C3 builds on Channel Islands success to take network messaging global

Company News, Networks

C3 is building momentum behind its powerful network messaging platform following recent installations at Cable & Wireless and Manx Telecom, both based in the Channel Islands.

The Cambridge-based company, which has over 20 years’ experience in developing advanced multi-channel communication products, is concentrating on rolling out its enterprise messaging solution to other carriers and MVNOs.

Alongside the delivery of superior voice messaging services, C3’s network messaging platform makes it easy to develop and deploy additional revenue-generating applications that differentiate service providers.

Value added services, such as speaking clock, personal numbering, PCI compliant automated payment methods or multiple conferencing, improve the customer experience, reduce churn, and extend the ‘long tail’ revenue from voice services.

The network messaging platform enables businesses to roll out a broad range of highly personalised messaging services to their subscribers – which they are able to manage via a user-friendly web interface.

Enabling customers to personalise and manage their messaging services has seen one C3 customer increase voice mail usage by 50% in just five months.

“Current voice messaging solutions can be inflexible and often have restrictive user and application licenses, meaning they are unable to be used for incremental revenue-generating applications,” said John Wood, sales and marketing director C3.

“C3’s network messaging platform is a cost-effective and future proof solution that enables companies to provide fully-featured voicemail, and easily deploy additional applications on an incremental basis.

“Our broad application portfolio has helped our network messaging customers generate significant increases in revenue, and we see huge potential for the network messaging solution going forwards.”

Enhanced IVR development with Fusion 1.5 software release

Company News

C3 has released the latest version of its intuitive IVR software Fusion.

The new release builds on the flexibility of development that Fusion is established for, with its granular functionality and simple ‘drag & drop’ deployment significantly improving time to market for new IVR services.

This latest update sees Fusion maturing with a feature-rich ‘call centre’ application that transforms the most basic IVR service into a fully-functioning call centre, simply by dragging and dropping the node set to the relevant point in your script.

Agents are able to log into the Fusion call centre from anywhere in the world, via a web or telephony interface, and live call statistics can then be viewed on Fusion’s Queue Monitor. Here, you can see in real-time the number of calls connected, average wait time, total calls queued, maximum queue length, times queue full and queue exits.

A new ‘custom event’ node allows you to dig into specific links in your call flow – simply linking it to the element of the call you’re interested gives you access to all associated post-call statistics. Fusion also provides system usage reports and, depending on the parameters you set, will trigger alerts so you can be proactive in your call centre management.

Since its release last year Fusion has proved its credentials at a number of corporate sites.

This powerful platform has helped numerous businesses significantly cut the development time/cost typically associated with creating new IVR services, allowing much more scope for development. Sundial Telecom and Oxford University are just two of the organisations seeing the benefits of Fusion.

Find out how your business can save time and money with Fusion. Get in touch today.

Oxford University extends investment in C3 platform

Case Study, Company News

Oxford University has added C3’s Conferencing application to its existing C3 Unified Communications system, as it undergoes a complete tech refresh with the company.

The university has invested in its relationship with C3 to ensure it continues to provide best-of-breed telephony services that meet the needs of all stakeholders.

Alongside the tech refresh of its existing C3 platform, the university has purchased C3’s conferencing solution, which is currently being tested with individual user groups.

The conferencing platform enables users to host secure conferences (where collaborators often share confidential bleeding-edge research) and store the call recordings safely within the university. With access to the C3 Conferencing API, university departments can also host Oxford University own-branded conferences with external stakeholders.

“C3’s Conferencing platform allows us to offer flexible and cost-effective conference services to our users across the university,” said Alan Hillyer, Head of Telecoms at Oxford University. “The solution is feature-rich, intuitive and configurable to suit our requirements.

“Now we have conferencing on site, it also means we can fully control the quality of the call – something we unable to do when it was hosted.”

The Telecoms team has also invested in C3’s Fusion software – an intuitive IVR Toolkit that enables users to build and deploy new IVR services within minutes, and make changes to existing services quickly and easily.

