I am currently evaluating Aspect and Genesys contact center products covering skill-based routing, multisite networking, web collaboration, workforce management, IVR and their universal queuing technologies. Of course, I will not implement all the features at one goal but would like to ensure their product features and future expansion.

Skill-based routing on voice call, IVR with speech recognition and multi-site networking will be implemented in first phase.

Has anyone evaluated Aspect and Genesys solutions? If yes, could you provide me insights on their products? Is there any problems encountered with their products such as stability, unexpected large bandwidth requirement for routing, scalability, vendor support and etc.?

I learnt that bandwidth requirement between Genesys's T-servers is large! Is it true?

Alex,

How long are you looking at for the evaluation?

We are putting in a Genesys an about 2 months and I know a friend of mine has just had an Aspect installed although it's a MUCH smaller install (A football club). We might be able to track any install snags though.

Just to give you an idea on scale we will be covering 2 Callcenters about 300 miles apart with approx 250 agents at each.

HTH.

DaveA

Make sure that Aspect tells you exactly what hardware you will have to provide. For each piece they recommend that you get another server:
Contact Server(aka Portal, aka Multimedia contact server, aka Workflow server)=1 Server
Real Time Data=1 server
Datamart=1 Server
Reports=1 Server
Web Interaction=1 Server per domain
IVR and ACD are of course 2 different systems.

Almost every server they require is at least a dual-processor PIII 500Mhz with 9Gig drive. They don't cost too much anymore, but it is definitely something to keep in mind.

Not sure if Genesys works the same way, but this one has snuck up and bit me too many times when they didn't mention it until after I had the product.

Dave, tentatively I plan to complete the evaluation in Aug2002.

Are you centralizing Genesys URS & Stat servers in one centre? If so, do you need large bandwidth between the T-servers in both centres since all routing decision for the remote centre will be performed by the central Genesys servers?

I also learnt from my friend that:
- As Genesys is programmed to route call to DN instead of ACD DN, therefore the "Emergence" basic function of Nortel (ie. pressing a key to alert supervisor and record the conversation) is not supported.
- The Stat server is unable to keep trace all status of agent in some odd case which results in caller getting busy tone or no call routed to the agent. To reset the agent status in the Stat server, the agent has to sign out and sign in again.

Do you encounter similar issues?

Are you keen on sticking to a single vendor solution? This may not give the best of all worlds but may be quicker and easier to impliment.
We actually operate with a number of vendors for our solution.
Aspect for the ACD and WFM solution.
Cisco ICM for Intelligent call routing / CTI
and Edify for our IVR systems.
It all works very well.

Hi Alex,
I am an agent for Avaya. I work for a UK based company called, Call Centre Technology. We could talk to you about Avaya's Converged Solutions. Call Centre Technology deal soley in Avaya's Product Portfolio and could offer you an end to end solution. It cound be alott less trouble than the worries you seem to be having at the moment.

Regards
Jason

Hi Alex

I used to work at Aspect and have more recently been a customer involving the implementation of a full multimedia solution; I'd be happy to discuss further away from this forum, if you would like me to email my thoughts/findings, please let me know

kind regards

Adelle

Adelle,

Don't feel that you need to take discussions away from the 'Voice forums - spill the beans and let everyone know your experiences - it's the best way for everyone to gain alternative viewpoints...

John

Dear Adelle,

I can be reached at alex_ngyC@yahoo.com

Best regards & thanks
Alex Ng

Hi Alex and others,

Just looking at all the comments, I believe you may be better of with a Consorte solution if you are talking about inbound calls. You will get unlimited capacity for IVR, voicemails and calls as well as realtime stats, callback in queue, area routing, skill based routing, virtual call centre with a web based GUI, disaster recovery as calls can instantly be switched to another site or outsourced site, VIP routing, time of day etc etc

I also know that you can get a free audit on incoming voice, mail, web chat, SMS etc with comparisons to your competitors

If you are interested further please e-mail me on shaun.sen@xrl.co.uk

Regards

Shaun Sen
Director

XRL Communications Ltd