Take a look at ME

Louie Malatasta, Director of Reading-based CTI Labs

Louie Malatasta, Director of Reading-based CTI Labs, explains the principles behind ME, a new range of communications automation products that opens up a myriad of sales opportunities for the channel.

CTI Labs is a wholly owned subsidiary of the IP Integration Group; a successful reseller who is currently Avaya’s SMB Channel Partner of the year as well as being one of only two outfits to hold both SMB and Enterprise Platinum accreditation in the UK.

Managing Director Steve Walker was responsible for Integrating Call Media into the Azzurri organisation and knows that in order for a reseller to have a successful channel product you need walls erected that cannot be breached.

“I have implemented the same model for IP Integration and the ME product suite as we had at Azzurri where, at the time I left the company, 50% of Call Media sales were through channel partners. The implications are clear: make one mistake in the channel and you risk losing half of your sales. It make eminent sense therefore to have processes nailed down so we have a separate P&L and CRM system for CTI Labs and divorce that business as far as humanly possible from IP Integration.

“The rationale behind launching ME (it stands for Modular Engine by the way)

is simple,” says Louie Malatasta. “Over the last ten years we had built our in-house programming skills to the point where we had been providing customers with a number of innovative, easy to use automation applications that delivered businessenhancing processes with rapid returns on investment to the users. We felt, particularly in the light of the current economic climate, that these applications deserved a wider stage on which to perform.

“ME is a product set of its time and is all about self-service and automation – lowering the costs of user transactions. In the recent past many users have been fearful over such applications due to their mistrust of automation technology and to be frank, a poor implementation track record by some vendors.

“ME is different; at the core is the Modular Engine driving off-the-shelf applications that can be customised, mixed and matched and ultimately tailored to meet customer needs. Don’t be put off by this concept. After all every PBX sold could be described in exactly the same way – no two customer implementations are ever identical.”

The Products

“Pay ME is a credit card payment automation application driven by either voice or DTMF that provides two great benefits. For the user the application is PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard) compliant which means that Pay ME has a set of processes designed to protect against identity theft.

“For the vendor organisation the benefit potential is equally significant in that agent time spent on processing a credit card payment – typically 30-40 seconds - is eliminated. At the point in the sales conversation that the payment process is reached the agent passes the customer over to the Pay ME application and gets on with the next sales call.

“Connect ME is a speech driven automatic attendant that drives calls to the right destination. Typically a 50-employee company would require a two-port Connect ME solution. Again, flexibility is key in that the application can sit in front of an organisation processing calls or behind the primary answering positions handling call overflows.

“We have many customers already using Connect ME; for example, 20 million people a year are making automatic bookings for taxis using our systems. The application recognises CLI and accepts multiple location addresses for taxi firm customers – home, office, pub etc. and offers options such as being picked up now or at a designated time. Users can speak or use DTMF throughout. Connect ME is SIP/H.323-based technology and can therefore be used on compliant PBX from vendors such as Avaya, Mitel, Samsung, SpliceCom and Siemens.

“Ask ME is a customer survey application. User feedback on products and services is essential today to ensure value for money and repeat business. Traditional survey methods can be very cost prohibitive or in the case of web-based applications have low response rates. Ask ME can be either blind or transparent to the agent.

“Schedule ME is a services booking application suitable say for dentists. The user requests either the next available appointment time or specifies which times are best for them then responds to the options offered. Send ME is used typically for brochure or information requests whilst Tell ME, a text to speech application, provides information there and then to the caller.”

Reference Sites

“Unlike most organisations launching a channel product CTI Labs has more than a hundred working reference sites up and running from day one. Whilst flexibility and customisation to user need are watchwords the ME applications have all been productised to provide resellers a starting point from which to begin dialogue with their customers.

“Many of the applications in the suite will be used together, for example ID ME, an identity verification application could sit in front of a payment or booking system.”

“Our channel proposition is strong,” says Malatasta, “After all we have supplied parent company IP Integration for some time and know what is required. For the wider market we have white label solutions and a shopping list of services that resellers can select from including training and support. Access to reference sites and case studies is important and our pricing is designed to be market leading in terms of value for money and reseller margins. As well as the off-the-shelf applications ready to go we also have five developers more than able to customise and bespoke solutions for users.

“The real benefits for resellers is in knowing that one of our solutions will fit their customer, ROI is easy to demonstrate and that the sale of one ME application will surely lead to another.”

Another Booking:

One of the vertical markets where CTI Labs ME product range has achieved spectacular success with more than 30 sites now installed is the taxi and mini-cab sector.

Here, CTI Labs have honed an IVR application that allows callers to book a taxi without having to speak to anyone.

Louis Malatasta, “Our solutions are being used in Taxi and mini-cab firms taking between 2,000 and 10,000 bookings a day. We look up the caller’s telephone number and play them back a text to speech message that confirms their identity and location to give them a warm feeling that the taxi firm knows exactly who they are and where the cab needs to be dispatched to.

“Automation at this level frees up agents that would normally have taken these calls to handle the more complex or personal calls where perhaps a specialist type of vehicle is required.

“More recently we have added some advanced features which further frees up agent time. For example, callers with existing booking are recognised and acknowledged with a typical message that would say, ‘you have a booking, the cab will be with you in five minutes and it is a blue Sierra’.

“We can do advanced booking where the caller wants to say book a cab for 6pm tomorrow. You can have multiple pick-up points, say home or work or station once you have registered these on the system.

“These firms would not normally be associated with high tech applications such as these but they see the value in automation by way of the number of bookings they are getting and the increased level of service they are providing as we are reducing the queue time.

“We even have a ‘call on approach’ feature whereby the cab driver can press a button in his cab which will automatically ring the customer’s phone twice to let them know the cab is outside – a great benefit when the pick up point is a block of flats.

“Of course at any time the caller wants they can opt to speak to an agent.”

More Information: www.spiritelplc.com