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Avaya Provides Solutions to Retailers to Connect Callers to Contact Centers

TMCnews Featured Article


January 15, 2007

Avaya Provides Solutions to Retailers to Connect Callers to Contact Centers

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor


Avaya (News - Alert) is now focused on helping retailers improve customer service, reduce costs and increase worker productivity. The global provider of business communications applications, systems and services, has announced new solutions and partnerships designed to achieve this end.

This initiative is part of Avaya’s strategy to deliver Internet protocol (IP) telephony solutions tailored to specific industries that offer them an easy way to embed communications applications into a business framework.

There has been rapid adoption of IP solutions throughout the retail industry in order to keep customers satisfied in an “always-on” world. Forrester Research (News - Alert) reported that the retail and wholesale trade sector has the greatest level of IP telephony adoption among enterprises, with 22 percent now using an IP PBX. The total addressable market of business communications solutions for the global retail market in 2007 is projected to be $7.6 billion.

Avaya has deployed new solutions and partnership initiatives designed to help retailers enhance communications experiences for customers, workers and IT managers alike. To help make it easier and more economical for large retailers to deliver Intelligent Communications at individual branch or store locations, Avaya has launched a new management tool, the Avaya Integrated Management for IP Office.

By streamlining and simplifying the way headquarters companies can configure and manage Avaya IP Office communications solutions across distributed networks, Avaya enables these organizations to communicate more efficiently.

To achieve this end, Avaya has announced partnerships with Indyme Solutions and LiteScape Technologies (News - Alert). With Indyme, Avaya will bring voice interaction powered by Avaya Communication Manager software to Indyme’s Radius line of wireless in-store call boxes. By utilizing Avaya Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) interoperability, the solution can be improved with two-way communication and eventual call center integration.

LiteScape Technologies provides new retail applications that will be used on Avaya’s family of one-X Deskphones. A retail associate’s IP phone will be enhanced with capabilities that users rely on in retail environments, such as credit card scanning, time-clock check in, broadcasts of corporate bulletins, SKU lookup and corporate directories.

“Today’s retailers are demanding the sophisticated capabilities powered by IP telephony and SIP in order to have the tools necessary to meet customer demands,” said John Vincent, director, Retail Industry Marketing, Avaya, in a statement on Monday. “Avaya’s leadership and expertise in IP telephony and contact centers make us uniquely positioned to provide retailers with solutions driving more Intelligent Communications.”

With Avaya solutions, a retailer can combine store locations and contact centers to improve the shopping experience for both in-store customers and those that are calling into the store. Customer-facing personnel in the store can remain focused on shoppers, while the customer on the phone can be efficiently routed to agents anywhere in the world.

TigerDirect, a computer and electronics retailer with a large online presence and several physical stores, is using Avaya IP telephony and contact center solutions to keep customers satisfied year-round. The company has six call centers as well as home-based agents that are linked together and powered by Avaya Communication Manager that enables the company to serve thousands of customers every week.

Handling up to sixty thousand calls on an average week, TigerDirect saw a spike in that volume to over 100,000 during the crucial end-of-year holiday season. IP telephony enabled TigerDirect to cost-effectively add agents during the holidays and ensure customers were routed to specialists based anywhere, including home-based offices. As a result, calls made to stores could be quickly sent to contact center agents, freeing up in-store managers to concentrate on shoppers.

“Avaya knows IP, but they also know how it applies to our business as an online and brick-and-mortar retailer that places a priority on top-notch customer service,” Henry Rey, telecommunications manager for TigerDirect shared in a statement. “Their broad expertise makes it easy to implement IP telephony, and keeps us fast and flexible so we can keep the focus on ensuring customers are satisfied via any communications channel, over the phone, online or in stores.”

Avaya is offering retailers an intelligent solution to efficiently handling customers as well as the solutions necessary to keep that efficiency strong during the holiday season when customer volumes, both in the stores and on the phone, are significantly higher.

With increased competition throughout the retail industry, Avaya is answering a high demand for solutions that enable a retailer to better serve its customer base. This demand is increasing throughout all channels and as consumers demand more in this “always-on” economy, retailers must be equipped to respond effectively or lose the business to a competitor that makes efficient customer communications a priority.

Want to learn more about contact centers? Then be sure to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.

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Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.







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