With a fully integrated product across the two companies customers are set to benefit from one integrated contact centre solution based on Intelecom Connect and Verint Impact 360 workforce management Software. The offering is available in one flexible cloud-based deployment model.

Intelecom Group AS, a provider of cloud contact centre technology, have announced the availability of  Verint Systems's Impact 360 workforce management and optimisation software as a cloud-based solution integrated into Intelecom Connect. This follows the organisations commencing their relationship earlier this year in May 2013 and is impressive in the speed at which they have ben able to collaborate as well as the depth of the proposition. Adding to Intelcom's contact solution, Verint are prominently placed in a field they define as "Actionable Intelligence" solutions and their product line already includes a suite of award-winning workforce optimisation software as well as an analytics tool Voice of Customer Analytics.

The closer alignment of service to other divisions within an organisation is one that is often cited as a critical steep in moving from cost centre to profit centre, or at the very least in increasing efficiency and reducing costs simultaneously. Of course one of the most obvious and simplest divisions for alignment to the service centre in in many cases is the contact centre as often they fulfil many similar if not overlapping functions.

An integrated, cloud-based solution will help multi-site, multichannel contact centres capture a full range of customer interactions for quality, compliance and customer intelligence that can be used to enhance operations, improve performance and heighten the customer experience. It also opens the doors wide to operational transparency which is key to the successful operation of an efficient service division.

When we then add in the more standard service management-esque elemeents to the solution which can help organisations automate workforce management, including staff forecasting and scheduling, and the ability to track agent adherence, while providing performance management we are starting to see yet another example of the more holistic platform approach to software that Sergio Barata referred to in his recent feature .

Torkel Engeness, CEO of Intelecom comments, “An increasing number of our customers using our cloud-based contact centre are placing more focus on enhancing the customer experience. There are clear benefits in using a robust and well-known workforce optimisation technology, deployed in the same flexible cloud model as our core product. Verint, with its proven portfolio of WFO and VoC Analytics solutions, makes it an ideal partner for Intelecom.”

Nick Nonini, Senior Vice President Sales, Verint Enterprise Intelligence Solutions^™adds, “Verint is committed to working with select partners to deliver our portfolio of solutions in the cloud. Our customers and the industry at-large continue to recognise Verint as the market leader and innovator in deploying WFO applications in a variety of environments, from on-premises to the cloud. With this partnership, Intelecom’s customers have access to a fully-integrated, cloud-based WFO solution.”

Intelecom Connect is at the time of writing as close as any other offering to being the complete contact centre solution available in the cloud.  Of course the fact that it follows the SaaS model also provides a number of other benefits including being affordable to those companies for whom such technology may previously been prohibitively expensive to obtain.

The flexibility of the Connect application programming interface and Web Services allows seamless integration into third-party software environments. This partnership not only provides Intelecom customers with advanced workforce management technology typically associated with on-premise licensing, but also makes it available on an integrated in-the-cloud, pay-as-you-use basis from a single supplier. Offering customers flexibility in deployment, it also can help them meet their business requirements as they evolve.

Verint’s Impact 360 Workforce Optimisation suite enables organisations to capture, analyse and act on customer, business and market intelligence, and gain a complete multichannel view of customer interactions and experiences. Again the type of technology at the top of a lot of field service managers wish lists currently.

Using tools like this companies can identify opportunities to refine and enhance products and services; maximise information and workflow across functions; learn about competitive and other changing market dynamics; fine-tune internal business processes; enhance staff sales/service delivery; reduce operating costs; and realise new revenue opportunities. All extremely commendable in its own right.

Brought together these options certainly make for a compelling package and it's good to see such strong collaboration yielding impressive initial results.