ShoreTel ECC8 Enables Multi-channel, Multi-Device Contact Centers in Enterprises

ShoreTel (News - Alert), a provider of unified communications, has launched Enterprise Contact Center 8 (ECC8) offering better insight on customer experience via real-time reporting and interaction reports for Web chat, e-mail and voice conversations.

The new improvements enable the use of tablets and smartphones in contact centers; as a result, enterprises can move from voice based contact centers to multi-device, multi-channel service that delivers more flexibility to call center agents.

Recently Ryan Tay, research manager of Communications at IDC (News - Alert), said in a statement, “Contact centers are undergoing modernization and transformation. Multi-channel/platform solutions, mobile customer care applications, analytics, social media and cloud delivery will be in high demand and vendors that can provide compelling innovative solutions will be in a good position to lead the overall market.”

ECC8 provides businesses with a greater insight to their customer’s experience, and provides a better, more responsive service. Agents can respond to e-mails with just click. The solution also simplifies the agent interface through features like e-mail rioting, improved automated responses and the flagging of bounced-back e-mails for follow up.

The multi-device, multi-channel contact center solution opens up more opportunities for communication and brings down barriers in contact centers. Contact center personnel will be able to effectively manage e-mails, chats, inbound and outbound calls, as well as schedule callbacks.

An important enhancement to ECC8 is ShoreTel Communicator, which is an intuitive, unified desktop interface that enables contact center agents and supervisors to consolidate their capabilities. It can easily integrate with enterprise’s customer relationship management (CRM) system, such as Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamics CRM or Salesforce.com.

“We are reporting end-to-end across the entire contact center to all channel types, inbound and outbound voice, e-mail and Web chat to make sure the managers of that contact center have the data they need,” said Steve McElderry, director of Product Management for Contact Centers at ShoreTel.

The open interfaces seamlessly integrate with business processes, improving the customer experience and boosting productivity. The multi-media contact routing/queuing permits the use of same business rules with e-mail and chat sessions to those of voice calls. It also includes flexible reporting features such as a pre-built, integrated custom report builder.

Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli