When I made those initial Skype for iPhone calls last weekend, not only did I gain a quick appreciation of the voice quality but I also realized that the forthcoming multi-tasking feature of iPhone OS4 could offer new possibilities. Yes, multi-tasking would facilitate Skype’s Instant Messaging in an “always-on” mode but there could also be an even richer experience for business users.  Having attended eComm 2010 a couple of months ago, I recalled that Ringio, who introduced their offering at that event, may have that business-savvy application.

Basically think of Ringio as providing a “lite” customer relationship manager for businesses relying heavily on mobile communications. When you either call a contact or receive a call from a “known” contact, Ringio can bring up contextual information that provides background information that may assist both your conversation and team productivity. In fact, they recently demonstrated this concept with their announcement of Ringio Mobile PBX for Android. Fellow Voyces.com blogger Larry Lisser positions Ringio in All hail the Mobile PBX. Ringio calls it like it is:

To be clear, Ringio’s not expecting you to have desk phone. The focus of their innovation is to drive context into phone conversations, leveraging the information we already store about a given inbound caller (ie. when they called last, who they spoke to, what they bought last, when they were last served, and so on). Ringio is one amongst many moving quickly to bring far more context, than simply Caller ID, to a phone call.

With its aggregation of background notes, conversation outcomes, voice mail messages, online presence status and call logs, Ringio appears to bring elements of enterprise level computer-telephone integration to the small business entrepreneur. While only launched six weeks ago, according to a recent interview with Ringio CEO Sam Aparicio, they are already gaining traction with consultants as well as small business sales and tech support teams. Joining Google Market Place, with integration into Google Contacts and GMail, certainly assists in building awareness.

Sam went on to explain that Ringio can bring a unique form of team building and collaboration for a small business. When job descriptions and responsibilities can have a lot of gray areas as the business builds its revenues and customer base and any team member could be answering the phones, with Ringio any member answering a contact’s call can readily be aware of previous conversations with other team members.

While they have delivered an application for Android, Ringio needs to consider offering not only an iPhone application, potentially supporting Skype for iPhone (and iPad?), but also a BlackBerry Super App to support the largest North American business smartphone vendor today.

Here’s the other challenge for these applications – whether it’s the iPhone, BlackBerry or one of many Android offerings, holding the phone up to the ear of course makes it impossible to see this information during a voice conversation. Aside from using the speakerphone mode, would this be an ideal application for having a full headset (mic plus speakers) for the various smartphones?

Bottom line: Ringio should provide a good gage on how readily the Voice 2.0 Manifesto, with its focus on “applications as the value creators”, will be implemented into the mobile smartphone market space. Where generating awareness can be a larger challenge than delivering the appropriate technology, users in the broad small business market space need to see user interfaces and to have user experiences that encourage adoption. Calling a product a mobile PBX and actually delivering with a broadly accepted solution is the execution challenge for Ringio.

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In two separate press releases over the past two days, OnState Communications has broadened the scope of its call center offering and made it more readily accessible to businesses without internal IT and communications support.

In the first press release Monday, OnState announced the addition of the Yuuguu screen sharing service that provides call center agents with a tool that facilitates both visual presentations and resolution of customer support issues. Yuuguu’s screen sharing allows a call center agent to have a real time collaboration tool with:

• on demand screen sharing
• moderator control of adding/removing participants
• sharing of keyboard and mouse control amongst participants
• easy escalation of a chat session to desktop sharing
• no download requirement for callers to participate

One significant point: recall that OnState’s chat service, while originating from an agent’s Skype or GTalk account, can be accessed by any caller with a web browser. Once again, using Yuuguu’s screen sharing, an agent can have a screen sharing session with any caller with access to a web browser. Yuuguu’s service is cross-platform, supporting both Windows and Mac PC’s with Linux support to come soon.

From the press release, OnState Partnership with Yuuguu Provides Total Customer Collaboration For Virtual Workforces:

OnState is the first and only provider to include integrated voice, text chat and screen sharing as part of a cost-effective, on-demand virtual communications service. The addition of Yuuguu into OnState’s solution enables sales and support staff and all virtual workers to collaborate with customers by sharing screens or even keyboard and mouse control to help demonstrate solutions or solve problems.

“With Yuuguu screen sharing capabilities, OnState users can now conduct virtual sales calls – from anywhere in the world – with visual presentations, product demonstrations, and interactive communications,” said Pat Kelly, CEO of OnState. “And using real-time screen, keyboard and mouse sharing, support staff can resolve issues, answer questions, and assist customers more efficiently. Best of all, the combined solution is delivered as a secure, device-independent, cloud-based service that requires no installation or embedded applications on the customer side.”

In a second announcement yesterday, OnState announced a partnership with Bandwidth.com as a complete end-to-end IP-based communications service over which a business can operate its entire OnState call center operation “in the cloud”. Basically, if an end user can plug an RJ-45 jack into an Internet service modem or connection, and plug IP-based phones into a router, they can have all the communications infrastructure required for using the OnState service. And  inherently the network supports additional communications modes such as chat and screen sharing, as well as Skype conversations.

Once again call center agents can be located anywhere geographically and access the service via a phone, softphone on a PC, including Skype or GTalk, or mobile phone. While Bandwidth.com is U.S.-based they provide international access with support for international numbers via Voxbone’s service. From the press release, OnState and Bandwidth.com Deliver the Cloud Call Center:

For companies that rely on call centers for sales or customer support, reliability and quality-of-service are key. Bandwidth’s FlexNetwork is architected with full geographic redundancy, with separate signalling and audio facilities for reliability and flexibility. When this is combined with OnState’s cost-effective virtual communications, the resulting solution is one that is highly available, easily scalable, and encourages customer collaboration through multi-modal interfaces like voice, chat, and web.

OnState’s core competence is call center functionality; having come from a legacy call center operation that was acquired by Cisco, it’s in their genes. But as for the underlying communications services, they are becoming more and more agnostic by giving their customers options to select the underlying service provider as well as the communications clients, whether they be a traditional phone set, a mobile phone or a software-based communications client, such as available from Skype or GTalk. It’s a case of the customer defining its requirements and OnState can provide a solution from a buffet of options while delivering on the economic advantages of IP-based communications.

But OnState’s ultimate advantage comes from making it possible for their customers’ customers to access a call center via a simple call from a phone, mobile phone, Skype, GTalk or a Click-to-Call button on a website. And, where the caller has PC access, adding modalities such as chat or screen sharing requires no customer downloads; it just happens via the browser. As highlighted at this fall’s eComm Europe, the value-add comes in minimizing user friction with intelligent decision making tools that value a customer’s time.

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In a story on VoIP Planet, Gerry Blackwell provides a case study of the implementation of OnState’s Virtual Call Center at CyberDefender Corp., an Internet security software and services firm.

