SOFTEL Communications, Inc
Contact Center Solutions across Multi-platform Technologies

With more than 20 years of experience, SOFTEL Communications knows that the Contact Center is an area where businesses can win customers and build on their brand loyalty. Notes John Cognata, President of SOFTEL, “When it comes to customer service, today’s customer has much higher expectations than even 5 years ago. Businesses are faced with customers who want to communicate how they want and when they want. Customers have become less patient and expect more service in less time.”

Simply put, a dramatic change in customer expectations is the main challenge when creating a Contact Center that can provide highly personalized service to every one of its customers. An effective Contact Center today must offer multiple touch points for quickly accessing the right person with the right information or answer. While it may sound basic, this requires multiple technologies, often across multiple platforms. This is where SOFTEL’s expertise sets it apart.

“From our earliest days, we took steps to ensure that we didn’t fall into that trap of being ‘Jack of all trades, Master of none,’ which has plagued other integrators,” stated Cognata. “Our expertise was gained one careful step at a time.” SOFTEL began with strong experience and expertise in Nortel and Genesys products, followed by Avaya products. When a company like Cisco, for example, needed to integrate their solution with a customer’s existing Genesys solution, they called on SOFTEL for its Genesys expertise. In the process, SOFTEL gained deep knowledge of Cisco. It wasn’t long before SOFTEL was partnering with a number of key vendors whenever they needed expertise beyond their own products.

“Probably the most important challenge over the years has been staying true to what we’re good at,” observed Cognata. ”By adhering to a strict methodology for integrating multiple platforms while still retaining a certain amount of flexibility, SOFTEL’s team has been able to look beyond hardware and software and focus on the customer,

not just on technology.” To meet the customer service needs of businesses, SOFTEL has taken tools found in “unified communications” solutions and used them to enhance the Contact Center, including web-based collaboration to enable Contact Centers to share documents that can assist them in responding to a customer faster. Facial and voice biometrics are offered to those Contact Centers needing to authenticate the identity of the caller and quickly route them to the correct agent or department. SOFTEL also includes cloud-based analytics to enable the Contact Center to monitor, analyze, and optimize their self-service applications (IVR, Web, Social Media, Mobile, etc.)

At SOFTEL, we believe Contact Centers will play an ever more important role in building brand loyalty with customers and prospective customers

Looking ahead, Cognata observed that “Contact Center solutions will become more vertical-market focused. SOFTEL is already leading the way in providing solutions for Healthcare, Banking and Finance, and Utilities.”

Concluded Cognata, “At SOFTEL, we believe Contact Centers will play an ever more important role in building brand loyalty with customers and prospective customers. We also believe that one of the biggest challenges going forward will be the security of the customer’s information.
Increasingly, one of the preeminent factors leading to customer trust and customer loyalty will be the ability of an organization to safe guard customer data. SOFTEL plans to be ready with experience, expertise, and the ability to innovate.”