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The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 2016 The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up by Art Schoeller 29 September, 2016 FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS FORRESTER.COM Key Takeaway Points Genesys And Mitel Networks Lead The Pack Forrester’s research uncovered a market in which Genesys and Mitel Networks lead the pack. Enghouse Interactive, Cisco Systems, Aspect Software and Avaya offer competitive options. Unify and Interactive Intelligence lag closely behind. AD&D Pros Are Looking For SaaS Delivery And Comprehensive, Integrated CCIM Suites The CCIM market is transforming because more AD&D professionals see CCIM as a way to address the need for differentiated customer experiences with more agile contact centres. SaaS and Depth Of Suite Integration Are Key Differentiators Providing seamless access to customer service agents across all channels is harder to accomplish on legacy, voice-based on-premises systems. Medium-sized contact centres need an easy-to-manage CCIM system to accomplish this goal. Why Read This Report Connecting customers to the right agents over the right channel is key to an excellent, differentiated customer experience. In our 40-criteria evaluation of medium-sized contact centre interaction management (CCIM) providers, we identified the eight most significant ones – Aspect Software, Avaya, Cisco Systems, Enghouse Interactive, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Mitel Networks and Unify – and researched, analysed and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals make the right choice.

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Page 1: FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS … · The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 2016 The Eight Providers

The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 2016The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

by Art Schoeller29 September, 2016

FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

FORRESTER.COM

Key Takeaway PointsGenesys And Mitel Networks Lead The PackForrester’s research uncovered a market in which Genesys and Mitel Networks lead the pack. Enghouse Interactive, Cisco Systems, Aspect Software and Avaya offer competitive options. Unify and Interactive Intelligence lag closely behind.

AD&D Pros Are Looking For SaaS Delivery And Comprehensive, Integrated CCIM SuitesThe CCIM market is transforming because more AD&D professionals see CCIM as a way to address the need for differentiated customer experiences with more agile contact centres.

SaaS and Depth Of Suite Integration Are Key DifferentiatorsProviding seamless access to customer service agents across all channels is harder to accomplish on legacy, voice-based on-premises systems. Medium-sized contact centres need an easy-to-manage CCIM system to accomplish this goal.

Why Read This ReportConnecting customers to the right agents over the right channel is key to an excellent, differentiated customer experience. In our 40-criteria evaluation of medium-sized contact centre interaction management (CCIM) providers, we identified the eight most significant ones – Aspect Software, Avaya, Cisco Systems, Enghouse Interactive, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Mitel Networks and Unify – and researched, analysed and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals make the right choice.

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© 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Opinions reflect judgement at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Unauthorised copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140 USA+1 617-613-6000 | Fax: +1 617-613-5000 | forrester.com

Table Of Contents

Medium-Sized Contact Centres Require Simpler CCIM SaaS Suites

The Market Is Buffeted By Acquisitions and Varying Product and Channel Maturity

CCIM For Medium-Sized Contact Centres Evaluation Overview

Evaluated Vendors and Inclusion Criteria

Vendor Profiles

Leaders

Strong Performers

Contenders

Supplemental Material

Notes & Resources

Forrester evaluated contact centre interaction management software vendors in June and July 2016. We only considered products that were generally available as of 1 June 2016, while reference checks and analysis extended into July. We interviewed eight firms: Aspect Software, Avaya, Cisco Systems, Enghouse Interactive, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Mitel Networks and Unify.

Related Research Documents

The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Large Contact Centres, Q3 2016

Increase Customer Service Agility With Cloud Contact Centres

Vendor Landscape: Contact Centre Interaction Management

Vendors Battle For The Heart Of The Contact Centre

FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 2016The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

by Art Schoellerwith Christopher Andrews, Ian Jacobs, Meredith Cain and Peter Harrison

29 September, 2016

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FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 201629 September 2016

© 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorised copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

2

The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Medium-Sized Contact Centres Require Simpler CCIM SaaS Suites

Today’s demanding customers have little patience to wait in a queue for customer service agents to answer their questions. They will try to find answers on their own and then use a multiplicity of channels (e.g. phone, email, web chat or social) to contact companies if self-service tools fail to satisfy their requests.1 Medium-sized contact centres cannot afford to split customers across technology silos that each serve a specific channel because it’s simply beyond their capacity to manage best-of-breed components.2 CCIM suites simplify the task of delivering superior customer service for medium-sized contact centres (as defined in our inclusion criteria).

