ACD-IP PBX Request for Proposal (RFP) - Coursework Example

ACD-IP PBX Request for Proposal Insert Insert ACD-IP PBX Request for Proposal Outline ACD-IP PBX Introduction RFP Draft Vendor Products and Packages Avaya Genesys 7 Suite Interactive Intelligence Mitel 6100 Siemens HiPath Finalized RFP Analysis and Recommendations (1). Experience and Connectivity Experience of the company ACD based on Windows Call Center includes 400 agents Connectivity to current Avaya PBX (2). Multimedia Support E-mail Chat Voice Mail IVR Outbound dial CTI integration URL Browsing CRM support (3) Total Cost (4) Final Recommendation and Conclusion ACD-IP PBX Introduction ACD is a telephony system that manages and distributes incoming calls to customer assistance calls in a company. Automatic call distributor routes incoming calls to large offices that handle very many volumes of calls (Watson, 2008). Implementation of a call center requires acquisition of the necessary hardware tools and software packages from vendors of ACD-IP PBX. The primary function of an ACD is to manage and process high-volume of incoming, internal and outgoing calls and distribute them to splits or hunt groups. Modern ACD also allows management of emails and VoIP and has an administrative capability through the call management system then enables control of splits groups and efficiency reports. Watson (2008) says that there are several vendors who offer ACD-IP packages in the USA, and they include Avaya, Siemens, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence and Mitel. RFP Draft Vendor Products and Packages The main distributors of call centers in the USA are Avaya, Siemens, Interactive Intelligence, Mitel, and Genesys. The packages offered by the vendors above include; Avaya, which holds the largest market share in the United States of up to 50%. Avaya provides the Contact Center Express 2.1 and Interaction Center 7.0 packages. For an office setting the Interaction Center, 7.0 will be sufficient to handle all the requirements. The interaction Center package does not have to run over Avaya CM-based Pbx but can be connected to CTI interface of another model of PBX in Siemens, Ericsson or Nortel. This offers flexibility as it can run on other vendors systems. Interaction Center of Avaya offers different reporting options and packages, which provide reporting capabilities in various layers (Brooks, 2014). Basic reporting comes with the interaction center package, but other priced packages can be added. An additional call management system that runs on a different SunSolaris Server will cost up to $400, but that will offer real-time views of clean and flexible contact center and call activities. The total cost of basic installation of an Avaya call Interaction Center ranges between $1377 and $ 2877. Additional cost for a reporting center might range between $450 and $950. Interactive Voice Response, Automatic speech recognition and text to speech packages will also cost a customer more money to implement. Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories offers a suite called Genesys 7 suite. Genesys 7 suite provides an IP-oriented multimedia contact center that can support many agents and is independent of any existing telephony infrastructure. Genesys 7 suite can run in a mix of different PBX systems in a number of distributed locations. Genesys also runs on all leading and multiple server platforms, and this makes it more flexible than all the other packages since its software can run on Windows 2003, IBM AIX, Linux, Solaris or even HP-UX. The general total cost of installation of Genesys 7 suite with 300 enabled seats included ranges from $1725 for inbound voices up to $2800 to include email and web incorporation. Incorporating outbound dial will cost an additional $725 to $1750. Genesys 7 suite does not have additional cost associated with reporting since they are included in the default package. Interactive Intelligence offers the Customer Interaction Center package that can handle 100 agent seats as the default, but seats can increase with changes in pricing (Brooks, 2014). Customer Interaction Center is a very integrated multimedia center with only one point of administration that can handle all workgroup, agent definition, call-flow handling (voice, email IVR processing, and chat) and multimedia. The cost of acquisition and installation of Customer Interaction Center ranges from $2751 for voice to $3662 that will include all hardware and media. Other additional costs will be incurred in installation of multimedia recording, IVR/ASR and outbound dial that will cost around $725 and an additional $3750 for server software. Report handling in customer interaction center will not incur extra costs. Mitel Company offers the Mitel 6100 contact center solutions that are comprised of many solution pieces that