Siemens Continually Recognizes Fertile Ground With SMBs

| Contact Center/CRM Views and Analysis

Siemens Continually Recognizes Fertile Ground With SMBs

Siemens today announced it's launching Version 6.5 of its popular HiPath ProCenter Agile and ProCenter Standard apps today. I had the pleasure of meeting with Al Baker, VP of product management for Siemens Global eCRM Solutions, in TMC's office last week. I admire the HiPath ProCenter Agile product (and Siemens) for launching essentially dual versions of this product: one product (Agile) was designed to make the functionality of HiPath ProCenter available to the SMB market (small to medium-sized businesses). This is a step that has not been taken by many of Siemens notable competitiors. Companies that think they can survive by servicing only the large enterprise market may have a rude awakening in the next year or two if they ignore the fertile smaller business market.

Additionally, Siemens updated the HiPath ProCenter Stanard product (it's large enterprise version of the software). New functionality has been added to both versions. See details below.

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Siemens Announces New HiPath ProCenter Contact Center Solutions With Unique Multimedia Presence Tools To Drive First Contact Resolution

Siemens Communications, Inc., today announced Version 6.5 of its HiPath® ProCenter Agile and ProCenter® Standard contact center applications, building further on the product portfolio’s already successful reach to enterprise customers

The Siemens HiPath ProCenter V6.5 portfolio enables enterprises to drive even greater first-contact resolutions of customer calls with faster call center administration, call processing and multimedia routing and reporting, including enhanced user and management visualization tools. Presence-driven and permission-based collaboration tools have also been extended to reach enterprise-wide communication sources such as the telephone, e-mail and instant messaging.

"Award-winning presence collaboration features, a new generation of visual management tools and the highly intuitive agent desktop will help enterprises to achieve more strategic customer relationships," said Al Baker, vice president, eCRM solutions, Siemens Communications, Inc. "With V6.5 solutions, Siemens has set a new standard for first-contact resolution, customer satisfaction and business-driven results."

The upgraded HiPath ProCenter Agile solution, with support for as many as 150 active agents, is designed for small and mid-sized enterprise contact centers or informal call handling groups. It has powerful new features such as easy to implement e-mail management, scheduled callbacks and agents in multiple groups. It also provides integrated design capabilities for a basic IVR, and integration with Microsoft CRM.

As a ready-to-run solution, Agile is easy to implement, configure and use, delivering intelligent call routing, graphical reporting, and innovative productivity tools for both call handling agents and managers. Streamlined for call handling and communication using a smaller footprint, the HiPath ProCenter Agile solution includes an Associate Desktop that can easily extend intelligent call routing features to employees who serve as overflow agents during peak traffic periods, ensuring uniform response levels throughout the day. When used by subject matter experts, the Associate Desktop further facilitates collaboration with agents to enable greater first-call resolutions.

The upgraded HiPath ProCenter Standard solution, scaling up to 750 active users, includes enhancements such as full IVR support, advanced multimedia skills-based routing and a sophisticated software developer toolkit for vertical business process integrations. As with the HiPath ProCenter Agile, presence tools such as Team List and Team Bar are integrated into the Standard’s application desktop, allowing agents to visually monitor the real-time availability of other enterprise agents, managers and subject matter experts. As needed, agents can quickly engage colleagues with the solution’s one-click collaboration capabilities, whether they are in the next office or remotely connected to the enterprise via an IP network.

The entire portfolio’s Agent and Associate desktop interfaces have been redesigned with intuitive Windows-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to reduce training time. User operating flexibility includes tear-off-and-park toolbars and an integrated ticker-tape display of real-time contact center operational statistics, and now includes outbound and callback capabilities. A Contact Log automatically tracks the details of all inbound and outbound interactions and provides single-click callback for added productivity.

For contact center administration, the Manager application unifies multiple tools:

from small to large and across myriad industry sectors in more than 60 countries.

A graphical Design Center for the drag-and-drop creation or revision of call flows and queues without the need for IT department interaction.

An integrated Administration Center for defining users, groups and queues.

A Broadcast Center for the point-and-click setup of wallboard output or the desktop ticker-tape display.

For added investment protection and scalability, the new HiPath ProCenter offerings provide a seamless, automated upgrade path from the Agile to the Standard enterprise edition. Also, both systems run in TDM, converged or pure voice over IP (VoIP) infrastructures. HiPath ProCenter Standard is also available in an IPortal configuration for deployment across a non-Siemens PBX platform environment.

About Siemens

Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) is one of the largest global electronics and engineering companies with reported worldwide sales of $91.5 billion in fiscal 2004. Founded more than 150 years ago, the company is a leader in the areas of Medical, Power, Automation and Control, Transportation, Information and Communications, Lighting, Building Technologies, Water Technologies and Services and Home Appliances. With its U.S. corporate headquarters in New York City, Siemens in the USA has sales of $16.6 billion and employs 70,000 people throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Thirteen of Siemens' worldwide businesses are based in the United States. With its global headquarters in Munich, Siemens AG and its subsidiaries employ 430,000 people in 192 countries. For more information on Siemens in the United States:

About Siemens Communications, Inc.

Siemens Communications, Inc., offers its customers a broad portfolio of communication products and services and is a leader in convergent technologies, products and services for wireless, fixed and enterprise networks. The company’s portfolio ranges from devices for end users to complex network infrastructures and complementary services for enterprises, carriers and service providers. Siemens Communications, Inc., is headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla. For more information, visit

A visual Report Center that provides easily customized real-time, cumulative and historical views, including graphical and tabular formats, and built-in trend analysis and projection.www.usa.siemens.com.www.usa.siemens.com/communications


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