2. Evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions Serge Hyppolite Director, Product Management Aspect Software Serge.Hyppolite@aspect.com www.aspect.com

3. A History of Innovation Voice ACD Workforce Management Voice and data integration Voice, email, and Web front- and back-office integration Converged voice/ data network Mid Voice Only Mid Voice and Data Unified Communications VoIP/SIP

4. Workforce Globalization Rising Customer Expectations Technology Convergence Rapid Pace of Technological Change Trends Customer Care

5.  Global and remote workforces  Agent Productivity  Distributed and Virtual Contact Centers  Intelligent Applications and Services  Increased efficiency, reduced infrastructure costs  Simplified Application and Business Rule Development  Consolidated Administration and Analytics  Enterprise Integration Technology Convergence Workforce Globalization Rapid Pace of Technological Change Rising Customer Expectations Implications to the Contact Center

6. Analyst Projections IP in the CC After the initial hype, IP is finally hitting the call center mainstream; by 2007 there will be over one million IP agent positions in operation and by 2008, IP ACD revenues will have overtaken traditional TDM revenues… Datamonitor: June 2004 SIP Adoption By year-end 2006, 50 percent of enterprise IP telephony and unified messaging systems will support SIP as an option (0.8 probability) Gartner: June 2003 Multimedia CC’s and UQ Of the surveyed companies, 82.4 percent reported that they support multiple media types in their contact centers. This indicates that multimedia contact centers (as opposed to telephony-only "call centers") have entered the mainstream. The large percentage of multimedia contact centers does not imply equal adoption levels of universal queue (UQ) systems (30.1 percent of contact centers report having UQ capability) Gartner: May 2004 Extended Enterprises By 2006, leading enterprises will be investing in contact center technology for all employees to help them measure, track and manage their own communications (0.7 probability) Gartner: March 2004 Workforce Globalization Demand for offshore call center outsourcing is growing and shifting east to countries across Europe and will also grow in the APAC region through 2007 Datamonitor: December 2003

7. Value of Contact Center to Enterprise 2 Increase profits by Decrease defections by Sources: 1. Forum Corp 2. Harvard Business Review of customer losses related to poor customer service/sales interaction 1

8. The Converged Contact Center “Now I can not only solve the customer’s problem the first time I talk to him, but I can suggest helpful upgrades.” “I can deploy a call center anywhere, easily interface to my business applications, and manage it all from my desk.” “Even though my call centers are distributed, I now have a single, centralized cross-media view of the total customer experience.” “Whether I contact them by email, Web, or on the phone, I always get the answer, fast!” CORPORATE CUSTOMER AGENT IT

9. Compelling Reasons for IP Analysts indicate IP is viable and growing:  Growth in overall VoIP  Over the next five years, analysts expect significant growth in the number of IP-architected call centers, with all new switches sold in 10 years to be IP switches.  Demand for hybrid VoIP add-ons  Enterprise call centers will migrate to IP slowly (2005-08), due to reluctance to add risk to customer-facing activities.  Large call centers are more likely to demand VoIP remote agents and hybrid solutions to protect existing investments.  Demand for continued support of PSTN switches  Enterprises, especially large enterprises, will require continued support and add-ons for their PSTN switches. Sources: Frost 2003, Yankee Group 2003, Datamonitor 11/2002, Giga 2003

10. Compelling Reasons for IP  Advantages of VoIP in contact centers  Support of anywhere agent  Support of remote sites and virtual contact centers  Reduced telephony charges  Unified development and administration  Reduced network and operating costs as voice and data networks converge  Two main types of IP contact center solutions  Hybrid IP/circuit-switched  Pure IP-centric

11. What if you could…  Cut telephony costs by routing voice traffic over IP networks?  Locate agents in regions with low labor and facility costs?  Deploy VoIP agents using your existing Call Center?  Administer your PSTN and VoIP agents using the same management tools you use today?  Use the same reporting tools you use today for PSTN or VoIP?  Move to VoIP without rewriting or retraining your staff? You can!

