D.
Geller - April 21st, 2000
Event
Summary
Teloquent Communications Corporation has its roots in telephony, as an
enabler of call centers. Their Web ContactServer 2.1 integrates traditional
telephone routing with Web-based customer service tools to provide a consistent
experience for both customers and agents. Customers browsing a website
are given multiple options for seeking assistance, including requesting
immediate callback, real-time chat and page push.
Market
Impact
Unlike the Web, working in the telephony space is difficult, and by integrating
the two Teloquent believes it offers real value. While there are other
companies, from Lucent on down, that also combine the Web with telephony,
Teloquent claims that its scalability provides it with a unique niche.
They suggest that systems like Nortel's and Lucent's do not scale down
well, while other smaller competitors have not yet acquired the knack
of scaling up to support help centers with as many as 1800 agents.
Together
with some of its other products Teloquent can enable a company to build
a very functional combined media call center, and should have no trouble
establishing a strong niche within the overall CRM market.
User
Recommendations
The users most interested in Teloquent's solution will be those bricks-and-mortar
or direct merchants who already have existing call centers, and existing
call center management companies that want to break into e-commerce. A
dot-com that believes phone service is necessary to its success should
also be interested, but may be better off outsourcing its call center
operations to a vendor that uses Teloquent's system or one like it.