As part of our continuing exploration of all things relating to the cross-channel Customer Experience we have been doing some work creating a “bridge” between the Genesys Platform Software Development Kit (PSDK) and other media formats and devices.  The latest exploration is in the form of an Apple iPhone application that acts as a gateway into customer services from the popular Apple device.  We have created a range of Atomic Web Services that allow us to populate the iPhone with a Customer Services Application that brings the consumer into the Contact Centre!

What type of features are available?

Our initial exploration of the capability includes an ability for a customer to initiate a chat session, request a callback (with options to see currently booked call-backs and reschedule them) and an option to review their own entire interaction history with the Customer Services Team across all channels and media.  We are particularly interested in the option to publish a customers own interaction history for them to their device so that they have instant access to the ‘single version of the truth’ and recorded by ‘Customer Services’ across all interactions with the customer over time.  This attitude could be a significant catalyst in bringing the customer themselves into the Customer Services activities; empowering them with the same view of activities, potentially improving loyalty and also reducing churn propensity.

Architecture

The architecture is based on sound design principles, utlising out-of-the-box shipping Platform SDK capability expressed by the underlying maturity of the Genesys solution framework and Atomic Web Services.  Anana has written a suite of Atomic Services that enable a range of media and interactions via the Genesys SDK into the framework.  Currently written are a few of obviously many Atomic Services libraries that enable for a huge and very interesting range of customer service applications to be enabled on literally any device; including smartphones, set-top-boxes, internet ready TV.  Anana has completely separated away the presentation logic away from the underlying data-architecture using Atomic Web Services. Therefor any presentation device capable of using HTTP is available for this type of service expression.  HTTP requests arrive from the device to the Anana Atomic Services, and we respond back typically with JSON (Java Script Object Notation).  This allows us to manipulate the presentation layer back to each device type with remarkable flexiblity.

I just returned from 2 good days in Barcelona at the IMS World Forum event.  Those few people who read my blogs will know already that Anana was invited to attend a breakout ’round-table’ event at the Forum with Alcatel-Lucent, with a view to exploring in an open debate the state of play in the IP Multimedia-Subsystem (IMS) across the global Service Provider and Carrier Markets.

Alcatel-Lucent is a huge player in IMS, and attracted very strong attendance from some of the major Tier 1 operators around the World.  Anana’s remit was to represent the Application Developer, who uses Application Programming Interfaces (API) or External Interface Specifications (EIS) inherent in Alcatel-Lucents Carrier Applications Portfolio.  We were all challenged in active debate for a good couple of hours by Yankee Group Vice President, Brian Partridge to address key themes across Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) migration via NGN core to IMS, and then into more explosive discussion around RCS (Rich Communications Services) and the new GSM ratified RCS-e (Enhanced) capabilities.

We finished around Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) and on many occasions the panel turned its attention to Paul (Pearson, Anana Platform Practice Lead) and I representing the Application developer for our views and observations.  We were tackled around many themes, including High Definition Audio, Voice Services, Applications Development, Video Services and Rapid Applications Development.

I know that I pushed the envelope on at least a couple of occasions around the theme of “Trust your Developer, No? Trust your API, Yes?!

My main arguments were around the terribly long execution cycles in Carriers to take idea’s from an idea to a live service.  Even if really aggressive we typically tackle projects spanning 18 months or more to deliver even basic applications of moderate complexity in the core network.  Modern markets require cycles of innovation 10 times shorter than this in order that the Carrier remain nimble enough to tap revenue from the current ‘theme’.  I used simple examples like Viral broadcasting, like “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” or “American Idol” to indicate that these phenomenon attract huge public attention for periods to be measured in weeks.  If the Carrier cannot innovate with Enhanced Services that tap the ‘public interest’ at the time they are active then of course the Public’s attention is drawn immediately to the Web2.0 channel where Applications are available on the CLIENTS (Handsets) within days of the ‘interest starting’.

