Genesys Links Mobile Apps with Contact Center Agents
Genesys, a provider of customer service and contact center software and services with more than 2,000 customers in 80 countries, is introducing this week a mobile customer care solution called Genesys Mobile Engagement. According to the company, the software empowers customers to use their smartphones to quickly connect with customer service agents or specialized knowledge workers such as personal bankers or travel agents.
Extending the Genesys Customer Interaction Management (CIM) platform, the solution brings business rules, context, conversation history and reporting to mobile customer service interactions. According to Genesys, this first release features four key capabilities:
Live Connect: Through a “smart button” within the mobile app, customers can request the assistance of a live agent via voice, chat, SMS or even video. Context, history and customer information is shared between the mobile device and customer service agents.
Locate Me: Location and GPS provides the customer’s location to make immediate customer service decisions such as finding the nearest gate of a connecting flight at an airport or the closest bank branch that can provide a replacement ATM card.
Snooze Me: This feature allows customers to schedule when they should be contacted by service representatives.
Alert Me: This feature proactively notifies the customer of relevant service updates within the mobile application by SMS or automated voice call.
According to Genesys, the Mobile Engagement application can be used on iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Windows smart phone platforms.
A company announcement includes a statement from Phil Easter, director of Mobile Apps at American Airlines, who said the airline plans to use Genesys Mobile Engagement to” enhance the travel experience for our customers.”
As Genesys notes in the announcement, customers typically must exit a mobile application and call a contact center number provided by the app if they require live assistance during a transaction. As a result, customers are forced to wait on hold, re-authenticate, navigate phone menus and repeat the nature of their transaction when connected to customer service.
According to Genesys, the experience is so unsatisfying that one in four mobile customer care applications downloaded by customers are abandoned.
Yet customers are using their smartphones more. Genesys cites Ovum research that found that by 2016, 37 percent of inbound customer service calls in North America will be made from smartphones.
In addition, more than 20 percent of smartphone customers in developed countries prefer to use smartphone applications to communicate with organizations in the financial services, travel and communications sectors, and more than 80 percent of these customers prefer phone calls with a customer service representative over obtaining assistance through any other channel.
Earlier this year, after more than a decade operating as an independent subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, Genesys transferred its ownership to a company operated by the Permira Funds and Technology Crossover Ventures. Alcatel-Lucent received $1.5 billion in cash in the deal. The Genesys management team and some 1,800 global employees transferred from Alcatel-Lucent to the standalone company.
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