ZOOM QM Suite Scaling up.

Probably the heat has caused that we almost forgot to break the news that  ZOOM QM Suite version 4.6 has been released and is made available for download…

Enterprise, enterprise,enterprise, enterprise !!!

It is safe to say that this release is all about improved Enterprise Support. Supporting enterprises with their large or complex installations requires the best performance, scalability and high availability options and these are exactly those areas that have been addressed with this release.

Truly supporting  large contact centers and large  Genesys deployments  has raised the bar for ZOOM  to deliver a top-performing and enterprise class product suite and ZOOM is proud to say that with release 4.6 it has successfully delivered a true Enterprise Class product for both Genesys and Cisco environments.

This release brings you:

• Major Database Performance Improvements
• Improved Scalability options
• Support for Genesys High Availability Architecture
• JTAPI Enhancements supporting more and more complex network scenario’s

You could say that all key products from the ZOOM QM Suite have received a big  enterprise ‘power-boost’  to better support large, demanding and complex installations.

As ‘cherry on the pie’, this release also delivers new functionality and a more unified experience. Enjoy new ScoreCARD features to get your quality management program started faster, get more value for money and flexibility using ScreenREC, make your choice in OS platform and integrate ZOOM’s powerful media life-cycle management tools with IBM Tivoli. In more detail…

CallREC and ScoreCARD Unified
Enjoy an unified experience in installing and running CallREC and ScoreCARD. These two flagship products are one step closer to 100% integration.

ScoreCARD Questionaires export and import
ZOOM ScoreCARD now makes it a lot easier to get your Quality Management Program started with it’s Questionnaire Export and Import functionality.

Optimize your ScreenREC usage
ZOOM ScreenREC has undergone significant changes to support the capturing of more screens in higher resolution and allowing for flexible recording rules.

Red Hat Support
Enjoy the freedom of choice in operating system. Next to CenOS you can now choose for Red Hat Enterprise Linux to runs ZOOM products.

IBM Tivoli Support
Use provided scripts to integrate ZOOM Media Lifecycle Management with IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) to seamlessly backup, archive and restore using TSM.

Read more details in the ZOOM QM Suite 4.6 Release Bulletin. The distribution of this release plus documentation is available for download via the ZOOM Partner Portal.

We’ll have a glass of champagne and then we’ll start work on the 4.7 release. Stay tuned for more product unification and a long list of new CallREC, ScreenREC and ScoreCARD features.

ScoreCARD Dashboard

Just before easter ZOOM has launched the latest version of ScoreCARD, ZOOM’s Contact Center Quality and Performance Solution.

Next to software enhancements, some major performance improvements plus the addition of Russian language support, this release provides a number of great new features:

• Contact Center Dashboard; a real-time overview of your contact center performance.
• Role Manager; create your custom role and permissions structure.
  

  ScoreCARD Role Manager

The release plus all documentation is available for download via the ZOOM Partner Portal.

Read more about the value of Quality and Performance Management for your contact center in the ZOOM ScoreCARD Solution Sheet.

Let me briefly describe what has been achieved and how it helps to improve usability, and make CallREC a more robust product.

Multi-Server Setup
Multi-Server deployment was already supported by CallREC; however we have improved the setup process itself. Version 4.4.0 already introduced a new installer, but it didn’t specifically support multi-server deployments and you had to do a lot of changes manually. Now during installation you can easily choose what the server role will be, where the other servers are and prepare almost all the required configuration steps. The only step missing now is NFS file sharing; this must still be done manually.

Full Implementation of IPP Libraries
This one is really technical, so what does it mean for “ordinary people”? IPP stands for “Integrated Performance Primitives” and is an Intel software product. Intel defines it as “an extensive library of multicore-ready, highly optimized software functions for digital media and data-processing applications”. Wow!
Basically, Intel provides optimized software libraries for media processing, which we’ve decided to use instead of our existing media processing tools (these libraries were already present in the recently released 4.3 version).
We have replaced the decoding libraries that handle all the G.whatever codecs (G.711, G.722 and G.729). This first step brought us a significant performance boost and  now we have made another step—we have replaced the encoding part (the libraries that are responsible for mp3 encoding). We were previously using open source libraries that had occasional issues, which had already caused us long-term pain. Now with IPP we have a much more stable and reliable media encoding part.
The side effect is that we can no longer support the Speex codec for recorded calls. Speex was officially discontinued in version 4.3 (although it was still available) and has now finally been removed. We believe this will not be an issue, since only a few CallREC users ever tried to use it and no one has been using Speex in a production environment.