CyberDefender’s new director of customer service, Jose Martinez, investigated a few solutions, including traditional Panasonic and Nortel automatic call distribution (ACD) systems. But in the end, Martinez chose a radical on-demand service from start-up OnState Communications, and coupled it with VoIP service from Skype.

“OnState was very competitive,” he says. “But not only was it priced right—and this was very important to us—they were able to implement very quickly.” It took barely a week to get agents up and running and trained.

Gerry goes on to talk about the cost savings over traditional premise-based and hosted call center solutions, the visibility and transparency of the call center activity in real time and the ability to rapidly scale the service as they add more staff. He then quotes OnState CEO Pat Kelly:

“Conversation management and knowing about people are the most important elements in our application,” says OnState CEO Pat Kelly. “We’re interested in phones, but the problems our customers come to us with are not really about phones.”

“We’re more concerned with understanding the business presence of employees. What can they do—what skills do they have, what kinds of calls can they answer? And what are they doing at this moment. Are they at work today? Are they free? Are they involved in a chat? Are they on a phone call?”

Read the entire article to learn more about how OnState handles calls, its integration with Skype and Google Talk, the competition (such as it is), costs and OnState’s DNA that underlies its legitimacy as a call center solution.

Bottom Line: A win for CyberDefender and a win for their customers with improved customer service and an ability to scale appropriately as demand varies over time. And a a Voice 2.0 world application where Skype is contributing to business model disruption.

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In a recent post, I provided some examples where Skype is being used by small businesses to build relationships with a worldwide supplier and customer base. In the same post I provided a couple of examples where current economic conditions are helping to stealth Skype into enterprises in the medium to large business category. Skype itself claims that about 30% of its use is by businesses. At a blogging for business workshop a week ago and a local WordCamp this past weekend I again encountered several entrepreneurs for whom Skype was a key tool for conversations.

It seems that Skype wants to build up a repository of case studies involving business use of Skype. Last week Skype asked businesses to share their experiences with Skype as a business tool.

We’re looking for businesses like yours to share their experiences with us at Skype. We’re looking for creativity and originality – companies which use Skype in innovative ways around the world to save time, save money or stay ahead, and preferably a combination of the three.

The contest will be judged with three prizes to be  awarded involving Skype credits using Skype’s Business Control Panel along with Skype certified hardware products. More details are available at Peter Parkes post announcing the competition.

While the application form encourages the use of photos and video to support entries, it would also be useful to learn about how Skype not only reduces costs but also how Skype’s services impact business processes, customer/supplier relationships and team building across a geographically disbursed operation. And it’s not simply about voice conversations but are you using Skype chat for virtual water cooler conversations and Skype video to enhance conversations? Or do your activities involve one or more of Skype’s partner’s products for conferencing sessions, call center operations or document management?

Do you have a story to share?

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Legion are the stories of small and medium businesses who are using Skype for their worldwide communications operations.

• Skype is the cornerstone for keeping Toronto-based  b5media’s worldwide staff of bloggers, editors, developers and executives in touch via both informal and formal conversations.
• SeeWorthy gets an assist from Skype when communicating with their Taiwanese supplier (via an Alberta-based translator), North American and Caribbean agents, and prospective European distributors as well as their customers.
• A Canadian-headquartered resource company is using Skype voice and IM for communications with their operations in Asia; their biggest challenge involves time-zone issues. Skype chat’s inherent asynchronous nature helps to address that issue.

Skype itself claims that about 30% of all its user activity is business related. I often encounter small businesses who have a wealth of stories about how Skype contributes to their business success.

But during a recent conversation with OnState CEO Pat Kelly I learned about how Skype is stealthing its way into medium to large enterprises. Pat discussed two examples (who will remain generic until case studies are available):

• OnState received an enquiry from a major North American parts distributor whose operations involve agents, resellers and business customers spread out across North America. While this company has an internal IT team, the CFO was focused on significant cost reductions for their call center operations. He has now contracted OnState to provide voice, chat and other customer relationship communications activities that do not simply save money but provide additional communications processes such as IM with its inherent presence and chat features. Once the contract was signed, the CFO mentioned he would guide his IT personnel with their role in the implementation.
• A European country manager for a worldwide, US-headquartered business found that he was getting charge-backs for “corporate” communications services that did not meet his particular needs. He had enough autonomy that he investigated OnState’s services, went through not only the technical specifications but also the legal reviews and business process requirements. He is now meeting the communications needs of his business ecosystem using Skype and OnState’s other auxiliary services for call center and virtual PBX requirements. Subsequently other European subsidiaries of the same company are implementing OnState’s services. Yet this is a situation where the U.S. head office has yet to be contacted about what additional opportunities for Skype and OnState may exist within their business.

Pat’s key point is that, in today’s economically stressed environments, there’s a trend where CFO’s and business unit managers are making the key communications services decisions in larger enterprises in order to meet their financial goals. IT personnel are playing little or no role in the decision making although they may be involved to a limited degree in the implementation. What are Pat’s key observations?

• The consumer experience with Skype is stealthing its way into business implementations, not only with prosumers and small businesses but also at the business unit level within larger enterprises.
• Why? Skype just plain works. There are no firewall issues; OnState’s SaaS model eliminates capital investment for PBX’s and related infrastructure.
• It’s relatively easy to implement.
• Economic pressures are driving adoption.
• Where a business partner or customer has Skype also, HD Voice, incorporating SILK, provide for more productive voice conversations.
• It’s not simply about using a technical mashup across multiple services (Skype, Google, and Voxbone, for example) involved in OnState implementations; it’s a “business mashup” involving business processes and employee acceptance.

It’s a repeat of a trend that drove personal computers into larger enterprises twenty-five years ago. I recall one story where a Canadian bank Vice President found an employee with a PC that had a modem attached (with, at best, a 1200 kbps speed). The modem was ordered disconnected! Bank security was going to be upheld despite technology progress. Four years later that same bank ordered over 10,000 PC cards from my employer of the day for inclusion in their new, at the time, teller terminal system.

Bottom Line: Even if it’s not totally free it’s the raw cost savings that are driving Skype adoption, sometimes in co-operation with their business software partners. It’s about not only lower calling costs but also the elimination of capital asset costs. For some business markets Skype is stealthing its way into business communications infrastructure.

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OnState Communications provides hosted communications services that allow any size of business to operate a call center or PBX with low cost worldwide access via Skype, Skype Online numbers or the PSTN, including toll-free and DID numbers. Low monthly fees and service charges (covering inbound numbers and outbound PSTN calling) along with zero capital expenditures are the selling points that have driven evaluation and adoption across a range of businesses.

