Avaya is offering tools to mine and analyze data , and expand and synchronize multi-channel customer interactions, as well as offering deployment options for virtualized environments. The idea is to make it easier for companies to improve and streamline the customer experience through any access point at any moment in the customer lifecycle, while simultaneously increasing efficiency and adaptability in business operations.

"Companies today are struggling to keep pace with serving customers the way they need to be served to increase their lifetime value," said Mark de la Vega, vice president and general manager of Avaya's Contact Center Business Unit. "Customers want convenience, but on the business side, delivering on convenience can be incredibly complex."

Voice of the Customer

De la Vega understands the challenges. And many current technologies do indeed limit the ability to create an accurate picture -- or contextual awareness -- of the customer's experience, their needs and behaviors. At the same time, the growing number of customer interaction channels is posing new challenges to delivering service across channels while also offering opportunities to glean insights through smart analytics.

Avaya Speech Analytics integrates the actual voice of the customer into performance management practices. Avaya Speech Analytics mines voice-based customer interactions to deliver business intelligence that might otherwise be missed in text-based or manual analyses for insights that can drive process improvements, support regulatory compliance and identify new sources of revenue.

"Avaya's ability to place speech analytics into context and identify key words and phrases helps us intelligently interpret the findings and turn them into data-driven recommendations for our client," said David Naylor, head of Analytics at Ember Services.

"Avaya's Speech Analytics technology reveals the DNA of the call. It breaks down the call into its different components: the who, the what, the why. Our understanding of the client's business, coupled with our experience as operators and consultants, allows us to then turn that information into action."

Where Avaya Excels

Avaya Aura Call Center Elite Multichannel layers multichannel capabilities -- including Web chat, social media, texting, instant messaging, and e-mail -- onto the company's call center software . Call Center Elite Multichannel promises to make it easier for organizations to add new access channels and manage cross-channel customer experiences. Avaya Contact Flow Analytics lets organizations identify and remedy call flow issues through visualization tools, such as flow graphs, dashboards and tabular reports.

Avaya Automated Chat integrates with live chat support to deliver more responsive, personalized online service. Avaya says this solution can improve customer satisfaction with faster, more accurate responses delivered through an intelligent response engine and streamline the transition from self-service to live service.

"The main differentiator is that Avaya has always had very strong analytical capabilities, and the new visualization tools enhance these capabilities by bringing the info to the users' attention in real-time," Ken Landoline, a principal analyst at Current Analysis, told us. "Most competitors are behind Avaya on this. The other parts simply bring Avaya on par with other leaders."