In an increasingly multichannel world, contact center recording technology is no longer focused solely on speech. NICE Systems has joined the trend of adding video capabilities by building a collaboration solution from Vidyo into the NICE Engage platform.
By capturing more than voice, the company says it can help contact centers better meet compliance regulations and at the same time provide better customer engagement. "Organizations, including those in highly regulated industries, want to capture the entire customer interaction," says Dana Averbouch, director of product marketing at NICE. "The audio portion is only half of the interaction. The other half, video, will show whether an agent was engaged or if they were distracted. Capturing the entirety of each interaction will help ensure that agents are doing their job the right way."
NICE's Engage Platform is a real-time multichannel solution that provides voice, streaming, screen, and archiving tools. By integrating the VidyoWorks technology, the platform can help contact centers meet regulations on a global level.
Averbouch says that financial services, healthcare, and insurance are among the industries that have shown a spike in video-based service conversations.
"Our partnership with Vidyo gives organizations the opportunity to better understand what is happening during each interaction and make improvements to ensure they’re providing quality service while maintaining compliance," she says.
Other industry insiders agree. Art Schoeller, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, recently wrote about the importance of using video in industries that especially need to inspire assurance.
"In the age of the customer, trust and transparency are critical for banks, investment management firms, and insurance providers," Schoeller wrote. "With the growth of online and mobile banking, online video and video chat are increasingly important tools for banks to convey trust and transparency through digital experiences.
"For financial services firms these attributes are key to boosting deeper customer engagement with wealth management clients and grow share of wallet in retail banking."
While the NICE/Vidyo integrated solution uses video, it is not the same as WebRTC (real-time communication), which also includes video, Averbouch says. "In order to record [audio and video], the agent desktop must have the integrated solution installed on their desktop, as it does not support browser-to-browser applications.
"The solution will capture and record whatever is displayed on the agent's screen. For example, if an interaction occurred over Skype, the audio and both agent and customer videos would be recorded as both videos are displayed on the agent's screen."
Vidyo, a venture-backed firm, has 3,000 customers and counts as clients the U.S. Army, Nintendo, and Mozilla. Since both NICE and Vidyo serve in the same sectors, the partnership made sense, says Averbouch. "It seemed natural to integrate our two solutions and help organizations improve the quality of service provided to their customers through a comprehensive offering."