During early May OnState will be upgrading their services to add:

• a “My Account” dashboard that tracks credits and charges for services such as toll-free numbers and SkypeOut charges in real time
• OnState Mobile allows employees to use their mobile phones (such as iPhone and BlackBerry) to participate as part of a call center operation, either directly receiving customer calls, transferring to another employee in the company, or acting as a secondary support resource to a business’s core sales and support teams
• Warm Transfer and Conferencing for OnState Anywhere — A warm transfer allows an agent to speak with a new caller before transferring the original caller to provide a better calling experience.
• Outbound calling with Caller ID in OnState Anywhere. Enables calling from any device (Skype, SIP soft phone, etc) with a unique Caller ID displayed to your customers.
• Support for SIP Phones. While most calls are handled via softphones, such as the Skype client, OnState services now support selected Polycomm and Grandstream SIP phone sets.
• Several other service tweeks and modifications; check out the OnState blog post for the details.

OnState will be upgrading services to all their current clients over the first ten days of May. As with many other players in the economically challenged Voice 2.0 world, I confirmed in a recent interview with OnState CEO Pat Kelly that they are finding increasing demand in the small-to-medium business market for their SaaS-based services. The key selling point remains offering a disruptively cost effective way to communicate across an enterprise ecosystem comprising employees, customers and suppliers.

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Last day to register today for Regular Pricing; Late pricing applies for registrations after Feb.17, 2009. Enter “one touch” for a 20% discount.

Two weeks ago eComm 2009 organizer Lee Dryburgh observed that:

With the heavy backdrop of economic doom and gloom everywhere I’d been finding it ever more strange that virtually every company I was dealing with in relation to the 2009 conference, was reporting accelerating business let alone [as opposed to] flat or declining business.

Via a Skype multi-party call he held a virtual panel discussion involving:

• Jonathan Christensen (Skype)
• Irv Shaprio (IfByPhone)
• Rodrigue Ullens (Voxbone)
• Graham Brierton (Voicesage)on this topic.

When asked about today’s economy he repeatedly found eComm 2009’s sponsors saying “Oh no, we’re actually doing better, due to the downturn”. So he asked each of the panelists what their offering was doing such as to accelerate their business.

Graham Brierton (VoiceSage):

For example, we had a company that the key thing they wanted to do was bring in their debts cheaper and quicker, instead of reminding people to pay their bills.  Part of the paying the bill process was transferring them back into a call center to actually collect the money.  What we noticed when we analyzed the data was they were getting a hell of a lot of people that were wanting to pay between 3:55 p.m. and 4:05 p.m.  We still don’t know the reason why there is a peak at that point, but there is a peak at that point.

One of the issues that these guys had was that they couldn’t actually take all of those calls because they had a shift change at 4:00 p.m.  They were unaware that because they had a shift change there were a lot of people that wanted to engage in a process with them but they weren’t allowing it because of their internal business processes.  They actually changed that.  That came as a direct result of simply looking at the data generated from the interactions that their customers were having with us, and us trying to collect money from them.

Irv Shapiro (IfByPhone):

Batteries Plus is a franchise-based business in the United States and Canada that has hundreds of retail stores that sell only batteries.  If you need a battery for anything, you go into Batteries Plus or you go to their website and you can purchase a battery.

In many, many cases, people need a battery right away so they want to go to a store.  Batteries Plus was finding that they were fielding hundreds and hundreds of phone calls to stores asking for routine information such as “What are your hours of operation; which is the closest store to my address…?”  We automated that process for them.

In fact, they automated it themselves by going to our website, provisioning a toll-free number, putting in a IVR on the front end that asked a couple of very simple questions to determine whether the customer was looking for information about batteries.  In that case, the call was transferred to a central call center corporate.  Were they looking for the closest location, in which a geo-coded application automatically provided them with the closest location and driving information.  If they were looking for store hours of operation, same geo-code process except in this case we retrieved the hours of operation.

They found a dramatic increase in the productivity of their in-store personnel because now those personnel could concentrate on spending time with customers in the store.  The side effect of that is they sell more batteries.

Rod Ullens (Voxbone), who reported business growing at 15% per month:

At some point, they [cloud based services such as VoiceSage and IfByPhone] need to reach the PSTN.  Most of them actually need a telephone number to be activated.  The bigger they get, the bigger we get.  That’s already one reason.  It’s not necessarily because of us, but because of our customers that have services that are interesting, and we grow with them.

If you look at the way numbers were used in the past, where you had a telephone number that was just linked to a physical location, that’s all you can do with it.  The cost to dial such a number is pretty expensive.  What we’ve done is to just completely take away the geographical link.  Now a number is just a software-based identifier that people can use to call you on.  It’s very flexible.  You can just build up a service.

First of all, that service can be completely Internet based.  You can just use telephone numbers from Voxbone to make it reachable from traditional phone networks, from mobile phones and so on.  Basically, you can be a company and have a virtual presence in a lot of countries.  From day one, you can start a service provider, in forty-five countries.  I think that’s one major reason why we’ve grown, especially now.

Jonathan Christensen (GM Audio and Video Platforms, Skype), in response to Lee’s question: “What do you think is driving these minutes?  Is it businesses using Skype, for a change, in order to save money, for example?”

We’re seeing two things.  One is just consumer migration to value; people want to avoid long distance, but we also see in the consumer space a network effect around your friends being there, the quality being great, it being convenient and easy.  We have a large constituency of people where it is the convenience, free, and easy factor.

On the business side, Gartner, for example, recently said they kind of backed off their position that Skype is dangerous, evil, and will introduce Trojans into your network, and so on.  We hear; we have a bunch of case studies and we hear more and more from corporate IT, these commandments to their workforce saying, “When you’re travelling, when you’re making long distance calls, when you’re going to be faced with insane roaming charges, please try to use Skype.  It works, it’s easy, you can download it, it’s free”.  We are seeing acceleration in that sector, as well.

These are snippets from the discussion; Lee has transcribed the entire session in a eComm 2009 blog post.

Note that while all the participants in this call will be presenting, Jonathan Christensen will be delivering a keynote presentation: “Codec Evolution and Industry Proposal” along with a Skype announcement.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for value in communications services that drive business decisions, if you want to be a player in the emerging communications space, eComm 2009 provides the best opportunity to get a three day education in how the Voice 2.0 world will evolve. It’s an opportunity to network with the thinkers and business leaders who will be providing services for that market space. That’s why I’ve convinced a friend who is a 34-year veteran in the Canadian telecomm market to come; he wants his new consultancy to have relevance going forward.

Register here; enter “one touch” to get a 20% discount. Speakers. Schedule.

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When Skype’s Unlimited Calling Plans were modified last May, the only “Fair Usage” limitation was 10,000 minutes per month on any of the plans. Recently my attention was drawn to a modified Fair Usage policy. Primarily it would appear that the new Fair Usage policy would apply to businesses using SkypeOut for customer service and customer acquisition activities.

The new policy adds:

• calling to a maximum of 50 numbers per day
• maximum six (6) hours of SkypeOut calling per day
• each subscription is to be used by one person only and not to be shared with any other user (whether by a PBX, call center, computer or any other means).

