Avaya Spotlights Retail Industry with New Intelligent Communications Solutions
NEW YORK, Jan. 15 // -- National Retail Federation Conference and Expo, Booth #2255 -- Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV), a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services, today announced new solutions and partnerships designed to help retailers improve customer service, reduce costs and increase worker productivity through Intelligent Communications. This is part of Avaya's strategy to deliver Internet protocol (IP) telephony solutions tailored to specific industries, offering them an easy way to embed communications applications into a business framework.
The retail industry is rapidly adopting IP solutions to keep customers satisfied in an "always-on" world. According to Forrester Research, the retail and wholesale trade sector has the greatest level of IP telephony adoption among enterprises, with 22% now using an IP PBX.(1) The total addressable market of business communications solutions for the global retail market in 2007 is estimated to be $7.6 billion.(2)
Avaya's new solutions and partnership initiatives help retailers enhance communications experiences for customers, workers and IT managers alike. Avaya Integrated Management for IP Office is a new management tool that can help make it easier and more economical for large retailers to deliver Intelligent Communications at individual branch or store locations. This new software streamlines and simplifies the way headquarters companies can configure and manage Avaya IP Office communication solutions across distributed networks. For example, a retailer with multiple sites can make broad changes to communications parameters (such as holiday greetings or store hours), map sets of extensions to store sections, and change dialing plans -- which describe the number and pattern of digits, such as area codes or access codes, that a user dials to reach a particular telephone number -- at selected stores.(3)
Avaya also announced it will work with new partner Indyme Solutions, a leading developer of retail solutions, to bring voice interaction powered by Avaya Communication Manager software to Indyme's Radius(TM) line of wireless in-store call boxes. These call boxes improve in-store customer experiences by enabling customers to instantly request live assistance from employees within a store. Through Avaya Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) interoperability, this solution can be improved with two-way communication, and eventually call center integration, allowing customers in a store aisle to interact with a product specialist based anywhere in the world.
Another Avaya partner is LiteScape Technologies, a company that enhances the value of IP-based networks by enabling unified communications with security and personalization. LiteScape provides new retail applications that can now be used on Avaya's family of one-X Deskphones. This enhances a retail associate's IP phone with capabilities that users rely on in retail environments, including credit card scanning, time-clock check in, broadcasts of corporate bulletins, SKU lookup and corporate directories.
Both Indyme and LiteScape Technologies are members of the Avaya DeveloperConnection program, an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology.
Avaya helps computer and electronics retailer deliver top-notch customer
service
"Today's retailers are demanding the sophisticated capabilities powered by IP telephony and SIP in order to have the tools necessary to meet customer demands," said John Vincent, director, Retail Industry Marketing, Avaya. "Avaya's leadership and expertise in IP telephony and contact centers make us uniquely positioned to provide retailers with solutions driving more Intelligent Communications."
Avaya solutions, for instance, can enable retailers to combine store locations and contact centers to improve shopping experiences for both in- store customers and those customers calling into a store. Customer-facing personnel in a store can remain focused on shoppers, while customer calls can be efficiently routed to agents anywhere in the world.
A company that is using Avaya IP telephony and contact center solutions to keep customers satisfied year-round is TigerDirect, a computer and electronics retailer with a large online presence and several physical stores. The company has six call centers that are linked together and powered by Avaya Communication Manager, the industry-leading IP telephony software, which enables TigerDirect to serve thousands of customers every week. The company also uses home-based agents to serve customer needs.
Avaya's IP communications platform played a key role in the company's recent holiday season sales success. TigerDirect handles up to sixty thousand calls on average per week from its main contact center in Miami, Florida - a figure that spikes to over 100,000 during the crucial end-of-year holiday season. IP telephony let TigerDirect cost-effectively add agents during the holidays and ensure customers were routed to specialists based anywhere, even if they work at home. This also helped ensure that calls made to stores could be quickly sent to contact center agents, freeing up in-store managers to concentrate on shoppers.
"Avaya knows IP, but they also know how it applies to our business as an online and brick-and-mortar retailer that places a priority on top-notch customer service," said Henry Rey, telecommunications manager for TigerDirect. "Their broad expertise makes it easy to implement IP telephony, and keeps us fast and flexible so we can keep the focus on ensuring customers are satisfied via any communications channel, over the phone, online or in stores."
To see Avaya and Avaya DeveloperConnection Partner solutions:
Avaya's new retail solutions and partnership initiatives are showcased at the National Retail Federation 96th Annual Conference and Expo, now occurring at the Jacob Javits Convention Center (Avaya Booth# 2255).
About Avaya
Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than 1 million businesses worldwide, including over 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500(R). Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet Protocol (IP) telephony systems and communications software applications and services. Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications -- and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services -- Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website: http://www.avaya.com/
(1) The State Of Enterprise Telecom And Network Adoption (C) 2006,
Forrester Research, Inc. June 26, 2006
(2) Source is Avaya research, based on multiple secondary analyst sources.
(3) IP Office is a secure, easy-to-use converged voice and data system
designed especially for small businesses and multi-site deployment by
mid to large companies. For more details on Avaya Integrated
Management for IP Office, see separate release issued today: "New
Management Tool from Avaya Centralizes Support Of Intelligent
Communications Across Small Offices or Retail Chain Stores."
Source: Avaya Inc.
CONTACT: Media Inquiries: Jonathan Varman, +1-908-953-6432, jvarman@avaya.com
Web site: http://www.avaya.com/
