(Updated September 19)
Even though Genesys Labs already has a long history of offering hosted contact center services (with the likes of AT&T, Verizon, Orange Business, Echopass and others), it is set to launch a new set of cloud-based offerings at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2012. The contact-center-in-the-cloud, called Genesys Connect for Service Cloud, will feature new partnerships, a new “marchitecture” and a price point that targets the highly-competitive small-to-medium sized businesses.

The term “marchitecture” refers to a new approach that, in effect, opens up Genesys’ offerings by embedding a Genesys application inside of Salesforce.com’s Force.com cloud where it interacts and interoperates with Chatter (Salesforce’s real-time chat capability), while offering an agent desktop, administrative interface and performance resources. In addition, Genesys leverages Salesforce’s Cloud CTI connection in order to take best advantage of what Genesys refers to as its “Transit” network which can route calls among seven participating global carriers.

As depicted in the graphic below (which portrays the overall set of capabilities and connections that Genesys’ integration with Salesforce will achieve over time), Genesys Cloud Connect for Salesforce will offer routing, voice processing, self-service, analytics, and workforce optimization resources “in the cloud” with a tight integration to the above-mentioned resources in Force.com. Version 1 (1Q 2013) will route voice, support self-service and agent screen pops. Deeper integration and greater functionality, as depicted in the graphic, will be delivered in later versions.

(click on image to enlarge)

Genesys, and its go-to-market partners like EchoPass and SimpliCTI have long had a number of integrations and “connectors” to Salesforce, but it is now a certified Salesforce.com ISV (“independent software vendor”) making it a member of the ISVForce. Genesys software is now “native” inside tahe Force.com cloud; the Genesys User Interface (UI) is built using VisualForce pages; and Genesys now makes the “Cloud CTI toolkit” available for enterprises to build new applications and integrations.

The upshot of all this is a market offering designed to compete with the cloud-based offers of Interactive Intelligence, InContact or ZenDesk. Dreamforce is a coming out party for Genesys Connect for Service Cloud. A “beta release” version of the software is available to all through Salesforce.com’s AppExchange marketplace. The formal roll-out of V.1 will begin in January 2013 in North America, with additional capabilities and broader geographic distribution slated in mid-2013.

While Genesys has been offering hosted versions of its software for many years, this packaging is a dramatic departure from its locked-down, formal approach to partners and customers. It has been long-anticipated and, in some ways, is also overdue. While much depends on the nature of the eight templated routing plans, as well as the ultimate pricing plan, we believe that Genesys is giving mid-sized businesses the reason, the ways and the means to check out their solution.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Cloud-based telephony, Contact Centers, hosted services, Genesys Labs