On considering these further:

• a user can make repeated calls to a single number without impacting the “50 numbers per day” limitation
• each employee using call center or PBX services, such as OnState’s Call Center or Virtual PBX requires a separate Skype calling plan subscription for outbound calling
• the six hour per day limitation could build up quickly on a Skype multi-party call with multiple participants connected via SkypeOut
• these limitations only impact Skype services where third party termination charges are involved – all Skype-to-Skype calling remains free
• they would not appear to affect services such as Skype Trunking via a Vosky Exchange where they talk only about “call Skype users for free” and “low cost SkypeOut rates as low as 2.2 cents per minute to most landlines worldwide”

Upon exceeding any of these limits, normal SkypeOut rates and connection fees will apply for additional minutes, Of course this requires that you have Skype credits available; otherwise you may find a call cut off in the middle of a heavy conversation.

Two observations:

• When business is generating revenue or providing support via Skype’s outbound services, one should expect some cost. Skype continues to provide competitive rates for reliable, robust business calling.
• New Skype management is obviously reviewing all its business activities with a view to ensuring that consumer users can continue to benefit from the low cost of services available via Skype Calling Plans while those who are incurring heavy termination fees (and other costs) will support the cost of such usage levels.

Hat tip to participants in the Skype 4.x Discussion Public Chat for bringing this to my attention.

Update: UberOverLord developer Don Kennedy has published “Subscription Monitor for Skype” to track your Skype subscription usage in real time.

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OnState Communications hosts business communications services that facilitate customer relationship management and enterprise marketing activities. OnState Call Center for Skype allows even the smallest business to operate a call center with geographically disbursed agents. OnState Unified Communications provides complete business real time communications management by extending the call center back office functionality to include conversation recording and archiving as well as messaging activities such as email and voice mail.

Customer conversations, whether through Skype or the legacy PSTN, may be initiated from a website with click-to-call and click-to-chat buttons, toll free numbers or direct inward dialing (DID) numbers. All back office agent connectivity is handled via Skype to minimize costs.

OnState is a one-stop supplier whose services include setting up not only their own services but also complementary services such as management of Skype accounts and Skype hardware acquisition.

Summary from Supplier: OnState’s founding and management team have pioneered communications solutions that drive customer service and empower business users – so they are aptly named the call center guys. Through highly successful careers with industry giants such as Cisco Systems, GeoTel Communications, and Nortel, they hold scores of industry patents for applications that you may be using right now including: Automatic Call Distributors (ACD); Intelligent Call Routing; Network Call Routing; Computer Telephony Integration (CTI); Voice Response Units (VRU); Customer Relationship Management (CRM); and Quality Assurance and Employee Performance Management.

Always at the forefront of business communications tools that directly serve people, the OnState team is redefining the traditional call center paradigm. They deliver a solution that exploits the convergence of advanced Internet, voice and networking technologies to create value-driven collaborative environments – at the lowest cost possible anytime, anywhere.

Website: www.on-state.com

Products and Services:

• OnState Call Center for Skype
• OnState Unified Communications

OnState has been the pioneer in providing full service call center solutions that not only employ Skype’s various conversation modes but also use Zimbra to offer a complete multi-modal Unified Communications suite that incorporates conversation recording and archiving, email management and call back capabilities. Call center agents can be contacted via live chat, free inbound Skype calls, toll-free inbound lines as well as traditional PSTN lines and email.

As an initial target market, they have built a full service solution for technical support operations such as that operated by B4 Consulting, a SAP Channel Partner. B4 Consulting needs to provide 24/7 support as they are involved in SAP Business One installations across enterprises with worldwide operations. As a result they have implemented OnState’s Call Center for Skype to deliver real-time customer support. From the press release:

The OnState CallCenter for Skype™ is integral to B4 Consulting’s delivery of its global Application Management Services for the SAP Business One application, SAP’s affordable business management solution for growing businesses. B4 Consulting’s Web-integrated call center capitalizes on the full range of OnState’s multiple communications modes and customer contact options. This includes concurrent Skype chat and voice,Skype voicemail, dynamic call recording, and callbacks. Customers can initiate contact with agents via live chat, free inbound Skype calls, toll-free inbound lines, as well as non-Skype traditional landline and email. Additionally, the OnState CallCenter is integrated with B4 Consulting’s customer relationship management system.

It is interesting to note B4′s observation that “most customer conversations begin with voice and evolve to other communication modes, principally chat.” And once communications with their customers have commenced, live chat is the favored communications mode. All customer contact, conversations, email, and chat exchanges are easily recorded in B4 Consulting’s CRM system for historical reference.

Two quotes from the press release help to put this into perspective:

“To deliver technical support services on a global basis, B4 is leveraging nearly every feature within OnState’s portfolio of customer contact solutions,” said Pat Kelly, president and CEO of OnState. “And, they are using them in a completely integrated manner and sometimes simultaneously to deliver highly-responsive support services to their customers using SAP Business One.” Moreover, as call center and support portal functions are Skype-based and Web-enabled, support can be delivered from anywhere at anytime. Therefore, B4 Consulting’s support customers can rely on call center agents who are subject-matter experts in SAP Business One.

“When we launched our Application Management Services [AMS] for SAP Business One, we couldn’t afford the time and resources to establish a traditional call center – yet we wanted to provide premium, enterprise-level services on a global basis,” noted Frank Paetzold, vice president of delivery and AMS at B4 Consulting. “Establishing a sophisticated call center was quick, easy and affordable with OnState. The beauty of OnState, however, goes beyond affordability. Implementing OnState requires no server hardware or software and minimal agent-based client software installation. OnState eliminates barriers to communication, enabling us to give customers the freedom to decide how and when they want to communicate with us as well as the option for self-service through our online knowledge portal.”

OnState’s three executive team members each bring over 20 years’ experience with call center requirements. It is a prime example where, while Skype can provide the real-time conversation infrastructure, unique experience, knowledge and resources are required to deliver a full call center solution with both the connectivity infrastructure and back office functionality required to deliver a fully operational solution.

Tags: OnState, OnState Call Center, Unified Communications, Skype, B4 Consulting, SAP Business One, Pat Kelly, Frank Petzold, SAP, SAP Channel Partner

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Skype’s Halina Mugame, editor of the Skype Developer Program newsletter and weblog, yesterday interviewed OnState CEO Pat Kelly and started her interview, “Less Mess with Unified Messaging“, by referencing Skype Journal’s recent post announcing OnState’s Unified Messaging offering. Questions included:

• Tell us more about this new product. In comparison with current OnState Call Center solution, what new features will be made available via mash-up with Zimbra?
• What makes Zimbra a good solution to integrate with OnState?

But the best line is the last:

Oh, and the important bit, they do all this at an industry-redefining price point.

Read Halina’s full post for more background on how OnState’s Unified Messaigng offering evolved out of their Call Center service.