Readers may seek to compare this report to its companion report “The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Large Contact Centres, Q3 2016.”

AD&D professionals supporting medium-sized contact centres increasingly expect the following characteristics from their vendors:

› A common software suite for interactions across all channels. The CCIM market is slowly evolving away from best-of-breed solutions devoted to one or two channels and towards integrated software suites that span all channels and manage the real-time status of agents, guide customer contact flow and facilitate interaction analytics. This is especially important for medium-sized contact centres that wish to offer seamless customer journeys across all channels. Key components include a solidly designed, modern user interface across the system for all roles; out-of-the-box CRM integration; integrated interactive voice response (IVR); and outbound dialling.

› The simplicity of software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment and pricing. Procuring, installing and maintaining multiple components, even with the assistance of a channel partner, impede the ability of medium-sized contact centres to operate as agile businesses.3 Companies with seasonal traffic must purchase and maintain a system designed for peak periods. SaaS delivery allows for more agility to design and manage differentiated customer journeys and be responsive to market changes. Mid-market CCIM suites delivered via SaaS support these requirements, and vendors are continuing to simplify their bundles – including options that deliver integrated workforce optimisation (WFO) as well.

› Standardised reporting and analytics along with more WFO bundling. Medium-sized contact centre managers largely lack the resources to design and construct custom reports. The CCIM market has always supported a common library of standardised reports coupled with business intelligence tools for customisation. These standard report packages now include activity across all channels. We also see a trend of vendors bundling WFO reporting along with speech and text analytics, allowing medium-sized contact centres to alleviate the integration and customisation required in the past.

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FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 201629 September 2016

© 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorised copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

› Sales, service and support from an extensive channel of partners. The technology management model for small and medium-sized businesses leans more heavily to local and specialised service providers than direct support from CCIM vendors themselves. SaaS disrupts this partner network, so CCIM vendors have to transform their channel partners’ business models to subscription-based revenues while still serving customers who choose an on-premises deployment. Adding in customer success consulting aligns with the growing trend of tying medium-sized contact centre performance to technology investments.

The Market Is Buffeted By Acquisitions and Varying Product and Channel Maturity

Moving to a full omnichannel software suite and, in parallel, transitioning to cloud have challenged the established CCIM vendors we’ve evaluated in this report.4 Due to their longevity in the market, the vendors bring relatively large installed bases to the table that provide ripe opportunities for maintenance and upgrade revenues. Contact centre managers tend to resist change, so shifting to a new platform takes a lot of effort by competitors looking to capture market share. Yet, over the past five years, the small and medium-sized contact centre market has proved to be receptive to newer, cloud-only vendors. In this evaluation, we see that:

› The path to SaaS is varied, wide and tortured. SaaS is not just retooling or creating a new, multi-tenant CCIM software suite. The subscription model cuts across all elements of sales, marketing and service within a technology company.5 Cisco Systems has engaged mostly carrier partners to host its existing system as a service. Interactive Intelligence chose to create a new product that runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Avaya’s IP Office is not multi-tenant, but some partners will host it. Cloud-only vendors like Five9 and inContact inherently have solved these challenges, but cannot serve the customer who wants an on-premises solution.

› CCIM suites are maturing and starting to include “fries with that” WFO. Every vendor in this evaluation has the ability to support the common channels: voice, email and web chat. But their depth of support varies (e.g. support for multiple simultaneous web chat sessions and the ability to transfer them). This will improve as vendors acquire more non-voice channel experience in the market. Medium-sized contact centre purchases are now increasingly including WFO, as CCIM vendors supply either native or OEM versions in their packaging. In fact, many vendors now include call recording in their base, voice-only packages.

