UCCX 8.5 version UCCE 7

[chris henderson]

  Guys,

just wanted to hear some opinions on my thinking. i have a customer that currently has UCCE for 50 or so agents and they are currently using IVR and just did the outbound dialer.

their comment was that this was one of the hardest things to manage and simple thingslike capaigns were now a pain. now we dont manage this for them and actually we have ZERO experience with UCCE. we do have with UCCX which is leading up to the next comment.

they dont see themselves growing to more than 100 agents (located in one single call centre). they require simple database integration for screen pop up and defintely a self-service option where the customer can call in to find our their outstanding rates and date due.

ive been speaking to them about UCCX8.5 concentrating on some of the things it can do and IMO the whole UCCE deployment was a little overkill (i could be wrong)

based on those two very small paragrahs, do you think im heading down a good direction or i am missing the ball with UCCE here. i know it has a lot to offer but if the customer doesnt even need to explore these options why should they keep a system of that complexity.

a few things that came out

1. Why does UCCE have no ability to annouce your position in queue

2. they are having challenges in changing the prompt for a campaign (user issue im sure but still)

3. Support is tough since there isnt any real specialized/cost effective companies to guide them through this system

4. Presence integraton requires a different module from what i understand and UCCX comes with presence ability on the agent desktop

any comments on why im not seeing the bigger picture would be appreciated as i would like to assist the customer in making some type of relevant decision.

thanks again

[Chris Deren]

How complex is their outbound dialer?

Can it be accomplished via the limited uccx dialer?

If so I am with you and it sounds like someone oversold them on UCCE.

Chris

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[Anthony Holloway]

I have been in your situation several times. Sometimes it makes perfect sense, and sometime it's a little unclear which is the better option. And it doesn't come down to: Agent count alone.

I can tell you that from my experience, reporting was the biggest loss going from UCCE to UCCX. and with CUIC coming to UCCX in 9x, that might be a non-issue moving forward.

Also, UCCX HA is a joke. And from what I hear, UCCE HA is no joke.

Good luck and happy consulting!

EDIT: I realize my reply is unclear as to which way I would lean, as Chris Deren so clearly stated his position. I'm on the fence. Whatever happens, let it happen in the interest of the client's requirements.

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[chris henderson]

thanks much for the replies guys,

its always a toss up i suppose. im concentrating more on what they are using now and the newar future as opposed to what the could have. also, the management aspect is key and its leaving a sour taste currently.

thanks again

[david.macias]

You need to dig deeper and try to find out why the original UCCE decision was made.  Don't get caught in the customer's complaints about maintenability, they should have had a plan when they first got the system.  This could be easily solved by just having a good UCCE person on hand, much cheaper than tossing UCCE out the window and replacing it with UCCX.

A few questions to ask just off to the top of my head:

- Reporting, what type of reporting do they curretly do?

- Mobile agent, do they use it?

- CAD or CTIOS, which one do they use?

- How complex are their campaigns?

david

[david.macias]

1. Why does UCCE have no ability to announce your position in queue

It does.

2. they are having challenges in changing the prompt for a campaign (user issue im sure but still)

Changing prompts in UCCX is the same as changing prompts in IP IVR.

3. Support is tough since there isn't any real specialized/cost effective companies to guide them through this system

There are many partners out there who do this.

4.  Presence integration requires a different module from what i understand  and UCCX comes with presence ability on the agent desktop

For being such a small shop wanting presence seems a bit high inspiring, an good analysis of their requirements is in order to either level set their expectations based on cost or figure out which product would fit their needs.

david

[chris henderson]

David,

great questions and i agree that they should have had a plan moving forward with the UCCE.

Why does UCCE have no ability to announce your position in queue.It does (Queue position and Wait Time sorry) and from my very limited inteaction we did open a TAC on this and it was noted that this could NOT be acheived. see response below (Of course this isnt by any means a Show stopper)

Thanks for your email. Please find the answer below to your questions. These are direct from DE response without the icing. As a proactive offering to your customer we can start with the Feature request for (1). This is to be action by the Accounts/Product Team to complete the PERS request.

1. Is there any way to announce current queue position of the call in the queue in UCCE

As we already mentioned, the current solution doesn’t have this feature available. Please reach out to the product marketing and raise a PERS request, if you feel this is needed as an enhancement.

2. Is there are way to prompt the specific user that his/her call is being reprioritized and alert the agent that this customer is to be serviced before it becomes an abandoned call

When we reprioritize using the Queue Priority node, we can let the customer know about this. However we cannot alert the agent to service the call before it gets abandoned.

For point  2 i agree its a user issue and should be easily recitified

Point 3 well, lets say i suppose partners are easy to find but might be a little more red tape with the customer (and vendor who initially installed) than any thing else

Point 4 - was just a BTW

to answer the other questions previously

Reporting, what type of reporting do they curretly do? - ive spoken to them on this before and its just reports for agent login/logout and BH Calls but its not on a daily basis

- Mobile agent, do they use it? - No

- CAD or CTIOS, which one do they use? - CAD i think

- How complex are their campaigns? - just recently implemented. i think they are trying the first capaign. im not sure about complexity but the campaign is basically to call a set of numbers in the database with a prompt saying your payment is due and reads out the amount.

BTW i may be a bit bias here. we are the vendor that supports their other Cisco equipment (Switching/Routing/IPT) and they have asked us to support the UCCE when thier current contract is up. this is where the converation started with the IT manager as to why it was so difficult. They do understand our lack of experience with this and at the end of the day they do trust us enough to guide them in a proper direction. my issue is that id not want to guide them incorrectly based on my lack of experience with that product.

PS . We have tried external support and boy its terrible to manage and get the level of response that the customer normally requires. Contact centre is 24 hours.

thanks

[david.macias]

On the place in queue, it is possible, I did a very rudentary implementation of it in a previous life.  It's not as clean and by no mean precise, but good enough for goverment work.  It does require a bit of outside the box thinking.

As for your other points, the biggest take away I have is that knowing UCCX != UCCE, unfortunately there's a pretty steep learning curve and you can't apply UCCX experience directly to UCCE or vice versa.  While I'm sure you have the customer's best in mind, not having the experience in the product can be a huge issue.  Be prepared to lots of reading and questions, but that's what we're here for.

david