Anyone who's called a help desk will agree that it's often
difficult to get the right person on the phone to fix your problem,
and that's after navigating through the automated menu that can
seem to be leading nowhere.
But one university has been able to ensure that all callers into
its IT help desk find the right people to fix their problems, and
find them as fast as possible.
Montreal-based Concordia University has tapped BlueNote Networks
and recently deployed the BlueNote SessionSuite Presence Service, a
set of software-based capabilities that let enterprises and similar
organizations add contextual call routing to everyday business
applications and processes. According to Alan Rosenberg, BlueNote's
director of product line management, the presence service
essentially lets companies direct business calls based on certain
attributes, such as a user's role, spoken language or activity.
Rosenberg said SessionSuite Presence Service uses presence
information to route calls automatically, without pricey call
center applications, and can send calls to everyday telephones. It
uses Web service APIs to integrate into business applications with
very little telephony expertise.
"We have a student-staffed helpline, and each student has
different skill levels and skill areas," said Mike Babbin,
assistant director of communication for Concordia University ITTS.
"We want to make sure specific kinds of help requests go to the
right person."
Experimenting a bit with the presence service, Babbin said, has
changed the help system from a series of forwarded help tickets to
the call's finding its intended target every time.
He said that all users set up a profile and set their own
characteristics, picking their skill set and the language they
speak. Since Concordia is in Montreal, some students speak French
and others speak English, and the presence service can send calls
to someone who speaks the appropriate language.
"If you're the end user and you want to talk to someone," Babbin
said, "you want the call to get to someone who can help."
Bern Elliot, research vice president with Gartner Inc., said
offering presence using high-level Web Service APIs is key.
"This is an important feature because it allows presence
capabilities to be integrated easily into software applications and
business processes," Elliot said. "The presence information can
then be leveraged to automatically route calls as part of an
application, giving contextual routing features to ordinary
business functions."
The SessionSuite Presence Service is available with SessionSuite
SOA and Enterprise Editions and leveraged by SessionSuite Desktop
and WebCaller. It is based on SIMPLE, and the software will be
included in the SOA and Enterprise Editions at no added charge.
Read about the
presence debate
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presence