Avaya Unveils First Custom Aura Applications
VoiceCon – Avaya Inc. delivered on a promise to create custom and vertical industry applications leveraging the Avaya Aura architecture with the introduction of the Avaya Notification Solution (ANS) and Avaya Proactive Outreach for Financial Services. Both applications are available through Avaya’s indirect sales channel.
Released in May, Avaya Aura integrates communications across multivendor, multilocation and multimodal businesses.
Ajay Kapoor, managing director of Avaya Professional Services, told PHONE+ that Aura’s two primary value propositions were to drive down the costs of enterprise communications and to usher in a new age of real-time application in the communications space. Today’s offers are the first of many to come, he added.
Kapoor called ANS “the most significant advance in the communications-enabled business process space since it was pioneered by Avaya a few years ago.” ANS is a SIP-based app that was designed to streamline urgent or emergency processes. When a critical event occurs, ANS informs and solicits responses from relevant parties. And, it can bring them together to collaborate.
For example, in the case of a chemical spill, ANS can notify employees to evacuate but it also can notify the response team to a conference call. An IVR system can take attendance and even help facilitate the resolutions process based on pre-set business rules. In most cases, a team leader would take over the meeting, Kapoor said.
But ANS isn’t only for emergencies. A hospital, for example, can use ANS for patient checkout. It notifies the parties that have to sign off on the release. Each party can respond positively or negatively, and even leave a voice message to the effect. If a conference is necessary, it can call the parties into a meeting.
Avaya plans to use ANS internally to respond to IT alarms. If a communications decision needs to be made, e.g., update all users, one person might be notified and respond. But in the case of an outage, several people might be brought into a conference. Phase two of the implementation will involve Avaya’s IT vendors.
The second Aura application, Avaya Proactive Outreach for Financial Services, is a timely application for a vertical market in need of immediate help processing mortgage modifications. The demand for information has shut down call centers and results in five to six hour wait times, Kapoor said. Instead, Avaya’s solution enables the mortgage company to be more proactive by automatically contacting the customers, verifying their identity, and using self-guided questions determine eligibility for a loan modification. If eligible, customers are sent a text or e-mail with a URL to the application forms. If they are not eligible, they are informed of other options they can consider.
A second component of the Outreach app, is to offload the status calls. Avaya Outreach integrates with the bank’s back office, and notifies the customer by phone or e-mail each time the application progresses to the next step in the process.
The application can be deployed in less than 30 days, Kapoor said.