Tags: Skype, OnState, OnState Unified Messaging, Halina Mugame, Pat Kelly

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Buried in the Yahoo assets that Microsoft covets is recently acquired Zimbra, “a leader in Open Source, next generation messaging and collaboration software”. Amongst Zimbra’s product line, the initial offering of Zimbra’s Unified Messaging is based on a partnership with Asterisk, the open source VoIP provider. Zimbra has an extensive list of service provider, business and education customers; Comcast has teamed up with Zimbra to offer Comcast’s Unified Messaging portal. And I have personally heard positive comments about Zimbra from a couple of third parties.

Yesterday, OnState Communications, provider of the OnState Call Center for Skype announced an expansion of their product line to add OnState Unified Messaging for Skype – a mashup of OnState, Skype and Zimbra. Basically this is a hosted service that involves, for the user, a web client along with an agent that captures Skype chat sessions, on-demand voice recording and voice mail, allows tagging of these conversations and integration with email, a calendar and an address book such as to provide one point access to all your messaging activities. An integrated and advanced search engine with a simple WYSIWYG feature allows for rapid recovery of relevant communications in any mode. From the press release:

Managed Communications
OnState Unified Messaging for Skype routes, manages, stores and archives a range of business communications to expedite business processes and drive improved customer-contact management. Features include:

• Web 2.0 Ajax client
• integrated Skype voicemail
• dynamic call recording
• online business chat logging
• enterprise-class email and calendaring
• push-mail for mobile devices
• support for Outlook™, Thunderbird and other mail clients
• cross-mailbox search and compliance features

“With this latest offering, OnState advances its charter to deliver Web-based, enterprise-class, customer-contact management solutions at an industry-redefining price point,” noted [Pat] Kelly, [CEO of OnState].

OnState is already configuring its Unified Messaging for current OnState Call Center customers. Some of the above features, such as “push-mail for mobile devices”, will come with an upgrade incorporating Zimbra 5.0 in about a month. I am in the course of evaluating OnState’s Unified Messaging and hope to provide a full review once the upgraded edition is released.

In closing it is important to note the value of a service provider’s reliance on an Open Source application when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. Being Open Source, Zimbra’s source code is readily available to any third party. Zimbra is a classic example of building infrastructure and enhanced services around an open source application that can survive any consequences of a merger or acquisition.

Tags: Skype, OnState, Zimbra, OnState Unified Messaging, OnState Call Center, Yaho

Robert Poe at VoIP News has written a detailed report on how OnState Communications Call Center works, making a couple of points we had overlooked in our coverage:

Fully a software solution with no servers:

Onstate Communications’ CallCenter service bundles Skype’s business offering with its own software-based ACD (automatic call distribution) capabilities. Unlike with either on-premise or hosted solutions, no calls go through OnState Communications’ facilities or equipment — all the CallCenter software does is tell Skype where to send the calls. “It’s true software as a service,” said OnState Communications co-founder and CEO Pat Kelly. “It’s without parallel given the marketplace we’re going after.”

CallCenter’s software-based architecture is the key to OnState Communications’ low price. “We have to some degree an unfair advantage, because we don’t have to buy massive racks of equipment like [hosted call-center providers] do because all their calls have to run through them,” Kelly stated. The cost of toll-free or local phone numbers, and of SkypeIn and SkypeOut calls, are in addition to the service’s basic fee. Adding the ability to record 100 percent of agent calls runs a mere $10 extra per month.

A truly international solution:

The Call Center service originally worked only with Skype calls and callers, according to Kelly. OnState Communications soon added SkypeIn and SkypeOut capabilities, which made it possible to call or receive calls from anyone, anywhere. And an upgrade announced on Jan. 9, 2008 expanded the “anywhere” part to international locations. U.S. companies can now get inbound numbers in a variety of overseas markets and have the calls come to their offices via Skype.

Similarly, non-U.S. companies can get toll-free U.S. numbers and send their incoming calls to agents anywhere in the world that Skype goes, for the same flat rate of around 3 cents per minute. “For people providing international support, that’s a big thing,” said Kelly. “If you’re a European provider and want to give your U.S. customers support, you pay big bucks to get a U.S. 800 number to ring in Denmark.”

Another case of Skype and a partner’s offering disrupting business: Fifteen years ago my employer was paying over $10,000 per month to have support calls routed to Europe (Ireland) via a T1 line during hours when the Los Angeles based headquarters was closed. And that’s another saving besides dropping the need for a six figure PBX to run a call center.

Tags: Skype, OnState Communications, OnState Call Center, Robert Poe, VoIP News

While this blog tends to focus on new developments and the role they can play in our future real time conversations, it sometimes pays to look back to see what has been accomplished. For 2007, these are, from my perspective, top ten accomplishments for the Skype ecosystem:

1. eBay CEO Meg Whitman states at an eBay quarterly analyst conference call, “Not enough focus on ‘Delight The User’”. Hopefully this is a high priority guiding principal in the search for a new Skype CEO. Great technology but needs the business development, marketing and leadership skills of a seasoned high technology executive to truly make Skype happen on a world market leader scale. End users need a delightful “total” experience, including user support, adequate and well timed announcement of changes to calling plans, more participation in the blogosphere, higher awareness and broader availability of Skype hardware … and the list goes on.

2. Skype High Quality Video: because it brings a whole new dimension and level of realism to real time conversations. Yes, to take full advantage requires a new webcam with enhanced optics, but my final selection came because of the very positive reaction and response of those whom I converse with and who receive my High Quality Video (Recipients don’t need all the requirements of senders — the past two weeks two parties have observed “my” High Quality Video on their Macs.) A success story involving not only Skype software but also hardware specifications and co-operative device driver development.

3. HD Voice –nobody has called it that specifically but here I pick up a term used to name a Fall VON session. I refer to wideband voice transmission covering a minimum 8Khz audio bandwidth (twice that of conventional telephony). Over the year Skype has been making gradual improvements to the Skype voice engine, including the codecs, such that today most Skype voice conversations can be held with a basic laptop, and no additional headset or microphone (provided one is available in the laptop) is required. Over Christmas I helped my son with a Skype for Mac installation; he made a call yesterday from his home that was very clear using his basic Mac speakers and mic. Each new version of Skype since Skype 3.2 has had some improvements but with Skype 3.6 I am getting many unsolicited comments about how it better handles lower Internet connection bandwidth configurations. And, should you use a headset, such as the FreeTalk Wireless Stereo headset, for, say, personal privacy or office etiquette reasons, you will find your other parties on the call “in your head”. HD Voice received additional support this fall when HiDef Conferencing became equipped with the ability to ensure all Skype participants on a conference call would experience HD Voice quality when conversing with other Skype users on the same call.

4. Mobile Access to Skype. We still don’t have a Skype client for three of the most popular mobile devices (Nokia, Blackberry, iPhone); true mobile VoIP requires not only either WiFi or 3G connectivity but also appropriate wireless network infrastructure to handle the capacity demands VoIP would place on a wireless network. However, we have seen the release of several offerings that provide a combination of an IM client for these platforms along with a protocol that allows easy access to the wireless network to complete a call from a mobile device at reduced costs. These include the 3 Skypephone, IM+ for Skype (even works on not only the iPhone but also iPod Touch), iSkoot and Fring.

