Aspect Unveils Long-Awaited Contact Center Platform, Unified IP 7

Aspect Software is receiving some glowing praise for its new Unified IP 7 platform, which combines social media, unified communications (UC) and collaboration features for enterprise contact centers.

This is a very well thought-out release that is not a me too release,” Nancy Jamison, head of Jamison Consulting, wrote in a Jan. 11 blog. The firm analyzes the unified communications sector.

Unified IP 7 further achieves Aspects vision for a state-of-the-art customer contact solution which truly addresses the needs of next-generation contact centers,” Joe Outlaw, principal analyst at research firm Frost & Sullivan, added in an Aspect press release.

In a nutshell, Aspect developed Unified IP 7 for the customer service, collections, sales and telemarketing units of a company, but added collaboration so contact center workers and other people in the enterprise can stay in touch about improving the overall customer experience.

To that point, Unified IP 7, which is available for agents to sell, uses the new Microsoft Lync Server to provide presence, collaboration and IM, capabilities Aspect announced late last month. In fact, the Aspect contact center agent interface is completely redesigned so employees can streamline screen pops, for example, and do such things as find outside experts through Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

The software also does skills-based routing, so it finds the best agent for the caller, no matter where the agent is based, and comes with new SMS capabilities and outbound e-mail strategies. Theres also recording, quality monitoring, SMS, and real-time and historical reporting.