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Aspect turns vision into business value with new "Uniphi" architecture featuring Uniphi Connect & Aspect Call Centre Version 9

Announcement posted by Aspect Communications 16 Oct 2003

New architecture extends Aspect's vision of joining best-of-breed, proven technologies into multi-product solutions allowing customers to transition to IP at their own pace
Aspect Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: ASPT), the leading provider of enterprise customer contact solutions, today announced Uniphi, the only contact centre architecture that brings together workforce, information and communications into reliable, multi-product solutions focused on helping businesses transition to IP-based technologies at whatever pace suits their needs.
The Uniphi architecture represents an extension of Aspect's vision of protecting and enhancing contact centre investments, whether PSTN, IP hybrid or pure VoIP infrastructure, while lowering total cost of ownership and reducing risk as newer technologies, capabilities and standards are introduced. The first two products developed in direct support of this new architecture-Uniphi Connect and Aspect Call Centre version 9-combine these recent innovations with Aspect's proven reliability gained from 18 years of contact centre expertise and more than 8,000 customer implementations worldwide.
"The Uniphi architecture brings our best-of-breed capabilities together into an integrated suite that delivers much more than the sum of its parts," said Gary Barnett, Aspect's interim president and chief executive officer. "With Uniphi Connect and Aspect Call Centre v9, customers can continue to trust their mission-critical contact centres to Aspect while incrementally taking advantage of everything an IP-based network has to offer-at their own pace and without requiring the 'forklift' upgrades that have become so common."
PSTN-and-IP-Based Agents on a Single Platform: Uniphi Connect
Aspect today introduced Uniphi Connect, a new solution enabling businesses to operate a hybrid IP/PSTN call centre without the need for third-party IP gateway hardware. Uniphi Connect eliminates the need for a separate IP gateway by including an IP card within the ACD platform. In addition to the IP card, Uniphi Connect includes an agent desktop that allows agents to be located anywhere there is an IP connection, providing centralized management, administration and reporting for all PSTN and IP-based agents.
With Aspect Uniphi Connect, voice as well as routing requests can travel over less expensive IP networks. Uniphi Connect also works in conjunction with another Aspect application, Aspect IP Network InterQueue. This combination of products allows businesses to set up one virtual contact centre operation regardless of where the physical sites are located. IP Network InterQueue greatly reduces the expense of routing calls across multiple networked Aspect Call Centre systems by eliminating the need for T1/E1 lines to link dispersed contact centre sites. In combination, Uniphi Connect and IP Network InterQueue will eliminate unnecessary PSTN toll charges associated with cross-site routing of calls.
"In terms of voice and data convergence, contact centre managers must evaluate and balance the advantages offered by circuit-switched solutions versus those based on voice over Internet protocol," says Drew Kraus, principal analyst at Gartner. "Leading vendors must offer a migration path to a viable VoIP solution, as this approach will become increasingly common during the next two years."
IP Connectivity and More: Aspect Call Centre v9
Aspect Call Centre v9 delivers a hybrid PSTN and IP solution built on commercially available processors and servers. Leveraging the company's 18 years of expertise, Aspect Call Centre v9 carries forward all of the award-winning features seen in previous versions of Aspect Call Centre and combines them with new enhancements that simultaneously provide investment protection for PSTN-based technologies and a migration path to VoIP at a pace that can suit each customer's needs.
Aspect Call Centre v9 retains everything that made Aspect's call routing software a leading choice for customers worldwide, including precise routing based on customer data, ANI, DNIS, or ISDN, caller choices, agent skills and real-time contact centre conditions; an easy-to-use graphical environment for developing call flows; powerful tools for configuring and managing resources in real time; capabilities to reduce abandoned call rates, such as music on hold, announcements and an estimated wait time feature; load balancing across multiple sites; historical reporting; and blending of inbound and outbound calls.
In addition, network-directed call routing based on ANI and DNIS has been enhanced in Aspect Call Centre v9 to include the following:
* User-to-user information (UUI) on outbound calls: Information received with inbound calls can be inserted into outbound ISDN calls as UUI.
* Configurable calling-line identity (CLI) on outbound calls: Managers can present a selected telephone number for an outbound campaign, in
line with forthcoming government regulations requiring a callback number.
* Support for transit routing of calls: Incoming calls can be transited through Aspect Call Centre v9 via a routing table, allowing the full, received digit string to be sent on outbound calls.
Aspect Call Centre v9 also features enhancements for tagging information to calls transferred between agents, resulting in better overall reporting and analysis. Enhanced quality monitoring and messaging are achieved by enabling supervisors to monitor agents locally and remotely by agent group, allowing a more equitable distribution of monitoring sessions between supervisors.
Availability
Aspect Call Centre v9 and Aspect Uniphi Connect will be available worldwide beginning in the fourth quarter of 2003 and will be sold through both direct and indirect channels. Aspect Call Centre v9 offers an upgrade path for existing customers with Aspect Enterprise Call Centre solution.
About Aspect Communications
Aspect Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: ASPT) is the world's largest company focused exclusively on contact centre solutions, and the only one that unifies workforce, information and communications to deliver exceptional customer service. The Aspect brand is trusted by more than 75 percent of the Fortune 50, and more than 3 million customer sales and service professionals worldwide rely on Aspect's mission-critical business communications solutions. The company's leadership is based on 18 years of expertise gained from more than 8,000 successful implementations worldwide. Aspect is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with 24 offices in 11 countries around the world. For more information, visit Aspect's Web site at www.aspect.com or call the Sydney head office on +61 2 8923 1300.
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