› The lines between CCIM, WFO and CRM are blurring. CRM vendors have added non-voice channels like social and web chat, and this is creating a “digital divide” in contact centres between voice and digital interactions. Creating more overlap, some CRM vendors, like Zendesk, are adding voice capabilities as well. Enquiries with Forrester clients indicate an increasing level of confusion as to which vendors to choose for which capabilities.6 CCIM vendors in this evaluation are anchored in voice, but they need to ensure that they are proactively positioning themselves for non-voice channels.

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FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 201629 September 2016

© 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorised copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

› Mergers and acquisitions are on the rise. The move to suite and cloud models stresses the financial health and market position of the CCIM vendors, which creates a ripe opportunity for consolidation, mergers and acquisitions. NICE purchased the cloud-only vendor inContact; Genesys announced the acquisition of Interactive Intelligence (which is still covered separately in this analysis); and the industry continues to speculate about the sale of the Avaya contact centre business to help restructure its debt.

CCIM For Medium-Sized Contact Centres Evaluation Overview

To assess the state of the CCIM market and see how the vendors stack up against each other, Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of top medium-sized CCIM vendors. After examining past research, user need assessments and vendor and expert interviews, we developed a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria. We evaluated vendors against 40 criteria, which we grouped into three high-level categories:

› Current offering. All of the CCIM vendors that we’ve included in this evaluation come from a strong legacy of handling voice communications. We looked closely at how they have applied the same queueing, routing and reporting strengths to non-voice channels in a fully integrated manner. We interviewed customer references and reviewed specific screenshot sequences to see how they have modernised the user interface for agents, supervisors, business analysts, system administrators and individuals defining contact flows. In addition, we evaluated out-of-the-box CRM integrations, outbound notifications and dialling, IVR, rich APIs and software development kits (SDKs). Finally, we heavily weighted the vendors’ capabilities and experience with SaaS deployments.

› Strategy. The medium-sized CCIM market will see further consolidation and maturation of suites. To score well, the firms we evaluated needed a clear vision and road map focused on deepening the capabilities of their suites and more deeply embedding WFO. We also checked to see if vendors have a broad, geographically widespread channel that is able to readily support SaaS delivery. Finally, as more bundling and consolidation into suites occurs, our evaluation includes vendors’ pricing models to assess their level of simplicity and competitiveness.

› Market presence. The vendors we’ve evaluated primarily have large installed bases of both systems and agent positions. This is the classic way to measure the market, but the new twist is to add SaaS customers and the number of existing subscriptions. In this evaluation, we used all deployment models to compute installed base, so there is more weight and presence for the legacy on-premises vendors that have had years to establish larger bases. Forrester will continue to monitor the market growth of cloud-only vendors for potential inclusion in future medium-sized CCIM Wave evaluations.

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The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 201629 September 2016

© 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorised copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Evaluated Vendors and Inclusion Criteria

Forrester included eight vendors in the assessment: Aspect Software, Avaya, Cisco Systems, Enghouse Interactive, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Mitel Networks and Unify. Each of these vendors has (see Figure 1):

› An installed base of greater than 500 customers. The medium-sized CCIM market is comprised of well-established vendors that have a track record and base upon which to draw maintenance and upgrade revenues. A robust sales and support channel is necessary to support higher volumes of sales around the globe. Cloud-only vendors are gaining share in this segment, but not at the level to meet this criteria.

› A top eight installed base rank. There is a sharp drop in installed base after the top eight in this analysis of medium-sized CCIM vendors. A larger base also attracts more support from channel partners, which are critical to sustain global coverage for sales and support.

› Agent seat count over 65,000 and support for 100 to 500 active agent positions. The medium-sized CCIM market is defined as companies supporting systems with 100 to 500 seats. Avaya and Cisco Systems reported seat counts greater than 1 million due to the large volume of medium-sized systems they deliver.

