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Avaya and FatPipe Partner to improve customer mobile experience

Toll Free is still popular, but using a mobile provides new challenges

Toll-free numbers aren’t going away any time soon. Companies still use them to connect customers to their contact centers. What’s different from a few years ago is that most contact center calls now come from mobile devices. And while companies are confident that they’re providing a good mobile experience, their customers don’t often feel the same.

One problem contact centers face is having to pay for each call going through a toll-free line, whether it originates from a smartphone or a landline. This significantly adds to a company’s operating expenses. The Avaya Mobile Experience (AME), launched in 2018, addresses this problem by lowering toll-free and agent costs. The cloud-based service can send incoming calls directly to a contact center without passing it to a fixed network.

AME identifies when a call is coming from a mobile phone, transfers contextual information on the caller to a contact center, and deflects calls to the mobile web for a richer customer service experience. If a caller chooses that option, the toll-free call ends and they receive a link for personalized access to a website. Customers can then use self-service tools like chatbots or a combination of voice, video, and co-browsing.

SD-WAN provides better visibility

With the proliferation of smartphones, consumers have come to expect a seamless digital experience. When dialing a toll-free number, they want agents to know who they are and have additional context that could speed up the call. AME was designed with those needs in mind. It collects customer information to assist contact center agents, so they can handle a call more efficiently if a customer prefers to interact via voice.

Greater multichannel engagement equips companies with valuable insight about customer behavior. But to pull it off, companies need a reliable network that prioritizes voice over IP (VoIP), video, and other real-time traffic without dropping sessions. By deploying a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), companies can have better visibility into their network. An SD-WAN performs over any type of transport—including MPLS, broadband, cellular, and satellite—and selects an optimal path for each data packet.

A SD-WAN infrastructure needs reliable internet connectivity with sufficient bandwidth. SD-WANs provide operational flexibility, but also create complexities that stem from implementing WAN load balancing for internal, internet-facing, and mobile workloads. Thus, they require monitoring and tuning internet throughput for performance. A SD-WAN infrastructure must also include secure access to mobile devices as traffic is transported outside the firewall.

FatPipe and Avaya Mobile Experience (AME) helps improve overall customer experience

FatPipe, a provider of intra-corporate WAN solutions, has developed a secure multi-path VPN (MPVPN) to be implemented for hybrid WAN. It supports bidirectional quality of service (QoS), which monitors the sending and receiving of calls/sessions. An advanced routing architecture that utilizes MPVPN can correct up to 15 percent packet loss on diverse circuits simultaneously, while maintaining toll-quality calls and seamless failover.

Contact centers with mobile customers looking to migrate away from high cost MPLS circuits, now have the option of deploying FatPipe’s dual-path SD-WAN for AME. FatPipe and Avaya came up with a combined solution that equips contact centers with a hybrid WAN mobile infrastructure, which can reduce toll call expenses by up 40 percent annually, per FatPipe.

Call center response is vastly improved

The vendors formed a global alliance to help contact centers achieve those cost savings through joint product verification, pre-integration, and certified solutions. Beyond cost savings, the vendors see companies bridging an existing technology gap.

Companies that implement FatPipe’s SD-WAN with AME can control, monitor, and maintain multiple WAN connections, eliminating the need for Internet Service Provider (ISP) management. As a result, smartphone users get more self-service options on a hybrid network that’s flexible and can accommodate new cloud-based applications.

Contact FatPipe Networks at 801-683-5656 x 1224 for more information. www.fatpipeinc.com.

SD-WAN is now SD-WAN TM

SD-WAN is evolving to SD-WAN TM

Many SD-WAN solutions promise adopters a software/hardware solution that will ultimately solve their traffic routing issues and improve network performance. But research has shown that this is not the case. Over 60% of SD-WAN installs are retooled or worse, uninstalled, simply because they just do not meet the needs of today’s modern wide area network.

Let’s be honest, SD-WAN has got a rap, not necessarily “bad” but perhaps has been touted, incorrectly, as a panacea to solve a multitude of issues faced by today’s WAN administrators.

