Cementing leadership status in “relationship management,” Convergys pays a small premium for IVR and voice self-service specialist Intervoice. It makes sense because it gives Convergys first dibs on selling new services and back-end integration to Intervoice’s installed base. Consolidation will continue as “on-demand” solution providers broaden their offerings to meet immediate business needs.
Advisories
Voice Signatures Finding Favor For Mobile Payment Authorization
Mass acceptance of Voice Signatures as valid proof of identity for mobile commerce is on the horizon. It reflects successful integration of biometric engines with pre-existing, established standards for authentication and non-repudiation in the context of mobile payments leveraging lessons learned and standards in place for card processing.
Making a Meaningful Metaphor: The Intelligent Customer Front Door
Genesys Labs is enlisting a multiplicity of partners into its intelligent Customer Front Door™ program. The iCFD is more than a metaphor because it calls for the integration of hardware, software and professional services that amount to big business for solutions providers across the boards.
Putting Microsoft and Aspect’s Venture in Context
The rebranding of Aspect’s core product line (as UC for the Contact Center) along with an investment from Microsoft invites skepticism. IP-based contact centers are multi-vendor domains. Microsoft expects its prospects to toss out old gear to move to an Aspect-based solution, it is bound to be disappointed.
Mobile Voice’s Next Chapter
Yahoo’s $20 million investment in Vlingo and the rollout of a speech-enabled flavor of Yahoo One Search 2.0 signal an important epiphany for mobile service providers. They have confidence that mobile subscribers will readily embrace reliable speech recognition as the fastest, safest, most convenient way to find, interact, and transact with their favorite applications.
UC’s Impact on Contact Centers and Self-Service
No blockbuster announcements were made at last month’s VoiceCon event in Orlando, FL. This reflects the maturity of the Unified Communications (UC) marketplace where key components of hardware and software have achieved commodity, building-block status.
Grading Free DA: A Qualitative Analysis of the Major Free Directory Assistance Providers
Today’s Free DA offerings are the most visible (or audible) entry points for mass market local mobile search. In this advisory, we assess the offerings of AT&T, Google, Jingle and Microsoft to see how well they fulfill the promise of delivering valuable, current local information to people on-the-go.
People Power: Agent-Assisted Speech Services
The metric for success for customer care voice self-services should not be based on automation rates but rather on task completion. And whether it’s for directory assistance, voicemail transcription or voice self-service applications, it has become increasingly clear that human beings will always have a role to play in the call workflow.
Managed Services Build Worldwide Momentum
It takes a recession, technological uncertainties and a weak dollar to convince global enterprises to take a closer look at hosted and managed services providers. A tipping point has apparently been reached across a broad spectrum of software firms. In this advisory, Opus Research takes a closer look at three very different solutions with Genesys Labs (subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent), Voxify and SpinVox.
Microsoft and Yahoo: Well-Positioned for Mobile Search
Microsoft is set to pay a hefty premium ($44.6 billion) to pre-empt others from acquiring Yahoo. While there are several areas of duplication and redundancy, a Yahoo subsidiary of Microsoft is well-positioned to take on Google and capture a significant share of local search and mobile commerce spending.