work together when fitted. Mitel has a good integration with Microsoft environment and all its software run on Microsoft servers. Mitel 6100 offers an efficient agent interface that is based on Microsoft Outlook.TheCRM applications of Microsoft support many media types, live communication server and Microsoft Windows 2007. It provides strong SIP-based presence, video conferencing and instant messaging. A limitation of Mitel 6100 is that it can only run on Mitel PBXs. Mitel system will require other third party subsystems and other integration services. Mitel 6100 default package can support up to 100 agents but also differs with several pricing packages. The cost of installation and integration ranges from $805 to $2200 for a full multimedia package. There is no extra cost incurred in reporting, CTI/APIs, outbound dial since they are mostly custom development. Siemens Company offers the Siemens hiPath proCenter standard, which has the best call flow design. The design can provide a way of assembling custom program subroutines that will automate handling and routing of multimedia messages, calls, and streams in a busy contact center. Siemens has the best hardware tools as compared to the other vendors that can allow any man to build complex multimedia flows and complex voice. HiPatht ProCenter has a graphical design interface that enables one to implement systematic processing of vendors IVR systems. The graphical interface also allows querying of the database, but voice recognition and text-to-speech are handled separately in hiPath Pro-center through a separate Prompt Response. The default hiPath Pro-center that allows 100 logged in agents requires $2477 to install the base contact center software. It will require an additional $500 to $600 for an underlying IP PBX and phones. An upside of the Siemens package is that basic IVR, ASR, CTI, and reporting are included in the above packages. It does not just support outbound dial, which is a significant downside for business companies. Finalized RFP Analysis and Recommendations Experience and Connectivity Avaya Genesys Interactive Intelligence Mitel Siemens Contact-center seats shipped(all products), per vendor 7- 8 million (25,000 contact centers globally) 1.25 million (3,000 contact centers) 100,000 (“100’s of contact centers”) 500,000 (2,100 contact centers) 1 million (shipping 2,000 contact-centers/month) The table above shows that Avaya has the largest penetration of the market of contact centers with an enormous acceptance rate the will enable smooth integration with other. It depicts that Avaya has the most experience, and the largest connectivity followed by Genesys. Siemens also has a larger market share as compared to both interactive intelligence and Mitel. In relation to a company’s experience and acceptance, Avaya stands out as the superior to the rest, and it would be the most recommended among all the others with a close tie between Genesys and Siemens. Mitel and interactive intelligence are regarded as new entrants in the market and still require a few more years to ensure they are reliable in the market. Automatic Call Distribution based on Windows Avaya uses Sun Solaris or Linux servers mostly but also uses Windows based servers in its interaction center. Genesys has the most advanced Windows integration into its ACD since most of its software will be able to run comfortably on Windows platform because it is compatible and on Linux IBM and Solaris. Mitel packages only run on Windows servers. Interactive intelligence and Siemens also only support Windows servers. From the data above Genesys has the most advanced integration with windows at its implementation is simpler. A lesser package from Avaya called the Contact Center Express solely uses Windows to run. Call Center includes 400 agents 15% Avaya Genesys Interactive Intelligence Mitel Siemens Agents per contact center(Avg) 100-300 500 seats 100 seats 50 150 Max agents per contact center 5,200 16,000 seats 600 per server 300 to 350 concurrent agents 750 to 1,250 The table above shows the agent per contact center and the maximum agents per contact center of the several packages by the vendors. The table displays the data for interaction center 7.0 for Avaya, Genesys 7 suite, Customer Interaction Center v2.3.1 by Interactive Intelligence, the Mitel 6100 contact center and the HiPath ProCenter by Siemens. The data above shows that the default package from Genesys can support up to 500 seats on average followed by the package from Avaya that can support between 100-300 seats per contact center (Brooks, 2014). The numbers, however, can be extensively adjusted depending on the several packages available that will differ in terms of pricing. Genesys, therefore, has a better package that can meet the company’s needs of 400 seats per contact center. Genesys package is