So why the confusion and lack of understanding? Perhaps it is marketing hype, where vendors in this market claim to have solutions that meet most customer’s needs, only to find far more is required than what is advertised. Perhaps customers are too quick to jump on the bandwagon, with administrators installing “SD-WAN” simply to appease management that they now have the latest and greatest, or to try something and see if and how it works.

SD-WAN (Software-Defined WAN) is cool, and can be a very effective, cost saving solution for almost ANY WAN of any size or configuration. After research with well over 100 SD-WAN users, both large and small, the clear differentiator in this discussion is undoubtedly, the “S”. The Software. It is well known that the hardware is no longer the focus for a successful, high speed WAN, it is how the software manages the traffic.

It is all about network traffic management

Perhaps SD-WAN should be changed to SD-WAN-TM – WAN Traffic Management, because at the end of the day, it really is about traffic management, knowing what the traffic type is, where it originates, the destination and of course, how it gets there.

Modern WANs are becoming more and more complex, especially with the adoption of cloud and hybrid cloud services and solutions, better bandwidth offerings, faster cell networks (5G is blisteringly quick) and of course, the need to access information and data from anywhere at any time, using a multitude of devices.

Users are driving the change. Instant access is imperative, demanded, and critical to the success of today’s fast paced on line business to consumer economy. Businesses are adapting to this change requiring more connectivity to aligned organizations, such as healthcare institutions connecting to insurance companies, financial institutions connecting to regulatory bodies, mortgage and insurance companies, and large on line retailers managing inventory, deliveries, and billing. We are becoming more and more connected, and with that brings the number 1 fear for any network administrator, the security of their data.

Security is undoubtedly the one issue keeping the WAN administrator awake at night. With the massive increase in network traffic on multiple and different link types, especially broadband, from multiple devices, the question must now be, how do you manage this traffic effectively, efficiently and most importantly, easily?

In order to have a reliable, secure and effective WAN, it is imperative that administrators take control of traffic across the network. Knowing how traffic is being routed and most importantly, being able to control it, is without question the most important factor affecting the modern WAN. Managing this traffic across multiple links using multiple formats is key. This is the promise of SD-WAN.

5 Necessities for a cost effective SD-WAN solution

To get the best “S” for your SD-WAN needs, there are a few easy steps any business should take. Here are 5 key questions you MUST ask your SD-WAN vendor:

Will your SD-WAN solution work with existing routers and network protocols?
Will your SD-WAN solution work with multiple links in one device, even if those links are different types and speeds, including copper, fiber, 3G,4G,5G LTE, broadband and satellite?
Will your Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) solution securely load balance and failover BOTH inbound and outbound traffic, even if this is VoIP or Video resulting in zero dropped calls?
Does your SD-WAN solution allow setting of thresholds for any traffic type, including application specific, protocol specific, line specific, or interface specific?
Will your SD-WAN solution be capable of managing traffic securely to and from any cloud or hybrid cloud application or service and can you do this all from a single screen view of the entire network?

If you answered yes to ALL of these questions, you have a very good SD-WAN solution, or even better, best of breed WAN traffic management.

Traffic management is already the most important factor affecting networks today. It will become even more important and critical as more and more devices connect. Multiple research predicts up to 50 Billion devices connected to the Internet by 2025.

To be sure you have the right “S” to manage your traffic, check to see how your network is designed, the links you have in place, the firewalls, routers, the current traffic management system, and ask yourself what is possible and what will be required to ensure reliability, security, redundancy, efficiency and, perhaps often overlooked, how simple will it be to configure and manage?

FatPipe Networks have been designing and developing best of breed SD-WAN solutions for over 17 years, are the holder of 12 seminal patents and are FIPS 140-2 certified. With the capability of managing up to 16 different links, with multiple speeds, sub second failover, stateful firewall, inbound redundancy and security, best WAN Optimization options, and scalable up to 40Gb, FatPipe can meet all of the customer SD-WAN requirements. FatPipe’s traffic management is second to none. Offering both capex and managed service solutions, FatPipe is unique in the market. Can you afford not to check out FatPipe’s WAN traffic management capabilities?

Call FatPipe today at 801-683-5656 x 1224. www.fatpipeinc.com