Acqueon Technologies has added a real-time supervisor dashboard to its Microsoft Lync contact center solution.

The Dallas-based customer collaboration solutions company today launched AiQ 5.1, a new version of its Lync contact center solution.

Lync is a unified communications (UC) platform from Microsoft that can serve as an IP private branch exchange (PBX) system.

AiQ is designed to provide Lync users with full contact center functionality and serves as “a flexible enterprise-ready platform [that] gives users real-time presence information, audio/video/web conferencing and enhanced instant messaging to help them connect with their contacts more efficiently and effectively,” Acqueon said.

The most recent AiQ release features a real-time supervisor dashboard, Acqueon said, that gives call center managers greater insight into their contact center operations.

This solution also enables users to interact with customers within the Lync user interface.

“AiQ 5.1 is intended to let businesses currently using Lync as a unified communications platform in the office extend that same Lync functionality into the contact center,” Ashok Raj, Acqueon’s vice president of product management, said in a prepared statement.

How does AiQ 5.1 work?

AiQ 5.1 is a multi-channel inbound/outbound call center solution that integrates with Lync via the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed Application Programming Interface (UCMA), a platform that allows developers to access and control instant messaging, telephone and video calls and audio and video conferencing tools.

The new AiQ release can help businesses “deliver the cutting-edge customer service that customers increasingly expect,” Acqueon said, and provides users with full Lync software and softphone support.

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Ryan Poulos, Acqueon’s director of channels and alliances, told Talkin’ Cloud that he believes AiQ 5.1 can support both inbound and outbound contact center agents.

“All the solutions from an inbound standpoint are very similar. From an outbound standpoint is where we really stand out,” he said. “With customers doing outbound marketing, collections or whatever may require outbound campaigns, we have this functionality and it’s a differentiator in the Lync Voice space. From an inbound perspective, we also have a cool callback feature that will call back a customer if the call is disconnected or dropped.”

Acqueon added AiQ 5.1 includes call routing capabilities that determine which contact center agents are available and forward calls to these representatives accordingly.

“Now with tighter Lync integration, agents can handle contact center operations all within the familiar Lync client,” Raj said.

Acqueon, meanwhile, isn’t the only customer collaboration solutions provider to update its contact center offering recently.

In addition to Acqueon, both inContact and 8X8 (EGHT) have integrated new features into their contact center solutions this year.

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