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AVOXI Executive Interview

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Sheri Greenhaus, Managing Partner of CrmXchange had a conversation with Barbara Dondiego, Chief Executive Officer of AVOXI, a cloud-based communications platform that specializes in global voice, contact center and messaging to simplify how companies communicate with their customers.

Please tell us a bit about AVOXI.

AVOXI focuses on customers who care about live, in-depth and challenging conversations. We provide our customers with the capability to have those conversations easily, whether the consumer is calling from the next town over or three countries away. And we deliver that capability with a platform that easily works with whatever system you’re using to answer the phone. 

Do you have the ability to track the call quality?

Yes, we can tell you from a quality perspective what’s happening on the line. Is the person being heard clearly? Is there a delay in voice? These are the types of questions we can answer with our Call Insights feature. 

We’re going a step further and building additional sentiment insights into that feature. We will be able to discern if the caller is happy or sad regarding the conversation. It’ll help users analyze if there are better sentiment rates in certain countries versus other countries, or certain times of day compared to others. 

Sentiment is an algorithm that you overlay on top of the voice conversation. Because the voice conversations all roll through our platform across different countries, we can look at sentiment analysis with our platform on top of that.  

Is this something that can be done in real-time or is it done in post-call analysis?

It can be both. Post-call is a little bit easier to do because you have more time to comb through the data and make sure it’s accurate. Real-time is completely achievable - it just takes a little more time that’s all. Regardless of which one you use, the AVOXI Platform supports all call quality analyses.

In real-time, is there a way for a supervisor to come into the conversation to advise the agent?

There are two ways for the supervisor to assist. Our platform can integrate with whatever platform our customers use that has that capability. We also have barge, whisper and monitor functionality on the AVOXI Platform to help supervisors take a closer look at their team’s customer conversations. 

Barge allows supervisors to join in when needed, whisper provides same-side feedback only the agents can hear, and monitor allows contact center staff to listen in on live calls. 

What other technologies are you integrated with?

We can integrate with almost any contact center application such as Genesys, Five9, NICE CXone, Avaya or something on-premise. We provide services on top of these systems, even if the customer is using multiple systems. This allows for an end-to-end view of the customer. 

Since your system looks at data across all applications, can a user view that insight holistically?

Yes, and it’s very easy to set up.

It doesn’t require technical expertise or a big team of developers. We can do that because of our no-code platform. All the reporting is easy to do. You don’t have to have a coding background to craft query data. 

What excites companies about your technology?

They like the coverage that we're able to offer. We provide a local presence in over 170 countries. We offer our customers the ability to look and sound like they have a presence in that country. This capability lets organizations call back their customers on a phone number that looks just like a number the customer is familiar with. It can be a country, city, or even a number type.

Have you noticed that more people will pick up the call if there is a local number?

Yes. It's a high percentage. Depending on the country, it’s north of a 25 - 30% higher pickup rate.  A lot of it is because they recognize the number. 

If the customer called in on that number, they recognize that number when they get called back. 

Are they able to pull up my record before they call me back?

There are a few ways to do that. But with the AVOXI Platform, we use webhooks to pull data from any database like your CRM. Your agents will then be able to see the caller’s details on their webphone as a screen pop. 

What components are in the AVOXI Platform?

Well, there are a few different components to the platform, and our contact center is a collection of features that includes a web phone, the agent desktop, some specific agent analytics and the ability to put agents into teams.

The main difference is that the contact center platform includes the ownership of the agent. The agent is making phone calls on that platform - or through a broader platform - that can be integrated into agent phone systems such as Avaya, NICE CXone or Genesys.

Are you able to track the customer journey?

We allow you to see what happens when a call comes into your center. Was it transferred to different teams or to various agents, was the call put on hold, etc.? 

We capture all that data into an easy-to-use flow. We provide a recording of the exact customer experience. In addition, we annotate every single step of the customer call journey. You can see the length of the entire integration. We provide the agent view as well as the whole end-to-end journey.