also flexible in terms of expansion as it can accommodate a maximum of 16000 seats while the package from Avaya can accommodate 5200 seats. Connectivity to current Avaya PBX Avaya Genesys Interactive Intelligence Mitel Siemens Support of Other PBX Siemens, Nortel, Ericsson & Aspect ACD Cisco, Nortel, Avaya others through CTI interfaces Any SIP, or through Q.sig or T1 PRI; or to Cisco through TAPI None support available; requires and needs Mitel PBX and phones Connection ca be done through HiPath 4000 Q.sig gateway, to any hardware from Nortel or Cisco The current interface in the company uses the Avaya PBX. Therefore, the integration of a new contact center from Avaya would be seamlessly incorporated. Avaya package also supports Siemens device, Ericson machine and Nortel PBXs. The package from Genesys would also be easily integrated into the existing Avaya PBX since its support is available by default. Genesys also supports many PBXs via their CTI interfaces (Watson, 2008). The packages from Siemens, Mitel and Interactive Intelligence do not support connectivity to existing Avaya PBX and, therefore, would not be recommended for adoption by the company. Multimedia Support (40%) Multimedia support by a contact center involves the ability of a contact-center solution by a vendor to support applications such as email, IM, web chat, voice mail, co-browsing, URL push sharing, CRM support, IVR, outbound dial and CTI integration. Email Support All the packages from the vendors listed above have email support in their packages by default and, therefore, email will not be used as a distinctive feature when selecting the best package to adopt. Chat Chat in a contact center can be through web chat or Instant Messenger (IM). All the packages from the vendors above have support for web chat except the HiPath ProCenter package from Siemens. Avayas interaction center 7.0 has an internal support for IM with support for agent to agent and agent to supervisor instant messaging. Genesys 7 suite has chat that can be used internally if IM is planned and integrated carefully. Customer Interaction Center by Interactive Intelligence has a very limited support for IM but can be incorporated via a special MS.NET client, which might hard to configure sometimes. Mitel 6100 contact center uses Avail 4q 05 with MS LCS collaboration service to implement its instant messaging services. Siemens support for IM requires a custom installation using the MS messenger. Avaya offers the best IM and web chat services as they are internally inbuilt, and it would be easier for the services to be integrated. Voice Mail Avaya Genesys Interactive Intelligence Mitel Siemens • Voice mail Custom integration Custom integration Y, as an email attachment Limited, as part of the callback Y, as an email attachment All the packages from the vendors support voice mail accept the Mitel 6100, which has limited support but is implemented as part of the callback. Interactive intelligence and Siemens packages perform their voice mail through email attachments but are not as effective as the packages offered by Avaya and Genesys. Voice mail from Avaya is custom integrated to fit the companys needs and extend to use. Avaya comes out top in voice mail implementation followed by Genesys. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) IVR is the capability of an ACD to interact with a caller, obtain information, and be able to route the call to appropriate the recipient. Avaya, Genesys, and Interactive Intelligence offer IVR, Automatic speech recognition (ASR) and Text to Speech (TTS) at an extra cost (Brooks, 2014). Avayas IVR allows a user to come up with custom scripts that can implement advising caller on wait times, automatic messaging and routing of calls to several agents that are alive at a specific. Genesys, on the other hand, offers both outbound and inbound IVR solutions (Brooks, 2014). Outbound solutions from Genesys are an advanced solution that provides shipment notifications, surveys, and appointment reminders. Siemens has the poorest implementation of IVR since it only provides very basic IVR even though it will not require any extra cost. Genesys comes out top in terms of IVR, TTS implementation with Avaya having its implementation coming at cheaper cost than that of Genesys. Outbound Dial All the companies above have an implementation of outbound dial except by Siemens that does not have support outbound dial. Implementation in all requires extra cost but cheaper to implement in Genesys. Implementation of outbound dial in interactive intelligence requires acquisition of server software, which will cost more than both Avayas package and Genesys 7 suite. Computer -Telephony Integration CTI allows other third parties to gain high-level programming access to the contact center and the underlying PBX. Both Avaya and