Enterprise contact centers are becoming extremely complex, using technology from multiple vendors to meet specific customer requirements. Today, clients are using new media types such as smart phones and tablets to reach out so you need to explore new technologies such as cloud services to consolidate and improve your delivery. Why Test the Customer Quality of Experience? When you change or deploy new technology you need to understand the caller’s perspective, from the greeting through to the ag...

Imagine you're trying to book a flight. You call the toll-free number and use the interactive voice response (IVR) to get through to bookings, but instead you are put through to the baggage area. You hang up and try again, but this time you wind up speaking to the airline lounge. Do you try a third time or call a competitor? I know what I would do. The IVR is now a key component to delivering a great customer experience, so what steps should a business take to ensure these systems are working op...

IVR. In many customers’ minds, this three-letter acronym is a four-letter word. It’s not uncommon for callers to mutter a diverse range of other forbidden words whenever interacting – or trying to interact – with a contact center’s IVR system. But IVR is not deserving of such hatred. IVR systems are not inherently flawed or evil, nor are the companies that use an IVR to front-end their contact centers. The reason why the general public’s perception of IVR is so negative is that so few of the sys...

Business is a fluid thing; the past 30 years have seen innovation after innovation and with it, a shift in culture. The 1980s saw a focus on quality products. The 1990s illustrated enterprises centered on branding. In the 2000s what differentiates companies? Customer Service. Customer service has climbed the list of priorities, and today one can see companies putting money where their mouths are by investing in a quality customer experience. Russ Zilles, CEO of IQ Services took some time to talk...

Visibility Is an Urgent Challenge Lack of visibility is behind the worst of IT headaches, leaving the network open to malicious intrusions, as well as compliance, availability, and performance problems. Today’s soaring traffic volumes are bringing greater complexity, proliferating apps and devices, and rising virtual traffic—in fact, “east-west” traffic between virtual machines now makes up half of all traffic on the network. Virtual traffic is the culprit that spawns unmonitored "blind spots," ...

New Features & Improvements Improved association times on the ath10k 802.11AC NIC * Improved stability of 802.11AC (ath10k) driver * Support for 802.11w on virtual APs. * Improved scripting for wifi captive portal testing. ...and over 25 more improvements, too Download Release Notes here Thanks to Candela for the article.   

Since Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems were first introduced as a customer service tool, there have been many detractors. However, a recent Forrester Consulting survey indicates that the tide has turned and customers have accepted IVR and, in some cases, even prefer it to live operators. Speech-enabled self-service IVRs have become so commonplace that many consumers report that they prefer to use such systems for simple tasks such as checking account balances, flight statuses or shipment...

As we say goodbye to 2014 and review our network equipment plans for the new year, looking at replacement options is not enough. We have to consider the currents that network technology flows in and where they are taking us. Ignoring buying decisions and looking at the bigger picture provides an opportunity to assess what emerging companies are doing to redefine and redirect our network thinking, from the higher levels of standardisation, convergence and virtualisation down to how startups are m...

“What can really be done to improve network visibility?” This is a question that our customers often ask us. They’ve heard about this and that and something else but are often left confused as to what capabilities actually exist in the market to solve their network visibility problems. In this multi-part blog, I’ll provide you an in-depth view of features that will deliver true benefits. There are 5 fundamental feature sets that we’ll cover: Data and packet conditioning Advanced packet filtering...