Sometimes multiple customers have the same issue, or they're stopped at the same point in the conversation. Is that something that can be set up and flagged?

We’re building a new capability called Notifications and Alerts. With access to all the data, it allows organizations to look at the parameters that are most important to them from a customer experience perspective and then act on that data. The platform will take that action for you using the previously up parameters. It’s more than providing alerts, but then having the manager make the change. 

How does AVOXI work when organizations have remote agents?

With remote workers, your teams have access to the platform as we’re a browser-based system. And you have access to all of their calls and call activities. All calls are recorded and annotated. We can obtain feedback on how the call is going. There's also a coaching section that allows you to write the call and provide that information back to the agent. 

Agent metrics are there as well. For example, we can look at break time, phone discussion duration, and the number of calls taken.  

Tell me about AVOXI’s queue callback function.

Organizations should be using queue callback more. It's a great, easy-to-implement feature. Callback is a win-win for all. Organizations save money with callback, because they don’t pay the hold rate for the person who elected the virtual hold. Additionally, the customer saves time and reduces frustration. 

Are you able to match the correct agent to the customer?

Yes, with skill tagging, also known as skills-based routing, allows you to take the call and tag it in different ways. It can be based on rules like menu or language selection.

Often customers get frustrated by the voice menu and often the right options are not presented. What can alleviate these pain points on the AVOXI Platform?

First, make the menu as short as possible - this is the easiest way to reduce frustration. Another really cool thing that is emerging is the ability to use natural language processing. We’re actually in beta now with companies testing the ability to speak a question and then have that be routed to the right place. Things to look forward to in the future.

Your system is CPaaS. Can you explain what that means?

To us, it means that we have a platform that focuses on cloud communications and the customer experience for users around the world. We take that platform and can plug it into whatever combination of systems an organization has. 

It’s easy to move all of the services into the cloud. Whether locations are physical or virtual, our platform rolls over the top and provides visibility, control and automation. 

What should companies be looking for with your type of solution?

Number one: It should not be hard to deploy. Integrations should be simple, a click of a button and you’re done. You should have a lot of inherent automation in the platform and be able to easily go to a new market. 

At the core, you’re providing this infrastructure service. It should provide the highest quality with 24/7/365 global support. Issues should be solved quickly and proactively when possible. And everything should not have to be heavily coded. No-code or low-code is the way to go. The world is moving fast and organizations need to be able to move quickly and mitigate staffing shortages. 

What do you see as some of the trends going forward?

Service is changing. For a long time, customer service was reactive. Rather than open up a case and figure out what is not working, we need to be proactive. This can be done by looking at the data, understanding what the data means, and taking action for the customers before there is an issue.

Where do you see that customer service is today?

Providing good service is a baseline that you must do, and you have to be available to your customers. It can’t be just technology – it is technology and people together.  Some organizations feel that if they are spending money on technology, then they don’t need to spend it on their people. But that is simply not true.

Through technology and the cloud, more mundane tasks can be automated, providing the agents with more interesting and challenging work. This provides agents with a development path as well. 

What else should our readers know about AVOXI?

You can build and/or complement your current tech stack with our wide range of solutions and platform capabilities. Organizations must have flexibility and be more demanding of their tech stack. There are a lot of choices available, but you don't have to be locked into one provider and one platform. We are building solutions today that were not available before.

About AVOXI

AVOXI, a global communications platform, provides voice, messaging and contact center - all within one platform. Giving international businesses the local presence they need to easily scale with their customers. AVOXI offers feature-rich voice technology with unparalleled coverage, quality and reliability.

Powering 7,000+ customers across 150+ countries and driving over 50+ million customer interactions every year, AVOXI's agile cloud platform enables customers to integrate with the technologies that matter most and extract meaningful data to drive enhanced customer experiences.

Get the global cloud communications and customer experience software that enterprises trust with their most important conversations. Start empowering exceptional experiences with AVOXI today. Learn more at www.avoxi.com.