In addition to completing the acquisition of Spoken Communications – initially announced last month in New Orleans – Avaya Holdings Corp. today unveiled a new mobile cloud service for contact centres.
Avaya Mobile Experience, a consumption-based cloud solution, will increase the accuracy of contextual information and reduce toll-free carrier costs, the company said in a press release.
“Contact centres pay carriers for each call arriving over a toll-free line regardless of whether the call originates on a mobile device or a non-mobile device, adding substantially to operational expenses,” Avaya said.
Up to 70 per cent of calls to contact centres come from mobile devices, according to Avaya, and enterprises using legacy applications to operate toll-free lines sometimes see their routing accuracy to an appropriate contact centre take a hit.
Avaya Mobile Experience will help enterprises get around this by giving mobile users – who are calling a toll-free number – an option to deflect the call to the web. If the caller picks this option, the toll-free call ends and they receive a message with a link for personalized access to the required information on the company website. Associated per-minute costs from the toll-free call also end when the caller picks the deflection option.
If the mobile caller chooses to interact via voice, the customer information collected by Avaya Mobile Experience will be passed along to help the agent handle the call.
“The number of mobile calls coming to contact centers over toll-free lines is far outpacing those that come from landlines,” said David Chavez, vice-president of architecture and innovation for Avaya.
The solution will initially be offered in the U.S later this. According to Avaya’s website, however, companies can take incoming mobile calls from customers in both US and Canada.
Avaya and Post-Quantum team up on identity-as-a-service
Identity and cyber security specialist, Post-Quantum, is partnering up with Avaya to improve data security in contact centres through a new project called “Identity-as-a-Service” (IDaaS).
The collaboration will lead to the creation of a self-sovereign identity system that allows individuals to “maintain direct control of their own identity attributes and credentials,” according to an Avaya blog post.
The system will be powered by blockchain and biometrics to authenticate mobile callers. All data in the system will be protected by quantum-resistant encryption.
“This vault can only be accessed when multiple parties give their approval, preventing unauthorized access by data center staff. The product also uses blockchain technology to record contact center interactions, increasing transparency and auditability,” the company said.
IDaaS will be available shortly after Avaya Mobile Experience’s release. It will also only be available in the U.S., but will also have the ability to take calls coming from both the U.S. and Canada.
