1. Your software, Altitude uCI™, is a multi-functional, “All in One” product offering. What do you expect will be the “hot” application areas for Altitude Software in 2009?
In these uncertain times, all applications that contribute for keeping costs down and provide a better service are highly valuable.
Altitude uCI 7.5 has now been updated with new features that include an enhanced unified desktop to achieve higher first call resolution rates. It improves customer service, while allowing the contact center to become more competitive and effective in customer acquisition and retention through a more efficient campaign optimization.
We think these new set of applications are in line with the main market trends and will be in high demand in 2009 and beyond.
2. What new products and services can we expect from Altitude in 2009?
2009 will be a very exciting year for Altitude since we will be introducing to the market, in the third quarter, a new major release of our flagship product suite, Altitude uCI. This new and enhanced version addresses a vast number of new requirements from our extensive customer base and due to its broader functional appeal will generate a new dynamic towards Altitude thus helping us enter into a new growth stage in many regions, including North America.
3. Altitude is in market sectors that are highly competitive, i.e. Aspect Software, Interactive Intelligence, Avaya. How do you differentiate yourselves from the some of these vendors? What are your greatest strengths?
Altitude Software has an impressive success track record and has helped more than 800 customers worldwide to deploy a next generation contact center, used by 200,000 agents on a daily basis.
Altitude main differentiators include:
• Industry Only Interaction Language and Integrated Development environment
• Rapid Application Deployment of easily customer tailored CRM applications
• Broadest independent coverage of platforms, with 20 PBXs, 5 RDBMS, 3 OS
• Fastest re-tooling of contact centre campaigns makes it the Outsourcers #1 tool
• Proven Dynamic ROI program with fast returns
4. Obviously, the current economic climate has many companies apprehensive about their business prospects in 2009. How do you believe these conditions will affect your sales efforts?
Traditionally Altitude has had a strong presence among outsourcers and in these challenging times many organizations are outsourcing their contact center operations thus creating more business opportunities for Altitude.
Many enterprises are also using this time to optimize and streamline their operations and, in many cases, this includes looking for new technology that can, in the long term, improve customer service and keep costs down.
5. For many years there has been an on going debate regarding “All-in-One” solutions versus “best of breed.” For instance, working with one vendor providing a single suite of applications is better than working with multi vendors; and best of breed approach allows the user to select the best solution for a particular application. Is there anything new that would change the balance of these arguments?
More and more contact centers are concerned with the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of their systems and when you choose the “best of breed” approach, clearly it is going to be higher.
You will have to deal with different suppliers, have people trained in different systems and an IT team proficient in everything. All these concerns add up to more costs, this is why we are witnessing a bigger demand for “All-in-One” solutions, such as Altitude uCI.
6. What are some key characteristics of companies, their culture, their market, or their applications that would make All-In-One solutions more or less appropriate?
There isn’t a specific profile to differentiate companies that will choose a All-in-One” solutions versus “best of breed.”, it all depends on the requirements and finding the right partner (s) to deliver the best solution for that business environment.
7. Does the All-In-One solution work for large enterprises as well as for smaller companies?
Yes, the target group for this type of applications is transversal to the different industries. It all depends on the requirements and business strategy.
Because of the lower TCO, many SME prefer an All-in-One system. In this case they get all the most common and important contact center functionalities out-of-the-box, in a product suite built to work together in a seamless way.
8. Altitude has experience growth in North America in the last couple of years. Please share with our audience Altitude’s profile?
Founded in 1992, Altitude Software (www.altitude.com) is a leading independent contact centre vendor, with its Altitude Unified Customer Interaction™ (Altitude uCI) product line. The Altitude uCI is a suite of customer interaction management solutions for customer service; help desks; collections; order desks; proactive telemarketing, sales and service; and business process management. It manages and improves customer relationships for each new interaction in a wide range of contact centres, from SMEs to large multisite organisations with a special focus on contact center outsourcers.
Today we are present in more than 60 countries, helping companies of all sizes and business sectors improving their customer interaction strategies by using Altitude uCI.
9. As a Portuguese based company, Altitude Software has achieved significant market share in many countries outside of North America. Since Altitude is a relatively new player in North America, what has been the acceptance level for your offerings? What are your biggest challenges?
Actually Altitude has customer relationships in North America that span over 10 years, so we do have a reference base. But frankly, the biggest challenge is getting the name out there; gaining mindshare. We have a strong success rate when competing as the product offering is superior to other offerings in the market. We have a flexible licensing model, including Pay-as-a-Service(PaaS).
We have partnered with various trade organizations, media/event planners, and of course CRMXchange to help us win that challenge, and so far over the last 2 years, we have made great gains increasing our installed base, and growing the existing customers as well.