› Substantial interest from Forrester clients in the form of questions or mentions. Forrester clients are an important, but not exclusive, source for assessing a vendor’s importance in a market. All of the vendors we included in this medium-sized CCIM Wave have been topics of multiple enquiries during the past two years.

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© 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorised copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Vendor Product evaluatedProduct versionevaluated

Vendor inclusion criteria

• An installed base of greater than 500 customers.

• A top eight installed base rank.

• Agent seat count over 65,000 and support for 100 to 500 active agent positions.

• Substantial interest from Forrester clients in the form of questions or mentions.

Aspect Software

Avaya

Cisco Systems

Enghouse Interactive

Genesys

Interactive Intelligence

Mitel Networks

Unify

Zipwire

IP Of�ce Contact Center

Contact Center Express

Communications Center

Business Edition

PureCloud

MiContact Center Business

OpenScape Contact Center

3.10

N/A

11.0

9.2

N/A

N/A

8.0

9

FIGURE 1 Evaluated Vendors: Product Information And Selection Criteria

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FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

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© 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorised copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Vendor Profiles

This evaluation of the medium-sized CCIM suites market is intended to be a starting point only. We encourage clients to view detailed product evaluations and adapt criteria weightings to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool (see Figure 2).

FIGURE 2 Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 ’16

Challengers Contenders LeadersStrong

Performers

StrategyWeak Strong

Currentoffering

Weak

Strong

Go to Forrester.com to download the Forrester Wave tool for more detailed product evaluations, feature comparisons and customisable rankings.

Market presence

Aspect Software

Avaya

CiscoSystems

Enghouse Interactive

Genesys

InteractiveIntelligence

MitelNetworks

Unify

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The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 201629 September 2016

© 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorised copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

FIGURE 2 Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 ’16 (Cont.)

All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).

Aspec

t Sof

twar

e

Avaya

Cisco

Syste

ms

Engho

use I

nter

activ

e

Genes

ys

Inter

activ

e Int

ellige

nce

Mite

l Net

works

Unify

4.10

5.00

3.00

3.66

5.00

3.00

5.00

2.28

3.50

3.00

0.25

4.00

0.50

0.50

weight

ing

Forre

ster’s

50%

20%

20%

15%

15%

15%

15%

50%

25%

10%

40%

25%

0%

100%

1.88

1.70

2.44

2.34

2.34

1.35

1.00

4.18

4.50

3.00

5.00

3.00

3.00

3.00

2.80

2.10

3.00

2.32

4.32

1.25

4.00

3.93

3.50

3.00

5.00

3.00

5.00

5.00

3.69

3.40

3.84

3.66

5.00

2.30

4.00

3.33

3.50

3.00

3.50

3.00

3.00

3.00

4.57

4.10

4.44

5.00

5.00

4.05

5.00

4.15

4.00

4.00

5.00

3.00

4.00

4.00

2.77

3.30

2.72

3.00

4.34

1.60

1.50

2.38

2.50

1.00

1.00

5.00

1.00

1.00

3.60

3.70

4.12

3.00

5.00

3.60

2.00

3.85

3.00

3.00

4.50

4.00

5.00

5.00

2.45

2.60

2.72

1.68

3.00

1.55

3.00

2.75

2.00

3.00

3.00

3.00

2.00

2.00

Current Offering

Product architecture

Omnichannel capabilities

Reporting and analytics

User interface

Infrastructure

CRM integration

Strategy

Corporate strategy

Supporting services

Third-party ecosystem

Commercial model

Market Presence

Installed base

Leaders

› Genesys provides extensive capabilities and deployment options. Genesys Business Edition support for non-voice channels, like email, chat and SMS, approaches that of best-of-breed vendors. Genesys does not provide its own private branch exchange (PBX) or unified communications (UC) solution, but it utilises its SIP Server for out-of-the-box integrations with a wide array of systems, including Microsoft Skype for Business. Proactive notifications, predictive dialling, and native WFO round out the system. Genesys’ extensive library of G+ adaptors provides out-of-the-box integrations with CRM and other WFO packages.