Genesys Integration Module Improvements
The Genesys Integration Module went through a substantial redesign last year. The vast majority of changes were implemented in the latest 4.3.2 release. Now all of them (and a couple of new ones) have been ported to the 4.4.1 release as well.
Among the changes, such as improved reliability and efficiency in attaching the related call data, there is a really interesting feature—you can choose what external data will be attached and saved in the database (regardless of T-Server properties, attached data or configuration information). Some customers use tens of different attached data, so in some cases we were saving 70-80 different key-value pairs for every call, even if they used just a few.
The database performance impact is obvious. Now we can precisely set up what information will be stored and what will not.

Improved GUI Search Performance for Large Databases
The database and its associated parts are now one of the most closely monitored components and is the focus of a lot of development work. Changes in database structure and related components are planned for the next major releases, but we wanted to improve performance sooner—and on top of the current structure.
Fortunately we were able to implement some tweaks that have a big impact, boosting the database and GUI search performance significantly for external data. The tradeoff is that you need to stick to the recommendations and there are a few small limitations, but it flies!

Bug Fixes
No software is perfect and CallREC is no exception. There are several bug fixes in the Multimedia Management Tools (MLM), the Migration Tool (a Swiss army knife for upgrading data from one version to another) and in the setup scripts.
Last (but not least), CallREC version 4.4.1 includes Apache Tomcat application server version 6, which itself solves some issues encountered when running GWT based applications—such as ZOOM ScoreCARD.
There’s still a lot of work to do to make CallREC the “best solution in the world”. It’s a challenge for us and we’re working hard to deliver the best we can. Stay tuned—there are loads of exciting new features to come. And of course, we’ll be only too happy to share them with you…

The ZOOM website is one of the most important communication channels and we’d like to hear from you, what you think could be improved.

To do so, we’d like to ask you for 5 minutes of your time to fill-in a short survey.

To thank you for your efforts we offer you to enter a draw to win an iPod touch or one of the 10 Moleskine notebooks.

Please access the survey via this link.

Thank you for you help !

We are celebrating:

• the birthdays of our CEO Simon Vostry and President of North America, Brian Shore
• ZOOM XMAS with a cooking workshop
• and last but not least… we have just released the completely redesigned and rebuilt version of ZOOM ScoreCARD !

The whole company has worked hard and long on achieving this and with a great result as the new version of ScoreCARD now offers:

• full integration with ZOOM CallREC
• a browser-based, fast and user-friendly user interface
• and a range of functional enhancements

Read more about ZOOM ScoreCARD in the previous post and on our website. In the meantime, we’ll have a glass of champagne.

Every contact center should have defined goals and  is expected to operate according to their defined goals.

Examples of these goals are usually found in the following categories:

• To provide the best customer experience possible
• To increase the company’s revenue
• To minimize operational costs
• To provide valuable business insights and are prioritized depending on the type of contact center you operate.

Priorities set to achieve these goals will vary according to the contact center’s focus:

• Cost-oriented contact centers focus on efficiency
• Service-oriented contact centers focus on delivering the best customer experience possible
• Sales-oriented contact centers focus on bringing in leads or sales
• Market-oriented contact centers focus on understanding the customer and gathering valuable information

For most contact centers, the need to define and prioritize these goals and measure the company’s performance is understood as fundamental to their business.

If this need is clear and defined, ZOOM truly wonders why only half of the existing contact centers have the right tools in place for evaluating call handling and assessing the customer interaction skills of agents.  Call handling and interaction quality determine the success or failure of a contact center to achieve their business goals.

The most common response we hear is: measuring quality and using scorecards to measure our performance is “overly complex” or “we don’t have time to do so”.

To break down these perceived barriers and to convince a contact center manager of the value a quality management solution can bring, an offered solution has to satisfy a number of criteria:

• Simplicity – make the usage barriers as low as possible
• Speed – not wasting time and therefore money!
• Complete – allowing for a combination of objective and subjective measures
• Purpose – providing options to define and use weightings in line with the company’s goals
• Applicable – providing detailed and applicable information to improve operations immediately

ZOOM ScoreCARD together with ZOOM CallREC forms the heart of the new ZOOM QM Suite and has been developed with these criteria in mind.
The new and completely rebuilt version of ZOOM ScoreCARD, released today, provides you with a tool that is easy to use and makes your contact center quality management as simple as A-B-C:

A. Create custom questionnaires with weighted scoring criteria which match your defined business goals and priorities for targeted levels of efficiency, customer service and/or sales
B. Schedule and execute the evaluations using a system-generated set of calls based on your criteria
C. Extensive reporting and graphs show exactly where you can improve your agents’ and business performance, starting today

New ZOOM ScoreCARD offers a simple, fast and powerful web-based solution that is seamlessly integrated with ZOOM CallREC and is in the new version enhanced with:

• An improved evaluation planner supporting multiple sub-criteria
• Enhanced permissions and roles
• Questionnaires with enhanced parameters and call selection criteria
• User management supporting synchronization and authentication between CallREC and Cisco UCC Enterprise
• Trend reports and graphs
• Full audit log

Start achieving your goals: measure and pro-actively improve your business today with ZOOM ScoreCARD!