5. Skype Developer Partner acquired: Pioneering Skype Developer Partner Webdialogs was acquired by IBM’s Lotus Sametime division in September. Certainly says that with the right technology and offerings there is potential for other Skype developer partners to lead the way to expanding the Voice 2.0 world where applications are the value generator. Question: will IBM’s Lotus Sametime license Skype technology for their own real time conversations capability?

6. Skype Developer Platform. While still requiring web services support to be offering a complete mashup development platform, the Skype Mashup contest and announcement of the Skype Public Platform Roadmap have brought enhanced awareness to this program. Partner PamConsult has led the way in demonstrating, with PamFax, how Skype technology, digital rights management and transaction engine can be combined to offer a carrier independent, worldwide service that requires only a Skype user account, an Internet connection but no additional hardware beyond a basic PC.

7. Disruption Rules: While PamFax can reduce the cost of those $1.00+ per page faxes from hotels, two Skype Partners have introduced products that portend for significant business model disruption:

• OnState’s Call Center brings a “no hardware” solution to the call center space. Whereas a full call center previously required a low six figure investment in a PBX, as well as IT support and other infrastructure, OnState’s Call Center has the cost of a PC for each agent along with a $30 per month per agent ongoing subscription fee with no long term commitments.. Suddenly call centers become viable both for even the smallest business and for remotely located, geographically distributed employees.
• Vapps, Inc.s’ HiDef Conferencing provides hosted business grade conference calling (with HD Voice support as mentioned above) that is robust, reliable, scalable and supports up to 500 participants on a call. For as little as $25 per month to as much as $200 per month you can have 10 to 500 Skype participants with unlimited minutes as well as 300 to 5,000 toll-free minutes for callers from the legacy phone network. Six years ago $200 got me one hour of a five-party conference call. (Jan 2009 Update: HiDef Conferencing has been acquired by Citrix and is offering free trial calling until February 15, 2009.)

8. Innovation Rules. Whereas disruption requires the displacement of legacy business processes, innovation brings new services that allow new, previously unavailable (business) processes to happen:

• For instance, there is a Vosky distributor in Texas who has worked with a local social service agency to provide much more effective counselling services by bringing into the monthly review of “challenged” children’s education the child’s teachers located at the school during a social worker’s monthly visit to parents at home.via Skype conference calling.
• But we also are seeing innovative new services such as Evoca’s Media Service. This involves a hosted “Get a Phone for your Website” audio service that provides for asynchronous voice conversations being used, for instance, by Discovery Channel, with user access from either Skype or a legacy telephone.
• Collaboration: there are three different collaboration services, each addressing its own market niche. I label these services as innovative as they bring entirely new processes to business for both internal and external conversations, especially businesses that are geographically disbursed.

9. Skype Toolbars: For some time Skype has offered toolbars which make Skype calling more readily accessible in common applications such as Outlook, Internet Explorer and Firefox. In fact, the Skype Outlook Toolbar and Firefox extension have both become routine elements of my everyday communications operations. (Remember, I don’t dial phone numbers, I call people with real names.) Two weeks ago, Skype released a new version of the Skype Outlook Toolbar which has optimized Skype-enabled operations within Outlook while eliminating a couple of “nuisance” bugs in the previous version. However, the browser toolbars became embedded into the standard Skype installation but should you elect not to install them, you now have to re-install Skype itself. This is one example where Skype needs to “Delight the User” by restoring the ability to install these Toolbars individually when they were not installed at the time of Skype installation.

10. Skype Public Chats: Since first introduced in May, I have been a participant on several group chats, the most enduring being the Skype 3.x Discussion chat where several Skype enthusiasts share their thoughts and ideas. One interesting aspect of this particular chat is that a few members of the Skype Developer team and Skype PR people monitor the session and, when appropriate and not in conflict with “company policy”, participate in the conversation as well as provide notification about new releases, etc. It was a rather heated discussion on this public chat that lead to this Skype Journal post about restoring a “geek” feature buried in Skype related to Skype video. Another Public Chat was open during the beta testing of the Skype Outlook Toolbar; no doubt its input, and ability to bring out common issues, contributed to the robustness of the newly released Skype Outlook Toolbar.

11. (I can’t stop at 10): And for the 11th accomplishment: Skype Technology Licensing: In my recent interview with Sten Tamkivi, GM of Skype Estonia (a detailed post to follow), he mentioned that Skype is migrating its development focus to becoming a platform developer from simply a client and services developer. In addition to a platform for Partners (discussed above), the recent licensing to MySpace is the first in the series of what they hope becomes Skype infrastructure technology licensing deals with other services as their route into, say, providing social networking infrastructure.

From my perspective these have been the top accomplishment within the Skype ecosystem in 2007. It has resulted in a cost effective conversation ecosystem that has no equal amongst VoIP service providers. However, this ecosystem is not near demonstrating its full potential; hopefully eBay will announce a new CEO soon who captain the ship into providing a “delightful user experience” at full sail.

Next: My projections for 2008. Related “Skype Primer” posts:

• A Backgrounder
• Enabling Real Time Communications
• Skype Hardware – If and When Available
• Skype’s Extras Gallery and Developer Partner Program
• Mobile Conversations

Tags: Skype, eBay, Meg Whitman, High Quality Video, HD Voice, Skype Developer Program, OnState, Evoca, PamFax, Convenos, Yugma, Unyte, PamConsult, Skype Public Chat, MySpace, HighSpeedConferencing.com, FreeTalk Wireless Stereo Headset, Vosky, Skype Outlook Toolbar, IBM Lotus Sametime

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Ever since eBay’s acquisition of Skype over two years ago, there has been speculation as to how eBay and Skype should be “integrated” to enhance the auction process. While not the world’s most active eBay participant, I have used it several times to acquire items not normally available in Canada and to sell (ironically) a “surplus” Nortel PBX a few years ago. But I have also had the opportunity to attend a couple of eBay Live events and gain some of the flavor of the extent of the Ebay domain and the enthusiasm of its resellers, especially the several hundred thousand who run a full time business through eBay.

During these eBay Live sessions I have noted two key facts:

• There is very little Skype awareness amongst the eBay reseller community.
• When one or two Skype training sessions are available over the three days of eBay Live, they are well attended with an eagerness to learn more about Skype

My primary question has always been, how would one maintain the integrity of the auction process while engaging in real time conversations. It appears there are several stages to the auction process:

• Setting up the individual item’s auction information
• Executing the auction, accepting bids and “Buy Now” requests
• Finalizing the payment transaction
• Delivering the item, and
• Exchanging buyer and seller feedback.