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Along with capability comes complexity, so Business Edition requires more training and resources to operate. As a market leader, Genesys also commands a price premium. While Genesys offers Business Edition in the cloud, it is not yet fully multi-tenant, so Genesys offers Premier Edition for smaller configurations. Clients looking for longer-term planning find that Genesys’ road map varies. While that is an indication of market responsiveness, it places some pressure on customers’ planning. Customers who want a system that approaches “best of suite”, a broad global support partner network and integration with other UC and telephony systems should consider Business Edition.

› Mitel Networks integrates key acquisitions for omnichannel and WFO. Mitel Networks acquired long-term contact centre software partner prairieFyre and WFO provider Oaisys to round out its contact centre portfolio. Over the past two years, the company has integrated these two acquisitions into a solid CCIM solution for medium-sized contact centres. Mitel Networks was one of the first vendors to virtualise its software, and this gave the firm a head start on the path to cloud-based offerings. Mitel Networks has a strong channel and position in some vertical markets such as the public sector and hotels.

The depth of integration across Mitel Networks’ MiContact Center Business is still a work in progress. Clients’ feedback indicates managing across the system on top of the MiVoice PBX is harder than they anticipated. The company has a strong focus on mergers and acquisitions in order to gain scale in the market. This is helping grow the company from a scale and reach perspective, and integration of the companies it has acquired is going well. But any changes can be disruptive, so clients considering this product should monitor the impact on staffing, product road maps and channel relationships. Customers using Mitel Networks for UC and telephony should consider MiContact Center Business – either hosted or on-premises.

Strong Performers

› Enghouse Interactive provides extensive integrations and omnichannel capabilities. Geared to the lower end of the medium-sized market (up to 250 agents), Enghouse Interactive’s Communications Center has very strong integration capabilities with a wide array of CRM and PBX systems, including Microsoft Skype for Business. The company added a new interface two years ago that spans all user roles in the system. The system supports proactive notifications across channels along with voice, email and chat.

Enghouse Interactive is not as much of a known name in the market, so it struggles with brand recognition. At the same time, it has a solid reseller network for Communications Center and is competitive with its pricing. Communications Center is not multi-tenant, so Enghouse Interactive sells a competing SaaS-based product through carriers for the small and medium-sized market. The company supplies its own broad library of integrations, but it does not offer a broad API or SDK publicly. Communications Center can provide a smaller contact centre on-premises that requires integration with existing PBX systems and a number of CRM applications on the agent desktop.

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

› Cisco Systems benefits from customers that are “Cisco shops”. Cisco Systems’ dominance of unified communications and data networking gives customers volume purchasing advantages when they add Contact Center Express (CCX) for medium-sized contact centres. CCX supports voice, email and chat as well as the ability to capture contextual data in the bundled Context Service in the cloud. The company’s extensive partner ecosystem uses the Finesse agent desktop to integrate multiple functions and systems into an agent portal. Cisco Systems provides a workforce optimisation suite as a part of its CCX offering, while integration and technology partners flesh out the CRM capabilities.

CCX is not multi-tenant and is largely sold on-premises. Cisco Systems’ broad partner ecosystem adds capabilities – but those add complexity. For integrations, CCX provides a number of different APIs and SDKs (e.g. Finesse for desktop, but a separate one for MediaSense-based recording). Customer feedback from our reference calls indicated that the CCX reporting has limitations, such as the inability to see agent activity across channels in one report. CCX is a natural choice to add to a Cisco Systems-supported data network along with Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CallManager) for telephony.

› Aspect Software leverages strong outbound and WFO integration in the cloud. Long-term acquisitions of WFO and dialler companies coupled with a cloud-only omnichannel system provide Aspect Software’s Zipwire with a full breadth of capabilities for medium-sized contact centres. The product supports inbound voice, email, chat and social, and outbound dialling is set up and managed in the same system. Aspect Software used design firm frog design to redesign its WFO user interface and carried that across to all roles in Zipwire. Out-of-the-box integrations with leading CRM vendors are part of the system.

