Technology Record - Issue 22: Autumn 2021

V I EWPO I NT 84 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om Modernising enterprise dialogue management G I J S G E UR T S : ANYWHE R E 3 6 5 Enterprises that want to empower employees to interact with customers across any channel should adopt a cloud-based contact centre platform that natively integrates with Microsoft Teams, such as Anywhere365 W orking from home or other remote locations has become the new nor- mal for many people over the past 18 months as organisations worldwide continue to transform their businesses to ensure they can remain operational, while keeping employees and customers safe during the pandemic. For many businesses, the top priority is to ensure that their employees can still work productively, communicate and collaborate effectively with colleagues, and deliver high-quality services and experiences to customers. To achieve this, organisations have migrated from traditional legacy IT infrastructures and office-based phone systems to cloud-based enterprise communication and collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams. This has enabled them to seamlessly connect everyone in the business to a single platform, allowing col- leagues to easily interact with one another and with external partners and clients. However, many enterprises are still struggling to provide seamless and streamlined customer services. IT help desks are busier than ever before and contact centre agents are spending hours dealing with a rising number of time-consuming customer questions, taking them away from higher value tasks. This is compounded by the fact that customers are hard to satisfy, demanding instant answers and personalised services that feel as though they have been tailored to meet their specific needs and preferences. Consequently, now is the time for organisations to rethink the way they manage customer dialogues, moving these conversations beyond the traditional con- tact centre and instead routing them to whoever in the organisation is best-equipped to deal with them – whether they are in the customer services, sales, IT or executive teams. Reports suggest that 85 per cent of enterprises worldwide have already invested in Microsoft Teams, so the optimal route for many would be to extend the platform with new enterprise voice capabilities and other functionalities. To do this, they can implement a cloud contact centre appli- cation that natively integrates with Microsoft Teams and their other back-office IT systems, such as their customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Designed to natively integrate with Microsoft Teams and empower businesses to interact with customers across any channel, from anywhere and at any time, Anywhere365 Dialogue Cloud was the first solution of its kind to be certified as part of Microsoft’s Connected Contact Centers programme for Microsoft Teams in early 2021. The solution uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and Microsoft Azure to auto- matically assess and route customer enquiries from multiple channels to Microsoft Teams. “Anywhere365 Dialogue Cloud is much more than a support solution for contact centres ”