Aspect Software has launched its cloud-based customer engagement center, Via, in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Via will be available to customers in Europe in the second quarter. Aspect first previewed the Via product last May.
According to Aspect, Via delivers enterprise value by helping drive adoption, conversion rates, consumer loyalty, and employee productivity while seeking to limit related expenses. Via is deployed through Amazon Web Services.
Aspect says it has "re-factored" its contact center, workforce optimization and self-services suites to AWS rather than developing a solution from scratch, and in doing so leverages virtualization techniques such as virtual private cloud, relational database service, availability zones, and Amazon S3 storage.
Aspect Via’s native capabilities include the following:
- Omnichannel engagement with inbound/outbound voice, Web Chat, interactive voice and text response powered by natural language understanding, and SMS self-service;
- Proactive outreach through voice and SMS;
- Browser-based, persona-driven user experiences for agents, team leads and managers;
- Cloud-optimized quality recording (voice and chat), workforce management (forecasting and scheduling), performance management (KPIs, awards, analytics);
- Built-in integrations with leading CRM systems like Salesforce.com; and
- Shared real-time and historical reporting across all capabilities.
The customer aspect is becoming increasingly important in starting and strengthening customer relationships. New Aspect research shows 67 percent of consumers say a personalized customer service experience is more important than speed of service.
"The radical shift in consumer demand for self-service and digital-first experiences is well beyond the capabilities of the contact center infrastructure companies have in place today," said Jim Freeze, Aspect's senior vice president and chief marketing officer, in a prepared statement. "Organizations strive to keep pace with the growing demands and preferences of their customers. To do this they need a true customer engagement center that brings the entire consumer experience into full and actionable view with customer journey reporting and analytics. Aspect Via readies the enterprise by ensuring seamless, context-driven omnichannel interactions for customers and agents alike, all delivered through the cloud."
Aspect Via’s initial customer is Trupanion, a provider of medical insurance for pets.
"From our inception, Trupanion has viewed exceptional customer experience as vital to our mission to help the pets we all love receive the best veterinary care. So, it's essential that our contact center technology continues to evolve to meet the changing needs of our customers," said Ian Moffat, Truppanion's chief operating officer, in a prepared statement. "Our investment in Aspect Via provides our pet owners the ability to engage with us on their preferred contact channel, whether it be voice, email, chat, or SMS. Plus, Aspect Via's sleek agent desktop provides our contact center employees with a far more intuitive and engaging agent experience, which allows for faster and more informed decisions when engaging with our pet owners."