Nortel routes e-mail into the call center queue

Santa Clara, Calif.

New software from Northern Telecom, Inc. promises to organize the notoriously chaotic process of responding to customer e-mail.

Nortel this week will announce the Symposium Web-Response Server, a Windows NT- based system that routes customer e-mail generated by a company's Web site onto the desktops of the company's call center agents. The idea is to get agents to answer e-mail inquiries in a timely fashion.

Until now the market has been dominated by small companies such as Mustang Software, Inc., of Bakersfield, Calif., whose Internet Message Center server sends a quick notice of receipt to the sender, then pops the e-mail onto the desktops of employees assigned to answer the mail (NW, Aug. 18, 1997, page 36). Nortel is expected to sell Symposium WebResponse as an adjunct to its big installed base of automatic call distribution (ACD) systems. The package will let agents already accustomed to answering 800 calls to deal with customer e-mail as well.

"The handling of e-mail is getting to be a key issue for call centers," said Sheila McGee-Smith, director of call center services for The Pelorus Group, a consultancy based in Raritan, N.J. "It's a big opportunity because right now nobody in corporate environments seems to be responsible for it." Other big ACD vendors also are examining the market. Nortel rival Aspect Telecommunications, Inc. earlier this month announced it will resell a customer e-mail response system from another small company, San Diego-based Aptex Software, Inc.

Nortel's WebResponse software sits on a different server from the corporate Web server. Residing inside a firewall to prevent spam broadcasts from tying up agents' time, the server stores the messages in an Open Database Connectivity-compliant database and places header information, such as a time stamp and general sub-ject matter, onto agents' Windows NT clients or Windows 95 desktops.

Nortel also provides users with a customizable e-mail request template that enables them to state whether they want a telephone or e-mail response. That information is then provided to the agents handling the mail.

If the consumer prefers a telephone call, the agent can select the message and click on a telephone icon to launch the call-back via Microsoft Corp.'s Telephony API link, explained Barry Phillips, a product marketing manager for Nortel's Symposium family of call center products (see graphic).

Phillips conceded that the initial version of Symposium WebResponse is not integrated with Nortel's Symposium Call Center ACD. Agents have to log on separately to the inbound 800 and e-mail systems and switch back and forth between applications. The Symposium WebResponse Server is due in June at a price of $80,000 for a 10-seat system, including maintenance and support.

Nortel: (800) 466-7835