Abi Chandra
I frequently receive calls from managers and engineers of my customers wherein they discuss important project initiatives that would assist their contact centers to more efficiently serve their own customers. These conversations usually start with them telling me about the importance of our ACD integration to a 3rd party system which provides efficiency, new features or applications and allows for “C” level visibility within their organizations. The “C level visibility” words are frequently used when identifying new and important projects. I am usually given information about the urgency of these integration projects and the specific timeline (or deadline) for me to have these integrations in place.
Clearly my customers are veterans within the contact center industry. They know that integrations, testing and deployment are time and resource-consuming. They are also well aware of the integration nightmares that have plagued the contact center business when multiple products from multiple vendors need to be able to communicate with one another. I’m sure they may have been previously subjected to the drama of multiple vendors pointing fingers at each other when things go wrong with integrations.
Once my customers have stated their requirements, I typically enquire more about the new efficiency or application features that would be derived by deploying various integrations. I almost always find that these features are already within the ACD solution or application. After a quick terminal services session between myself and the engineers, I will show how the new functionality is configured within the system. What appears to be a project that could last several months quickly evolves into a few weeks of testing and implementation.
Customers deploy application solutions to challenges existing within their environment at a particular time. Over a period these challenges change. A consolidated communications platform allows the layering of various application solutions as and when they are needed. While the technical benefits of such a system is illustrated in various white papers, documents, materials, etc. located in our resource center. Such a platform is personally very beneficial to me, as it allows me to say “Yes, you sure can” more frequently to my customers.
Abi Chandra