For more information about the features available in ZOOM ScoreCARD, please check our website.

Back to the show… The main buzz was around applications and video. The Solution Showcase exhibition area was packed with people every moment it was open and there were plenty of innovative applications and mash-ups on display.
The BroadSoft Xtended program showed that even large service providers can offer innovative services focused on several verticals deploying ready to use applications from a broad developer community.

Regarding video, a number of IP phone vendors presented their video phones. Jon Arnold’s blog post covers this topic nicely. Definitely for the consumer market it is a very cool idea, be able to connect with your relatives and share your smiles or worries.

I personally liked the presented OpenPeak devices and I can imagine having those devices at home next to the kitchen table or in the hall, but for business customers I believe there is something missing namely a large screen and I mean really large, not a 7″ touch screen LCD, but something like your desktop 24″ widescreen LCD.

How many of computer displays have two digital inputs nowadays, 99%? If so, why not to connect your video phone and leverage the screen you already have at your desk? Switching between your PC and your phone is as easy as pressing a button.
Isn’t that something which could then make sense for business customers as well? Desktop tele-presence solution in a phone… There are HD video and audio codec’s available so, let’s try to think beyond “The phone” and offer services and experiences not limited to the small fancy screen, but use its larger ’sister’ next to it.
I spoke with a lot of my friends and nobody wants to see stock exchange graphs on the 7″ screen on their phone if they have 20+” display right in front of them.

I hope some IP phone manufacturer sees this opportunity and on the market soon appears some device which will combine regular IP phone experience with existing LCDs and offer true value-add for business customers.

Being a technically advanced market, it is no surprise that Turkey is  open for very advanced and  new technologies. As an example we’ve seen an increased demand in Speech Analytics solutions and a need to move this technology  into the mainstream.

Some other  requirements and questions we’ve received:

• the ability to consistently evaluate agents because of ever increasing customer expectations
• the need for business process integrated quality management solutions to act as motivator for agents
• the need for multichannel recording solutions to capture not only the calls but all agent interactions with the customer and the back office applications

In a nutshell, it has been a great opportunity for us to see and hear from people where the market is heading and what is its demand. Following these trends closely, ZOOM is positioned at the top among the best technologies on a very competitive  and expanding market.

I just read a great post on b2bm.biz on how to find out if Social Media Marketing is something for your business and am happy to find my own thoughts confirmed and to know that ZOOM’s recent 2.0 (sigh..) marketing efforts do make sense.

I was happy to be able to answer “yes” to these three questions:

1. Do you have something to say?
Yes, looking at the history of ZOOM and the people running our Product, Support and Tech we can safely say that we know the ins- and outs of IP telephony and especially in the field of IP recording I don’t think there are a lot of people or companies out there that know the possibilities and maybe more important the impossibilities of the existing technology, standards and the platforms used, as they do.

Currently we are applying this knowledge at our customer sites, where our engineers are often establishing complex configurations (although our own products are easy to install).
I truly believe this knowledge could serve a bigger goal and deserves a larger audience. I’d like to see  ZOOM becoming a ‘thought leader’ in its field.

2. Do you have a way to say it?
Yes, we are all busy but our people are passionate about what they are doing and by offering them a low barrier public platform to share their knowledge, they will able to extend their reach and even have  their ‘moment of fame’ when helping someone out there.
The tech/telco industry (especially ours) is no longer satisfied with a marketing / sales message but is interested in hearing about real solutions to real problems, and that’s exactly what we think we’re good at.

3. Do you have a place to say it in?
Yes and although I realize that we are at the (late) start of a new marketing approach, we do have the tools  in place and we’ve started our first attempts on youtube, twitter and facebook. And of course also this blog is the result of our new marketing approach.
In addition we have become active on new platforms such as the Cisco Partner Central Community and I’ll be attending the Cisco Partner Velocity Event in Paris in November to learn more on what channels and marketing methods work best specifically in our industry. A lot happening, I’d say.

So it’s yes,yes,yes for us, but what about your business? I’d be interested to hear.

That relationship continues now that Cisco has launched their Cisco Developer Network program (well, really just an upgrade from CTDP).  Cisco put us on the Solution Developer mid-tier, even though we pushed hard for the Preferred Solution Developer top level.  It’s ok, we will convince Cisco through our big deals and continued development of advanced features that we belong there!
All joking aside, ZOOM is really happy to be a part of this program (our listing in Cisco Partner Catalog).  We expect continuing synergy between us and Cisco – our roadmaps will stay closely aligned and we will engage in more and more local marketing efforts..

For our partners and customers, it means that we will make every effort possible to support new Cisco features right out of the gate (meaning exactly when Cisco launches them) – next up is Call Manager version 8 in Q1 2010 where CallREC will fully support encrypted voice recording.

Stay tuned – more to come from ZOOM International.