Enterprise Telemetry, Inc (ETI)

Chris Vitek at 410-456-3511 

 cvitek@enterprisetelemetry.com

REVIEWER BACKGROUND:  Currently, Chris Vitek is President of Enterprise Telemetry, Inc (ETI).  Mr. Vitek has worked as a consultant in hundreds of contact centers.  ETI specializes in contact center consulting services and also owns patent rights to several unique workforce management technologies that bring the precision of contact center reporting to back-office operations. 

”If you can believe the pundits there is a movement towards communications as a service (CaaS) that represents one of the few bright spots in the economy.DMG Consulting recently published their “Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report” and they claim a 30% increase in the CaaS, ACD market in 2009 and a 35% increase in 2010.  Combine this with the fact that either the Nortel or the Avaya installed-base of ACDs is about to become obsolete (my bet is on the survival of the Avaya systems) and you can expect a lot of customers to be looking at alternatives. 

In this environment, Northwinds, a CaaS, ACD provider, merits a close look.  I recently spent some time analyzing Northwinds offer and I was pleasantly surprised. 

But first some of the things that Northwinds does not offer. SIP phones, Northwinds has decided not to offer SIP phones yet.  I am sure that they are on the drawing board; however, their current offer includes a PC-based softphone and the ability to connect calls to any PSTN-attached telephone.  Further, alternative media like e-mail, chat, or web-co-browsing do not appear to be available. 

Northwinds does not simply offer ACD, their platform supports outbound campaigns, IVR, call recording (QM) and call disposition capabilities.  Additionally, their softphone receives call-associated data so CTI integration with hosted or premise-based information systems should be straightforward.  Workforce management is not part of the offer; however, there are plenty of hosted WFM solutions out there that can fill this void.  WFM integration is not rocket science.

The campaign management interfaces are intuitive for anyone that has spent time in a contact center.  Campaigns can be inbound or outbound and the set-up time for either is fast.  One of the more thoughtful features is the ability to commit numbers to a Do Not Call list.  Agents can commit numbers to this list with the click of a button and the system persistently filters these numbers to reduce costly mistakes.  This is one advanced feature that shows the depth of the integration that Northwinds can deliver. 

The agent interface is also intuitive so training cost will be minimal.  Agents simply log in and the system starts sending calls to their phone (inbound or outbound).  The call disposition feature is easy to use and offers additional insight into the success of each campaign. 

Northwinds has started off with a sound approach and a sound product offer.  This is not a big-steel ACD solution; however, it is not meant to be.  If your organization is in the small to mid size range (under 200 seats), then Northwinds should be on your bidder’s list.