As a newer product (introduced in 2014), Zipwire has a more limited base and level of maturity. Incremental nonvoice capabilities typical of best-of-breed point solutions are lacking – along with breadth and depth of reporting and analytics. Customer Experience Platform provides strong proactive notification, self-service and contextual data-capture capabilities, but it is a separate system from Zipwire. Aspect Software is still ramping up broader channel and developer support for Zipwire as it gains more market traction. Zipwire is best suited for companies that want a standalone, cloud-based, integrated, omnichannel system that also includes WFO from the same vendor.

› Avaya offers broad channel capabilities. The acquisition of Nortel Networks combined with its own extensive mid-market base provides Avaya channel partners with the entrée to migrate customers to Avaya IP Office and its associated contact centre package Avaya IP Office Contact Center (IPOCC). A single-configuration environment and agent desktop provide voice, email and chat interactions. Avaya sells its own WFO package, Avaya Workforce Optimization Select, with IPOCC. A future release will provide deeper reporting and analysis integration. Avaya has broad global sales, distribution and support channels for IP Office and IPOCC.

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Avaya IP Office has less integration capabilities because its API is limited to agent desktop functions. The company’s road map includes an update to a modern web-based interface across all roles. More advanced IVR, self-service and proactive outbound notifications require Avaya’s Aura Experience Portal. The system is limited to preview, progressive and power dialling. Salesforce is the only CRM integration that Avaya provides out of the box, while partners do others. Partners can host IP Office, but it is not a multi-tenant system. A large majority of IP Office Contact Center is sold on-premises. Choose Avaya IP Office if you’re looking for local partner support for an on-premises telephony, UC, contact centre and WFO solution – all from one vendor.

Contenders

› Unify’s OpenScape Contact Center adopts Circuit. Unify led the market two years ago by bringing mobile team messaging capabilities to Unified Communications. Design firm frog design defined the Circuit user interface, and now, that approach is being migrated across OpenScape Contact Center. Unify has provided OpenScape Voice and OpenScape Contact Center as hosted solutions for a number of years, and some deployments support global enterprises with over 50,000 stations. Atos’ purchase of Unify provides the company with additional global reach into large, multinational accounts. OpenScape Contact Center has a good library of off-the-shelf CRM integrations and provides omnichannel agent capabilities.

During the past few years, OpenScape Contact Center fell behind in the race to add channel support, analytics and notifications. The acquisition by Atos throws another overlapping cloud-based contact centre solution (Atos Worldline) into the mix. Clients considering OpenScape Contact Center need to investigate the Unify road map not only for omnichannel enhancements and deeper WFO integration but also for the positioning versus Worldline. Customers who are using OpenScape for Unified Communications or Circuit should consider OpenScape Contact Center. Unify is price-competitive and has won a number of public sector contracts, leveraging its global systems integration capabilities.

› Interactive Intelligence makes the leap to AWS. Over the past year, Interactive Intelligence has led the dialogue in the CCIM market about moving to a microservices architecture based on AWS – not simply using AWS as a hosting service, but leveraging it as a global distributed operating system. Interactive Intelligence PureCloud has a clean, modern and well-organised interface across all roles, and, along with native WFO capabilities, provides a full omnichannel system for clients from medium-sized to large. PureCloud pricing is straightforward, published openly and aggressive. PureCloud also has its own seamlessly integrated UC capabilities that help connect agents to experts outside the contact centre.

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FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

The Forrester Wave™: Contact Centre Interaction Management For Medium-Sized Contact Centres, Q3 201629 September 2016

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

PureCloud is in its early stages of market growth, so it comes with some limitations. The product is still new to sales and support partners, so many of them lack the years of experience they have with the older Customer Interaction Center. Reporting is limited, but it will grow over time with the addition of new reports such as supervisor dashboards. Co-browsing is on the product road map for a future release. As a SaaS-based product, it supports a modern architecture, but the API and SDK are in their early stages. PureCloud is SaaS-only, so on-premises deployment is not an option. PureCloud is suited to clients who want the agility of SaaS from an established and experienced contact center vendor as well as optional native unified communications capabilities.