“Fusion gives us much more scope to develop specific services to meet the needs of individual colleges and departments, as well as amending those services within a much reduced time frame,” explained Alan.

Idox invests in bespoke IVR solution from computer telephony specialist C3

Case Study, Company News

Idox plc, a leading information management solutions provider, has chosen C3 as its computer telephony technology partner.

Idox offers a comprehensive Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service that manages voter registration on behalf of 42 local authorities nationwide. At present, more than 4 million voters access the electoral registration via IVR using popular communication channels, such as telephone, the internet and SMS.

A significant number of voters confirm their details via telephone, and Idox has invested in an IVR system from C3 to support this popular service.

The new IVR system, which now runs entirely over SIP, has been fully customised to meet Idox’ requirements and has been integrated into the company’s database to ensure that all voter updates are recorded live.

The system has been developed using C3’s Fusion software so other applications can easily be written and added to the system, future-proofing Idox’ investment.

“We are very impressed with C3 and are confident in their ability to deliver the service that we require within the scheduled time frame,” said Glen Norman, Idox e-Elections Product Manager.

“Investing in C3’s Fusion software gives Idox the flexibility to expand its services when required. For example, we can now create new call services for elections and other markets.”

For information about Idox visit www.idoxgroup.com.

C3 and Sundial Telecom focus on PCI with new managed service offer

Case Study

Sundial Telecom is utilising C3’s technology and PCI experience to provide a PCI Compliant managed service solution, initially targeted towards the live psychic and adult markets but applicable to many main stream market sectors.

The two Cambridge-based companies are combining their knowledge and expertise to develop the service, which will provide businesses with a complete PCI Compliant managed service solution.

Sundial Telecom is developing the service in C3’s Fusion software; an intuitive IVR toolkit that provides huge flexibility in creating and deploying new IVR services as well as the ability to quickly implement any changes to an existing service.

The service will enhance the caller’s ‘user experience’, managing the entire process, from call distribution to secure payment, via web, telephony or SMS. A carousel of client and overflow agents will be available for peak call times, and their bios and availability can be automatically updated on the client’s website via the service API.

Callers will have the option of paying for the service via a number of PCI Compliant avenues, including pre-paid web vouchers, special occasion purchases, or – for regular callers – card-on-file rebilling capability.

“Sundial Telecom is known for its experience in developing this type of hosted telecoms services and, by working with C3’s Fusion, we can develop these solutions faster and offer customers an incredible level of flexibility that other service providers would struggle to match,” said Shane Carter, owner Sundial Telecom.

John Wood, C3’s sales and marketing director added: “We are offering businesses much more rounded flexibility in developing their call services, as well as enabling them to provide secure payment solutions for all mobile and web applications that their customers can have confidence in.”

John and Shane will be discussing this joint venture at World Telemedia, in Marbella, next month (17-19 October).

If you would like more information, please contact Shane Carter on 01223 200000.

Sundial ramps up development on the back of Fusion IVR software

Call Handling, Case Study

Hosted telecommunications specialist Sundial Telecom is planning the re-launch of Call Manager, one of its flagship call handling products.

The company, based in Cambridge, plans to add additional functionality to the call answering service, which gives small businesses a single telephone number and reliable call forwarding/ auto attendant.

The decision to relaunch the platform is a direct result of the recent improvements Sundial Telecom has made to development time. With the help of C3’s Fusion IVR software, the company announced last month that it had halved time-to-market and would be considering a range of new projects as a result.

“Now we have Fusion in place we are able to drive forward the development of Call Manager and make changes to the platform that we may not have considered before,” explains Shane Carter, owner of Sundial Telecom.

“We want to make Call Manager more flexible and improve the configuration options available to our customers. With Fusion, we have the ability to make improvements, or develop entirely new call handling services, very quickly and effectively.”

Sundial Telecom has been using Fusion IVR for three months and has already reported a 50% reduction in development time. The team expects to improve that time as they become more accustomed with the program.