Migration in a multichannel communication era

Industry News & Insight

The generation of switches acquired in the early 2000s is now reaching end of life (and, in many cases, end of support from vendors). So, those responsible for voice infrastructure should be considering their options, within the context of a rapidly evolving communication environment.

The switching landscape has changed significantly within the last decade. Multichannel communication is the norm and, as a result, customer interactions are already becoming a lot more complex. The focus now is on integrating multiple channels, such as SMS, web chat, email social media and, of course, voice; streamlining inbound and outbound communication for a single “360 degree” customer view.

Having the ability to support diverse communication channels as well as burstable capacity (for peak flows e.g. Clearing) are just two pressure points that universities really need to consider, as they weigh up the options for IP migration.

Managing the pace of change

With legacy platforms reaching end-of-life deadlines, it has become much harder for organisations to change to these constantly adapting market conditions. The teams responsible for these systems are understandably reluctant to add new multimedia applications to the legacy switch but, given the pace of change and customer expectations, this is an untenable position to maintain.

However, the ‘rip and replace’ IP migration path often recommended by infrastructure vendors also makes it difficult for universities to move forward. This “one stop shop” approach can be appealing: the promise of simplified deployment, single accountability, centralised management and lower costs. But it automatically cuts off any forward flexibility by locking universities in with one supplier.

C3 support clients taking a phased approach to migration, making it possible for them to sweat out their existing switch investments with new applications that are relevant to their user-base and can simply be migrated across to IP.Taking this granular approach encourages pick-and-mix application deployment.

Not only is this more cost effective, it also gives buyers the flexibility to adopt a wide range of applications from specialised ‘best of breed’ suppliers who can offer strong technological leadership and more advanced solutions to satisfy changes in legislation e.g. such as PCI DSS Compliance for credit card payments.

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News: C3 to attend UCISA 2014

C3 to attend UCISA 2014

Company News, Events

C3 will be exhibiting at UCISA’s annual conference in March 2014.

Billed as “the premier IT event for UK universities and colleges”, UCISA 2014 will be C3’s first UCISA (Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association) conference since joining the organisation as a Corporate Member back in June.

“We are hoping to meet many of the networks and telecoms teams who are considering their options for the IP migration of their voice infrastructure,” said sales and marketing director, John Wood. “Many traditional PBX systems are reaching end of life soon but often a complete rip and replace is just not feasible – or even advisable.

“We have a number of “hybrid” sites, including University of Oxford. Our applications can be deployed at any point in the IP migration process meaning that organisations can maximise the investment in the PBX with C3’s leading edge technology. Then simply move those applications over to SIP when they’re ready.”

C3 will be demonstrating the latest version of Contact, its multichannel contact centre solution, at the conference (26-29 March 2014, Brighton). As well as offering universities an effective means of managing their communication across multiple channels, Contact also supports burstable voice capacity for peak call flows e.g. Clearing.

If you would like more information about Contact of any of C3’s products, please email sales@c3.co.uk.

Multichannel Management: more than a buzzphrase?

Tips

The Forrester Research report ‘Ending the multichannel frustration’ demonstrates how increasingly complex it has become to provide customer service.

According to the report, only 39% of companies earned an “excellent” or “good” customer experience index rating, whilst almost two thirds of brands were rated as delivering an “ok” to “very poor” customer experience.

The report outlines three key areas where customer service departments are struggling:

  1. Supporting the breadth of media types
  2. Empowering agents with a full view of customer interactions
  3. Communicating contextual answers to customers 

These issues stem from the lack of integration between communication channels, both technically and functionally. This might have been acceptable five years ago. But we live in a multichannel age where we expect to email, call and Tweet an organisation, and for them to have a common-thread view of all those interactions.

Without an integrated contact centre solution agents are unable to track customer enquiries across channels, which is frustrating for them and the customer.

Contact is our multichannel contact centre. This browser-based solution gives organisations the ability to stream all their enquiries into one unified interface. We also support outbound campaigns across the various channels, for a complete “360 degree” view of your communications, and PCI Compliant billing across channels.

Contact proves a hit at Call Centre Expo 2013

Company News, Events

C3’s multichannel contact centre solution, Contact PCI, proved a big hit at Call Centre Expo 2013 (2-3 October).

Visitors to the stand were impressed with the application, which enables companies to integrate inbound and outbound communication across multiple channels for easy control and 360-degree visibility of customer interactions.

A number of other stands were also showing multichannel contact centres, but Contact PCI is equally focused on outbound campaign management. This enables companies to “close the loop” with sophisticated reports that show the relationship between your outbound campaigns and your inbound enquiries, across every channel.

We played this video on the stand. It explains a little bit more about what Contact is about. For more information please email sales@c3.co.uk.

C3 joins UCISA as Corporate Member

Company News

C3, an established telecommunication specialist, based in Cambridge, has become a Corporate Member of the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA).

C3 has joined UCISA at a time when university IT teams are increasingly taking on responsibility for telecoms.

“We are well established in the higher education sector, with installations at universities and colleges across the UK,” said John Wood, Sales Director C3. “With telecoms and IT teams frequently merging, we are aware that we need to put ourselves in front of new decision makers.”

C3 provides a range of communication platforms and associated applications, including PCI Compliant billing, unified messaging and multichannel contact centre solutions.

The company supports flexible deployment options, including hosted and on-premise models.

Meet us at Call Centre Expo 2013

Company News, Events

C3 is once again exhibiting at Call Centre Expo (2-3 October) at London Olympia, where we will be showing our multichannel contact centre Contact PCI.

Contact PCI offers a genuinely holistic view of your customers, with outbound marketing capability across every one of your communication channels, automatic capture & route of all inbound enquiries (including social media) and centralised PCI Compliant billing to support cross-channel transactions. With Contact PCI, you are able to proactively manage the customer experience across every channel and, ultimately, transform your brand into genuinely multichannel entity.

C3 will be on Stand H6 – near the Pizza Express! If you would like to pop by and see us please email sales@c3.co.uk. Look forward to seeing you there.