The key for the first two stages is to enhance the integrity of the auction itself by ensuring that information exchanged between seller and bidder is available to all potential bidders. Real time one-on-one Skype chat and voice conversations have the potential to violate the integrity sought. Yet, with Skype there are two solutions:

1. Establish a Skype Public Chat that can be joined by any bidder who is on Skype; the reseller can manage who remains on the chat to eliminate “spammers” and others wh go off-subject..
2. Establish an ongoing asynchronous voice conversation using Evoca’s hosted voice recording and playback services. This allows all (potential) bidders to have an asynchronous, ongoing conversation with the seller incorporating all the additional information disclosed as a result of bidder queries..

For the last three stages, standard Skype conversations (voice, IM chat and video) can be used to provide customer service and support, as appropriate to the individual auction. Should their business be ongoing with sufficient transaction volume, even OnState’s ACD Call Center solution can be invoked (at $38 per seat per month – no capital costs) to ensure calls are directed to an appropriate party.

But then there is a bigger challenge beyond simply installing Skype and creating Skype accounts: training eBay Resellers on how they can implement and use Skype to their business’s advantage. It is not sufficient simply to make Skype buttons available for eBay Resellers. The Skype ecosystem not only offers basic real time conversation support but also, through its Skype Developer Partners, call recording and conversation archiving as well as collaboration and conferencing tools which may be useful for certain categories of resellers. But they need training to realize the full potential of Skype.

And then there is the missed viral opportunity yet to be fulfilled.

Tags: Skype, eBay, Skype Developer Partners, Skype Public Chat, Evoca, OnState

Previous posts have discussed OnState’s Call Center for Skype and its ability to manage customer enquiries by voice and/or chat. A conversation is launched via a website with three options (Skype, Callback and Chat) or via a SkypeIn number (where available). This week OnState added to their portfolio of communications options with the availability of toll-free services for Skype which can be integrated into the OnState CallCenter solution.

What this means is that an OnState-enabled business simply obtains a toll-free number in the U.S. or Canada and the customer enquiries can be directed to any Skype-enabled agent worldwide. Ideal for, say, the European business that wants to take enquiries from the U.S. and/or Canada using agents based in Europe or for Canadian businesses who cannot get SkypeIn numbers. From the press release:

“Skype changed the communications industry with its software and global calling rates,” noted [OnState CEO Pat] Kelly, “Now, OnState continues to challenge the call center market by providing integrated toll-free service at an industry-redefining price. All a customer needs to do is fire-up an OnState toll-free number in the US or Canada and that number can go anywhere Skype can go – this is revolutionary for traditional call centers.”

The service will soon be expanded to include European toll-free numbers.

Bottom line is that businesses can invoke OnState’s CallCenter service and take advantage of Skype’s low operating costs regardless of whether the customer comes via a website or is attracted by a print or broadcast media advertisement or press item. Adding toll-free numbers simply tells the customer “we care about your interest” in a product or service.

Tags: Skype, OnState, OnState Call Center, Pat Kelly

The Call Center introduced this week for Skype comes from a Skype Extras Partner, not from Skype itself!

Two posts this morning talk about a new offering exhibited at VoiceCon in San Francisco earlier this week. However, while one post eventually notes that this is a third party offering, another post blatantly assumes that Skype developed the service. (Full disclosure at this point: OnState Communications is a client for my professional services involving market research of the Live Chat market space where I have previous experience. Also note that this post has not been reviewed or cleared through OnState.)

Fact: At VoiceCon this week OnState Communications introduced and demonstrated their recently announced Live Chat feature that works within their overall OnState ACD for Skype offering. As stated in previous posts (here and here), OnState’s ability to deliver their basic ACD (“Auotmated Call Disribution”) service was inhibited until Skype’s Call Transfer function became available in June. As a result they developed a Live Chat feature that can run independent of the Call Transfer requirement. With the availability of Call Transfer for the past two months, OnState is now able to offer both Call Center and Live Chat services or both; this is what was exhibited this week.

So Russell Shaw is correct in his title “New call center soluton unveiled for Skype”. However, I would disagree with his statement: “You may not realize this, but Skype has vivid aspirations of being a major player in the call center game. Skype is doing this through Skype for Business.” In practice, Skype looks to its Extras Partners to provide third party solutions such as a Call Center.

• Developing a Call Center requires unique experience, technology and expertise that Skype internally cannot hope to match, given the demands on its developer and product marketing resources just to build the basic Skype service across multiple platforms.
• At the Skype DevCon in Las Vegas a year ago June, I had a long discussion with David Clarke of Pika Technologies where he educated me on the requirements for a fully capable call center offering.
• Russell then does go on to acknowledge that OnState’s offering is a third party solution; in fact, OnState is participating in the Skype Extras program.

Then Gokul Gopalakris, with reference to Russell’s post, goes onto Smith on VoIP and puts out a post “Many Companies Don’t Understand the Call Center Business”. To put it mildly the statements in this post need to be addressed::

• The OnState team brings over 20 years of developing and providing Call Center services. They developed the GeoTel service that was acquired by Cisco Systems a few years ago. They now bring this experience to the Skype ecosystem.
• OnState uses the Skype client as only one component of the overall system. You can initiate contact with a Call Center agent from any website via Skype, Live Chat, or a Call Back process.
• The OnState cloud assigns the call to an appropriate agent, based on his/her skills and/or responsibilities. The Agent sees the overall picture in a separate web-based window generated by the OnState cloud; an example of this Agent Call Management screen is shown on the right and in Russell Shaw’s post.
• This Call Management window is independent of the Agent’s Skype client through which s/he operates chat sessions, voice conversations, call transfer to other agents and conferencing involving agents, their managers and the customer, as appropriate.
• The OnState cloud will generate a browser/operating system independent chat window on the calling customer’s PC; this is the key feature that triggered OnState’s press release. This feature allows OnState to address the very vibrant Live Chat market space for which Live Person is the current market leader.
• The Call Center market space and Live Chat market space are two separate market spaces that can both be addressed by OnState’s ACD for Skype, thereby bringing a degree of convergence to what will evolve into a Real Time Customer Conversation space.
• They did hire some expertise to look into the Live Chat market space.

To summarize:

• Skype itself recognizes they have neither the resources nor the experience to address the Call Center market; this demonstrates a reason for their Extras Partner program.
• The offering announced is coming from a third party, namely, OnState Communications
• OnState brings a wealth of Call Center experience to the Skype ecosystem
• The Agent operates through both a Call Management window and a Skype client
• And I’m sure there will become some connectivity with CRM and other solutions. (Skype even contracted out the development of their Skype for Salesforce offering.)
• OnState brings Call Center functionality to small businesses that previously would have had to pay six figure numbers ($100K to $200K) for the basic PBX and Call Center software before even starting; With OnState there is no capital investment, IT management or other infrastructure required. A one person organization could start at $30 per month.

