounce around … going through Tokyo, Singapore, then Bangalore before finally arriving in Delhi.

Not only is this costly and involves numerous disparate carriers but indirect routing leads to such issues as call latency and poor service quality. Then there are the compliance and regulatory challenges between and within countries to be concerned about. And this call hopping is common practice for international calls. Not ideal when looking to build or maintain a brand reputation or a global business.

Is there an alternative … yes there is!

Imagine achieving effortless international and multi-national connectivity. Where simple call paths and quality replace the complexity of complicated and costly global communications. Where a single contract and U.S.-based management ends the frustration and the inconsistency of internationally calling.

Global Orchestration – powered by NETWORK CONNECT – simplifies global telecommunications by delivering international U.S.-based calls directly to their destination anywhere in the world. No more contending with call hopping from one country to another, no assorted carriers, nor excessive costs or poor performance.

Instead Global Orchestration delivers:

Direct calling paths
Optimal call quality
Dramatic cost savings
One global bill
Managed compliance and regulations

All consolidated into one contract and a single support contact.

Its global connectivity made simple

Global Orchestration – powered by NETWORK CONNECT – is an innovative call routing solution. You work with just one provider – us – for your international carrier services and support as we consolidate over 375+ U.S. and global carriers into a single consumable provider-neutral service.

Call traffic becomes more direct, transparent and extremely dependable with five-nines reliability. Plus you can get started right away without the need to change any day-to-day operations and with little to no upfront costs.

M2M and AI algorithm-based call routing automatically directs calls to the best quality-of-service and most direct path
A single pane of glass management interface provides insight into your entire voice network with visibility down to the individual call regardless of where in the world

Take a closer look at what’s possible

Stop struggling

Let us show you how our global presence and our unmatched carrier diversity can transform your global reach and brand reputation.

Join us for a no-obligation lunch and learn demo and an assess of your current calling plan.

You Have Choices . . . In How To Improve Your Contact Center

Posted by Joe Salisbury on May 5, 2022June 2, 2022 Posted in Cloud, Contact Center, Intelligent Call Routing, Unified Communications Tagged 1-800, ccaas, cloud, Contact Center, Contact Center as a Service, Continuity, Multi-channel, Network Connect, Omni-channel, Toll-Free

With our world increasingly becoming multi-channeled, companies – especially larger organizations with call centers – must come to terms with this. Whether by text, chat, email, social or phone, support agents must be empowered to engage with customers in the way the customer wants and do it seamlessly regardless of contact choice.

Such agility doesn’t come easy, especially for contact centers managed in-house or at large enterprises where the complexity of on-site, remote and even overseas operations can impede highly integrated and consistent experiences.

So what can be done …

The most obvious choice is to concentrate on the customer experience. Smart companies are doing this by unburdening themselves from the technical aspect of contact center management by moving to the cloud. Cloud Contact Center as a Service solutions – such as those provided by NEC UNIVERGE BLUE® – deliver relevant multi-channeled environments that integrate telephony, collaboration, responsiveness, security and transparency into a single, fully managed and interconnected ecosystem.

Some of the value we bring includes:

Interactive voice response wizards, voice prompts, customized call journeys and self-serve call management that make the customer experience crazily simple to implement, change and maintain
AI interactive analysis with sentiment tagging and automated phrase alerts for insight into trending customer requests and reactive agent amendments
Automatic call distribution synchronized to specific functions, regions, time of day and organization or industry-specific criteria for faster and more direct handling
Multi-channel options like chat, email and text to take the conversation beyond voice easily
Customizable desktop and browser agent clients that effortlessly integrate with standard CRM platforms and critical business apps for broad and intuitive access to vital information and resources
Call monitoring to help assess agent performance so reps are always ready to meet incoming requests and service gaps are quickly filled
Status alerts for heighten visibility into call center performance to improve staffing levels, conditions and availability

Hesitant or unable to totally transform …

Cloud adoption doesn’t have to be an all or nothing business directive. Take for instance NEC’s partnership with T-Metrics and our ability to deliver an advanced blended omni-channel contact center solution – with comprehensive cloud-based services – that sits on top of existing infrastructure.

By integrating with most unified communications systems, cloud contact center adoption and expansion is easy to achieve and without having to replace existing or still valued tech stacks.

This is ideal for organizations with current contact centers or those looking to build highly responsive, productive and cost efficient call centers but without having to contend with a major overhaul.

There’s even disaster recovery from the cloud …

Imagine the ability to move 1-800 and contact center numbers from one carrier to another instantaneously during an outage, ensuring inbound call continuity. This way customers can access agents and support without disruption.

It is possible with NEC NETWORK CONNECT Toll-Free Dynamic Protection – our cloud-managed disaster recovery solution for toll-free connectivity. Our service provides inbound call continuity by programmatically moving 1-800 numbers from a nonworking carrier to a working one. Our built-in inbound failover provides optimal toll-free and contact center resiliency by circumventing issues that are the root cause of downtime and outages and protecting against poor service quality.

This innovative toll-free protection service is easy to deploy, cloud-managed, and comes with no or minimal upfront cost and five-nines reliability. It also provides operational cost efficiency due to our carrier plan’s wholesale pricing.

Want to learn more …

Let us show you what’s possible and would work best for your organization with a no-obligation demo of our cloud contact center services and a free gap analysis of your current contact center environment.