12. Factors to Consider When Evaluating Solutions 1.Breadth of Applications 2.Flexibility 3.Rich IP Features 4.Investment Protection 5.Company Viability

13. (1) Breath of Applications  The IP Contact Center solution must offer the rich set of capabilities that the Contact Center Environment requires:  ACD  Predictive Dialing  IVR  Multi Channel Functionality (Chat, Email, Workflow)  Recording and Quality Monitoring  Reporting  “To the Operations team, it doesn’t matter what the underlying infrastructure is, but the business applications are critical.”

14. (2) Flexibility  “Anywhere” access for agents  Agents at home  Branch office  Call Center  Knowledge Workers  Scalability from tens to thousands of users  Standard interface support  Across technologies; PSTN/VoIP

15. Flexibility - Agents Anywhere LAN/ WAN Customer PSTN IP- Enabled Call Center IP PBX PSTN PBX Agents connect to IP PBX Agents in Call Center Agents connect to PSTN PBX Toll-Bypass Gateway SIP TDM Internet LAN/ WAN Home-based Agents SIP Customer

16. IP-Enabled Call Center IP-Enabled Center Flexibility - Multi-Site Networking via IP Calls can be sent from one call center to another via VoIP technology LAN/WAN Managed Corporate Network

17. (3) Rich IP Features Must offer Advanced voice quality and telephony features  SIP v2.0 compliant  Automatic Gain Control  Echo Cancellation  Silence Suppression to conserve bandwidth  Comfort Noise  DTMF tone detection and generation  Configurable, dynamic and adaptive Jitter control  Flexible packetization rate  QoS

18. Rich IP Features - Standards Support  Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [RFC 3261]  Session Description Protocol (SDP) [RFC 2327]  Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) [RFC 1889]  DTMF digit detection and generation [RFC 2833]  CODEC Support:  G.711μ-law  G.711A-law  G.729A / G.729AB

19. Rich IP Features - Audio Codecs  G.711 provides best audio quality  64 kbps (payload)  Good with low call volume  A-law and u-Law setting based on country Set μ-Law in Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, United States Set A-Law in other countries  G.729 compression reduces bandwidth required  8 kbps (payload)  Codecs selected in order of preference based on capabilities of connecting device

20. Voice and InterQueue Data Exchanged over IP WAN/VPN Route to any agent off any Call Center! WAN VPN IP Network InterQueue San Francisco Miami Portland Seattle Chicago SIP Trunks Rich IP Features - IP Network Interqueue

21. (4) Investment Protection  Must support both TDM and IP to enable seamless transition  Must provide standard interfaces for connectivity  Must offer interfaces to existing desktop, front office, and back office applications  Routing rules, administration, reporting remain same for PSTN or VoIP transport  Must offer support for standard IP phones - Aspect, Cisco, Siemens, Pingtel, Snom or ‘soft’ IP Phones (MS Windows Messenger)  Allow companies to migrate at own pace

22. (5) Company Viability  Proven - Must have expertise and focus in Contact Center  Astute Innovators – must provide leadership in innovating technologies in this market  Customer Driven - Must have a history of delivering superior customer service  Always There - Must have the financial discipline and viability to be a trusted long-term business partner

23. Summary and Close  The benefits of moving to IP are clear and IP is here now  In evaluating IP Contact Center Solutions, companies must consider: 1. Breadth of Applications – must offer the full set of contact center applications that the business requires 2. Flexibility – must provide the level of scalability and deployment flexibility to address grow as the business needs expand 3. Rich IP Features – must offer complete set of IP features and standards interfaces 4. Investment Protection – must allow companies to migrate to IP at their own pace 5. Company Viability – must deal with a vendor with the expertise, good reputation, and viability needed to be a long term business partner.

24. Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, visit us at www.aspect.com