Tags: OnState Communications, OnState ACD for Skype, OnState, Russell Shaw, Gukol Gopalakris, Smith on VoIP, Skype, Skype Extras, Skype Partners, Skype for Salesforce.com,VoiceCon 2007, OnState Live Chat, Skype Call Center, , Live Chat

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Over the past few years Live Chat, along with Click-to-Call, have become common tools embedded in marketing and e-commerce websites. To be effective the chat or voice session has to assume site visitors have no other tools beyond the browser to act as a chat client or voice device. Live Person has become one of the top Live Chat tools over the past couple of years, accelerated by its addition of a Click-to-Call feature last year, but there are several others.

While live chat and click-to-call tools have evolved in the Skype ecosystem, they usually assume both parties have Skype installed. Live chat as a marketing tool within the Skype ecosystem would require that a site visitor be able to create a chat client window “on-the;fly” when clicking on a live chat link with no special skills, “dedicated” tools or, most significantly, no Skype installation.

Late in February OnState Communications launched their OnState ACD for Skype 3.0, offering a call center solution bringing over 20 years experience as executives of a call center solution provider to the Skype ecosystem. However, delayed release of Skype’s long awaited Call Transfer capability has slowed adoption and roll-out; as a result the OnState team has carried out development activity that has resulted in a Skype-based solution for the traditional “live chat” market.

In particular OnState is announcing OnState ACD Chat Support which permits Skype-enabled call center agents to hold visitor-initiated chat sessions with any website visitor. Best part is that the visitor does not have to be a Skype user, making OnState’s live chat offering, as with legacy live chat offerings, totally independent of the visitor’s PC configuration (other than the requirement to have a web browser). The website owner simply installs a “Live Chat” button at an appropriate location on the website. Visitors can then click on the button to request a chat session with a representative (say, sales agent or customer service rep); a web-based chat window, as shown on the right, will open up on the visitor’s PC. The agent will see a chat request on their Skype IM client and can then initiate a chat discussion with the site visitor. Of particular note are:

• The site visitor does not need to be a Skype user nor is there any client to download.
• The chat window can be embedded or floating
• The agent can pop-up a chat window while the visitor is browsing.

Alternatively the visitor can be presented with some basic questions via a chat robot to obtain, say, the visitor’s name and contact information, etc. This information, along with the visitor’s IP address, is then presented to the Agent’s Skype IM client, as shown on the left, prior to initiating the chat discussion. While there is some flexibility as to the information gathering dialogue, more sophisticated tools such as SalesBuilder can be used for deeper customer profiling. At a minimum one wants to have basic contact information, along with a short description of reason for the call, prior to initiating a chat session (or voice call).

Agents can be selected by the OnState ACD based on matching the customer’s information to their individual skill sets. They can be handling multiple chat sessions concurrently; there will also be options to escalate a chat session to a voice session or, during a voice session, to turn on the Chat-ACD feature. Should there be a need to view the caller’s desktop to facilitate training or support, agents can readily invoke Unyte’s (or other vendor’s) desktop sharing application. In its final scenario, the OnState offering will provide a full multi-modal enabled service incorporating voice, chat, call back and multi-party conferencing. Think of its as spontaneous real time business conversations — your way.

To try it out, click on the three buttons to the right above to take you to On-State’s home page that has the same three buttons where clicking an individual button will connect you to the related real time conversation mode.

Working with Skype and incorporating a universally accessible chat feature provides a low cost, easily implemented Voice 2.0 solution to small and medium enterprises that found previous Live Chat offerings too cumbersome and expensive. According to Pat Kelly, OnState’s CEO, the combination of OnState Chat-ACD’s feature set and pricing will result in a very competitive offering.

OnState Chat-ACD is currently in beta mode with release expected in early July. OnState will be exhibiting this feature through an eBay partner at eBay Live.

Disclosure: OnState has become a consulting client; the author offers professional services based on previous experience with the implementation and operation of Live Chat services.

OnState’s Web-based ACD for Skype 3.0 Brings 20 Years of Enterprise Call Center Experience to the Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Market

What changes to Call Center infrastructure and business model can be wrought if you combine

• A team with over 20 years experience as seasoned call center solution provider executives in the enterprise call center market
• Recognition of voice as an Internet application
  • with a complete implementation of the Voice 2.0 Manifesto
• Integration of a call center solution with the web
• Partner with Skype to incorporate an ad hoc IM =>Voice => Desktop Sharing protocol
• Redefinition of the call center business model while keeping enterprise-class features
• Think of Skype applied as a marketing tool

Today marks the official launch of OnState Communiations’ OnState ACD for Skype 3.0 – a unique offering that delivers enterprise-class call center robustness at a disruptively low price point. To quote their OnState ACD for Skype press release:

The OnState Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) solution is a fully integrated, Skype Certified™ third-party application, which is available as a Skype for Business Extra. OnState ACD for Skype does not require installation, hardware or special software yet it delivers enterprise-class customer contact management capabilities spanning services such as skills-based routing, chat, click-to-call Web integration, interactive voice response, and reporting. OnState ACD for Skype is part of a suite of OnState Intelligent CallCenter solutions for Skype solutions to be rolled out in the coming months.

Call Center solutions are not simply extended PBX’s that can handle multiple phone lines but rather an complete customer interface business management infrastructure that takes what is known about the caller (whether a sales enquiry, a technical support call or a customer service issue) and matches that caller with an appropriate resource within the called business. For instance, a business website could take information gleaned from a customized SalesBuilder dialog with the visitor and route it in real time to, say, an appropriate, product specialist (whose geographical location is irrelevant).

• The intelligent routing involves not only the responder’s skill set but also his/her current availability.
• Business rules, queue management and Instant Messaging play a large role in the ACD solution.
• Any customer can access a web-marketed business via this solution whether via Skype or via the PSTN combined with SkypeIn
• If chat is involved, OnState’s ACD provides a web-based chat window for the non-Skype caller.
• A more complete discussion of how it works can be found here.

What is the role of Skype? From their website:

The actual conversation between your customers and employees is always through the Skype network, and not OnState. Skype is providing the network and services for your customers and employees to communicate. OnState is providing the logic to ensure that the right customer is connected to the right resource and adapting in real-time to changing business and environmental conditions.

OnState’s ACD for Skype represents a true Voice 2.0 implementation in that it leverages voice as an embedded communications tool combined with business rules, call queuing and other communications modes (such as Unyte’s Desktop Sharing). From the Voice 2.0 Manifesto:

Voice 2.0 is a user-centric view of the world. In Voice 2.0, “it’s all about me” — my applications, my identity, my availability. Voice 2.0 is all about developers too — the companies that exploit the platform assets of identity, presence, and call control. It’s not about the network anymore.

At the highest level OnState’s ACD can be viewed as turning Skype into a mission critical marketing tool.

Oh yes – that disruptively low price point: when the subscription service launches in late March: $29.95 per agent per month.

A follow up post will comprise a discussion of how OnState’s ACD can be used by eBay resellers as a Skype-based marketing tool.In the meantime you can check out the free trial available via Skype Extras Gallery (Tools | Do More | Get Extras | Business) or directly from the OnState website.

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