Interaction Hubs
Datapoint provides a range of interaction hub solutions that are ideally suited for multi-media and multi site environments. They can be deployed in pilot mode in configurations as small as 30 seats with only a single communication medium in active use. From this they can be scaled seamlessly to any number of positions utilising a full array of multi media over any number of locations.
Individual media can be separately licensed to control costs and reflect actual customer demand with additional cost benefits such as the ability to use email licenses to manage fax and SMS media.Key Differences Between Current And Next Generation Infrastructure
The key distinguishing feature of interaction hub technology is its level of pre integrated functionality and the operational and technical possibilities this can offer relative to the previous generation of stand alone solutions.
Many call centres still suffer the shortfalls of this approach in which the design and operational management of queuing and routing are technically complex and time consuming and often result in uneven or undesirable performance levels. The ongoing arrival of multi media communication and multi site infrastructure management has been pushing the demands of point solution architectures to breaking point and beyond.
Interaction hubs provide a massive simplification of this problem by providing a single platform and set of business rules for unified queuing, multi media routing, CTI and integrated reporting. From this is facilitated:
- Universal SLA management across channels (e.g. call centre and web) and media (e.g. voice, email, fax, sms, chat, collaboration)
- Universal agent management
- Universal infrastructure and application administration and support
- Universal customer contact histories
Interaction hubs can operate in single site mode, in duplicate site mode or in centralised mode providing the underlying network is converged to enable full virtualisation. They can be configured for TDM traffic, IP traffic or a mixture across internal and external networks.Operational And Technical Benefits
Operationally this opens the doors for segmented customer service, multi skilled competency development and mature contact strategies that make full use of live agents, self service, assisted service, proactive service; and event triggered communications. It also enables the virtualisation of customer service provision in terms of home based agents and virtual experts who can be dynamically introduced into customer service interactions.Solution Choices
Beyond that uniform description, the range of solutions Datapoint provides differ in terms of
- The scope of associated functionality that has been pre-integrated
- The point of evolution they have achieved moving from hardware to software based functionality
- Their adherence to open standards interoperability and active use of those standards in re-architecting their solutions
- Their positioning in being both a customer service solution and an enterprise communication solution based on the common architecture now being deployed in both scenarios
Some solutions provide a soft ACD with finite scalability while all offer ready integration into a wide choice of stand alone ACD/PBXs. Some include dialler, IVR, and multi media blending capability. Others provide call recording, voice mail services and quality management functionality out of the box.
Some offer workflow design and management capability. While most offer the ability to host multiple clients segmented as individual tenants which is suitable for outsourcers or organisations that want to rationalise front office costs across multiple brands while allowing them to customise their customer service proposition.
Some solutions are extending functionality through integration with Unified Communication technologies such as presence management to provide agents with visibility of available experts/knowledge workers within the organisation along with their current presence data status.
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