Avaya and its channel partners are embracing cloud 3.0 with new products that do not disrupt a user's existing systems, ranging from contact center apps to conversational AI software. Rather, Avaya provides customers with complementary tools, according to the company.
On June 30, executives from Avaya presented products and a vision for their company at the Avaya Customer Experience Center in New York City. During a demonstration, an Avaya representative called a doctor's office to complain about a knee injury. Avaya's conversational AI bot responded to the representative, expressed empathy for her fictitious injury, and was able to follow the conversation well enough to send a text message scheduling the representative for a doctor's appointment. It was similar to Alexa or Siri, but more gifted. It was also not necessary to download an app to use the bot. Avaya's conversational AI software recognizes languages as well, removing the need for contact centers to hire bilingual agents.
Karen Hardy is the global VP of product management at Avaya.
“It’s been partly the pandemic that’s led us to a point where we’ve had a lot of remote workers who have needed the same tools as when they were in the office to when they’re remote,” Karen Hardy said.
“It’s been partly the pandemic that’s led us to a point where we’ve had a lot of remote workers who have needed the same tools as when they were in the office to when they’re remote,” Hardy said. “So, the technology road map has had to change. As Avaya looked at our road map, we had to look at what those employee and agent experiences needed to be, how immersive technology had to come into play.”
However, these products, many of which provide low-code or no-code solutions, demonstrate their utility outside of a remote-office setting. They may have widespread applications in a larger hybrid world. Avaya, for example, reported a $3 million increase in productivity when it placed its virtual agent in front of a grocery store chain.
“Partners can sell something that’s additive, not competitive,” said Steve Forcum, director and chief evangelist, marketing, at Avaya. “We’re empowering them to introduce technologies to customers that solve business problems. However, these solutions don’t carry with them the prerequisites of a platform change.”