Genesys have better implementations of CTI, but Avaya requires extra cost for software. Siemens has an implementation that is included in the contact center (Brooks, 2014). Both Interactive Intelligence and Mitel do not offer CTI implementation. Avayas CTI is based upon PBX. Genesys has a more open implementation of that can accommodate other PBX. Avayas CTI has skills based routing, continual polling and can load multisite with BSR. Genesys CTI also has skill based routing, virtual queues, multi-sites, switches and real-time balancing. URL Browsing Avaya Genesys Interactive Intelligence Mitel Siemens • Web collaboration: co-browsing, sharing URL push Y, Browser sharing, URL push Y, Browser sharing, URL push URL push URL push via Chat Planned for next versions Currently, Siemens is the only vendor that does not implement web collaboration, co-browsing or URL push. The best implementations of URL browsing are from Avaya and Genesys with both having web collaboration, URL push, and co-browsing. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) support CRM is used to learn and study more about customer needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger and workable relationship with them. Avaya Genesys Interactive Intelligence Mitel Siemens CRM “out of the box” support SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Onyx and Epiphany MS CRM Microsoft CRM, any vendor CRM, SAP, PeopleSoft, and Siebel MS CRM (pre-integrated); MS CRM, SAP, PeopleSoft, ACT, Remedy, Heat MS CRM; SAP and Siebel Avaya has more packages that come with its CRM implementation closely followed by Genesys. Avaya CRM comes out on top in the category of CRM implementation. Total Cost Avaya Genesys Interactive Intelligence Mitel Siemens Contact center package Interaction Center; Genesys 7 Suite Customer Interaction Center 6100 Contact Center Solutions HiPath ProCenter Standard (pricing basis) Agent seats in contact center 300 (currently logged-in agents) 300 (enabled seats) 100 100 100 Base contact center per-agent price (software only) $1,588 - $2,999 (Interaction Center); $1,725 -inbound voice $2,800 (w/email and Web) From $2,751 (voice) $3,662 (all media, hardware inclusive) $805 to $2,200 (full multimedia) $2,477 Underlying IP PBX and phones cost/ Seat $400, plus $250 - $650 for additional PBX-based call-routing options $150 for vendor’s SIP Server; requires additional equipment $350 to $500, topology dependent $760 $500 to $600; configuration-dependent Additional Components per agent costs • IVR / ASR / TTS $1,200 $1,800 $500-$1,600 Custom development Basic IVR included above; Custom ASR & TTS • Multimedia recording/quality monitoring Avaya offers special packages from Witness Supports Witness, other third party, via CTI interfaces $380 Third-party Integration Siemens resells Verint & Witness quality monitoring • Outbound dial $2,800 $725 to $1,750 $725 (+$3,750 for server software) Custom development Not supported; • CTI/APIs/SDK $10,000 for software Several SDKs — — Included in above • Reporting Between $95 to $450 included included Included Included Final Recommendations and Conclusion Avaya and Genesys come out top in finding the best contact center package to implement in a company. Avaya is a more experienced player in the market and has more connectivity globally of around 7 to 9 million seats and around 30000-contact center globally. Genesys has around 3.5 million seats and 5000 contact centers globally. In terms of connectivity advances, Avaya ranks 8/10. It is because of the experience of the Avaya Company and the integration with the existing Avaya PBX. Genesys scores a rating of 7/10 despite its lack of experience; it is also able to connect to other PBXs like the current Avaya PBX. In terms of multimedia support, Genesys comes out top since it has integrated many applications. In a score of out of 10 Genesys scores 9/10 while Avaya scores 7/10. The total cost installation and implementation of Genesys contact center are slightly cheaper than that of Avaya contact center. This is because most third party installation is not required, and some implementation comes with the default contact center in form of a package. Genesys 7 suite has a score of 9/10 as compared to Avayas 8/10 in terms of the total cost. The final recommendation is that the company should adopt the Genesys Contact Center package since it is cheaper, has a lot of default applications integrated and it can be incorporated with the existing Avaya PBX that is already available in the company. References Richard Watson, 2008. Fixed/Mobile Convergence and Beyond: Unbounded Mobile Communications. Newnes. New York. Chad Brooks, 2014. 14 Interactive Voice Response Solutions for Small Businesses. Retrieved From: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6440-interactive-voice-response-solutions.html. Read More