SALESFORCE DREAMFORCE — Avaya announced Wednesday some new Salesforce Service Cloud integrations with its contact-center solutions and CRM environments that bring omnichannel capabilities to both new and existing implementations. The company spread the news at Dreamforce 2017 in San Francisco. Salesforce is a key partner in the Avaya ecosystem.

The Avaya CRM Connector 2.0 bridges gaps between legacy and new implementations, enabling a single user interface (UI) via the Salesforce Lightning Service Console, embedded with omnichannel controls that improve agent effectiveness and the customer experience. This connector suite is capable of supporting both the Salesforce Classic and Lightning user experiences, as well as providing call control and reporting for various knowledge workers, the company said.

Avaya’s John Pradal

“We’re doing connectors that will allow us to interface many of the Avaya software solutions with the Salesforce cloud. The connectors have connectivity not just to the Service Cloud but other clouds such as Sales and Marketing,” John Pradal, head of strategic alliances, corporate strategy and development with Avaya, told us.

By early next year, Avaya will be launching an Omnichannel integration engine, called Oceana, and will extend it to the Salesforce Service Cloud.

“For customers who are already comfortable with their Salesforce CRM desktop and have a CRM solution, they’ll get the power of omnichannel multi-attribute routing — afforded by Oceana being embedded into the Service Cloud,” Pradal explained.

Digital transformation is driving many companies to move beyond voice, and in the service environment, omnichannel routing is critical.

At Avaya Engage in February, the vendor announced an expanded alliance with Salesforce Service Cloud to deliver solutions that more deeply integrate the contact-center products of the two companies.

“Avaya does omnichannel routing spectacularly well and Salesforce owns the desktop, so it’s a good marriage of the two solutions,” he said.

Salesforce Einstein analytics and AI combined with Avaya’s AI Connect will allow Avaya to leverage additional inputs from a number of partners – including Salesforce Einstein – for recommended service actions to transform customer and agent experiences.

Avaya’s vice president and chief technologist, digital transformation and evangelist, Jean Turgeon, is speaking at a session – “Digitizing the Customer Experience Using AI, IoT & Analytics and Blockchain Technologies,” at the Dreamforce event.