My second line of argument was around “Trust”.  If a vendor like Alcatel-Lucent opens the ‘hood’ on a vertical platform capability, say for example, the heart of their IMS solution, then the Carrier should explore the VALIDATION and TRUST certfication of the API; knowing and trusting that 3rd party application developers for the Core, like Anana, be allowed to explore the API capability set without going through months of regression and inter-operability test on the resulting ‘innovation’.  This theme sparked good interest and dialogue.  The API in turn, must be open enough to afford the functionality required, but at the same time, not expose the underlying core to threat.  It is a fine line, I agree, but one that I think Alcatel-Lucent and its Carrier Customers can find by working together in collaborative exploration.  This really is about a market of “Applications Enablement” on High Leveraged Networks!  Alcatel-Lucent has got their message and activities SPOT ON!

Of course, it is humbling for us to be invited by a Global Giant like Alcatel-Lucent to support them at these forms of key events.  I hope and trust that Anana did not let anyone down or downplay the relevance of Carriers challenges to keep up with Over the Top revenue haemorrages!  The positive feedback on the round-table was strong enough for me to feel surity that we acted in accordance with the needs and expectations of the carriers at the meeting.  It was nice to get a note from Brian at Yankee Group the next day indicating that the sessions on the Application Developer view of the IMS core was probably one of the most interesting of the entire event.  Thanks Brian!

We did get the chance to demonstrate some of our Carrier Applications Innovations; including the Social-Media aware Voice Messaging mash-up we created with Alcatel-Lucent.  Every Carrier we showed it to wanted to learn more!  Standing by of course for follow-up!

Special quick note of thanks to Sandip Mukerjee, President of the Alcatel-Lucent IMS Solutions for the invitation to support his team, and of course the excellent company for Paul and I throughout the subsequent evening.

A fair amount of our recent activity within our partnership with Alcatel-Lucent has been around the social-media enabled voice messaging solution – its4u ; featured in detail here at the main Anana website. This application has already received a lot of independant press; in SpeechTek Magazine and on TMCnet publication “Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine” and always receives a warm acknowledgement from people that call my phone and hear it for the first time. Often the best responses come from ‘strangers’ who are unfamiliar with what we do here at Anana who are ‘bowled away and surprised’ by the new user experience.  I have a great collection of ‘surprise’ recordings in my voice messages; one day I should collate them and glue them all together as an ‘inspiration clip’!

The more that we have played with ‘innovation’ in the voice user interface and experience for voice messaging and voice-mail the more we have realized that the main excitement around the its4u interface is the fact that it is simply ‘different’.  Not only is it cool because it sounds completely different, but it is accompanied by a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that brings voicemail alive for the mailbox owner!  The multimedia integration of messaging, with message-store, and email, mp3 attachments of recordings, and the ability to retrieve voice messages with a GUI, as well as a Telephony User Interface (TUI) and having it embedded within email brings it all together.  I’m not arguing that the giants in this industry don’t have these capacities in their Tier1 voice-messaging solutions portfolio.  For some reason they have found it hard to get their clients (the Carriers) to embrace change and innovation in the interface.  Perhaps with its4u that changes the mindset a little.  We’ve certainly had lots of support from our partners at Alcatel-Lucent with our voice-messaging idea’s.

What do you think?  Is it the GUI that changes the game?  Is it the change in the voice user experience as a caller dialing in to someone and hitting the its4u service?  Try it yourself and see what you think!  Leave me a comment on this blog letting us know what you think?

Phone +44 1454 258069 to hear it in action.  After you’v called it please have a look at the pictures below; which show the experience the mailbox owner receives at the other end of your message deposit!

If you cannot phone the demo-line then please click here for an audio clip – its4u social media enabled voice messaging

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Leave your comments! We are really keen to hear and see your feedback.  Better still, phone it, try it, and leave a message!

Systems Components;

• Anana Speech and Web Services Application Framework
• Genesys Telecommunications Labs Voice Platform (Genesys Voice Platform 8.1), VoiceXML2.1
• Alcatel-Lucent Converged Messaging System (CMS) and Messaging Applications Broker (MAB)
• Nuance Speech Recognition System, ASR (MRCP)
• Ivona Text to Speech (TTS) (MRCP)
• and a fair bit of innovation, mash-up and discovery!

In the meantime we continue to explore the “Applications Enablement” and “High Leverage Network” activities and partnership with Alcatel-Lucent and Genesys Labs (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise).  This mash-up is nice because it crosses all these paradigms in one go!