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Supplemental Material

Online Resource

The online version of Figure 2 is an Excel-based vendor comparison tool that provides detailed product evaluations and customisable rankings.

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Data Sources Used In This Forrester Wave

Forrester used a combination of three data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each solution. We evaluated the vendors participating in this Forrester Wave, in part, using materials that they provided to us by August 2016.

› Vendor surveys. Forrester surveyed vendors on their capabilities as they relate to the evaluation criteria. Once we analysed the completed vendor surveys, we conducted vendor calls where necessary to gather details of vendor qualifications.

› Product demo screenshots. We asked vendors to conduct screenshot demonstrations of their products’ functionality. We used findings from these product screenshot demos to validate details of each vendor’s product capabilities.

› Customer reference calls and surveys. To validate product and vendor qualifications, Forrester also conducted reference calls with three of each vendor’s current customers.

The Forrester Wave Methodology

We conduct primary research to develop a list of vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluated in this market. From that initial pool of vendors, we then narrow our final list. We choose these vendors based on: 1) product fit; 2) customer success; and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate vendors that have limited customer references and products that don’t fit the scope of our evaluation.

After examining past research, user-need assessments and vendor and expert interviews, we develop the initial evaluation criteria. To evaluate the vendors and their products against our set of criteria, we gather details of product qualifications through a combination of lab evaluations, questionnaires, demos and/or discussions with client references. We send evaluations to the vendors for their review, and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view of vendor offerings and strategies.

We set default weightings to reflect our analysis of the needs of large user companies – and/or other scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave evaluation – and then score the vendors based on a clearly defined scale. We intend these default weightings to serve only as a starting point and encourage readers to adapt the weightings to fit their individual needs through the Excel-based tool. The final scores generate the graphical depiction of the market based on current offering, strategy and market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as product capabilities and vendor strategies evolve. For more information on the methodology that every Forrester Wave follows, go to http://www.forrester.com/marketing/policies/forrester-wave-methodology.html.

Integrity Policy

We conduct all our research, including Forrester Wave evaluations, in accordance with our Integrity Policy. For more information, go to http://www.forrester.com/marketing/policies/integrity-policy.html.

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Endnotes1 Customers are increasingly using web and mobile self-service as the first point of contact with customer service, and

then they escalate harder questions to agents. See the “Your Customers Don’t Want To Call You” Forrester report.

2 For more information on the technology management capacity of small and medium-sized businesses, see the “Demand Insights: The SMB Software Market 2015” Forrester report.

3 CCIM software continues to evolve into integrated suites that vendors offer as a service. The need to connect consumers with contact centre agents on their channel of choice is rapidly becoming a requirement to compete in the age of the customer. For AD&D pros, cloud delivery can provide an Agile platform so that they can focus their energy on customer journeys, not technology. See the “Increase Customer Service Agility With Cloud Contact Centres” Forrester report.

4 Customer service executives face the constant challenge of simultaneously meeting customer expectations and business cost goals. This report outlines the four steps for AD&D professionals to optimise and innovate customer service operations: 1) discover: establish the value of customer service; 2) plan: set the right strategy; 3) act: execute the strategy with precision; and 4) optimise: measure and improve operations. See the “Transform The Contact Centre For Customer Service Excellence” Forrester report.

5 Source: J.B. Wood, Todd Hewlin, and Thomas Lah, Consumption Economics: The New Rules of Tech, Point B, 2011.

6 The heart of the contact centre is comprised of a set of complex, unintegrated technologies, which firms must leverage to deliver quality service. But AD&D pros supporting customer service operations need cloud-ready, deeply integrated technology suites. For more information on the market dynamics and buyer requirements for contact centre technologies, see the “Vendors Battle For The Heart Of The Contact Centre” Forrester report.

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