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May 27, 2009

Voxeo Acquires IMified, Advances Unified Self-Service Strategy



By Michael Dinan, TMCnet Editor


Targeting an increasingly popular means of communication that’s finding its way into large enterprises for its cost-savings capability, an Orlando-based unified communications and self-service platforms provider today announced that it’s acquired a company that helps developers build IM solutions into applications.

 
Officials at Voxeo Corporation told TMCnet in an interview that their acquisition of IMified is a natural extension of their flagship interactive voice response, or “IVR” solutions.
 
For Voxeo (News - Alert) President and Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Taylor, both technologies essentially create “conversations” between users and whatever service they’re contacting through a communications device – whether that’s speaking into a phone/using touchtone buttons, or through text-messaging.
 
“That model applies exactly to an IM agent or IM bot,” Taylor told TMCnet. “You can have a conversation via SMS or messaging, where an application can send you information to prompt for a response, then look up information and deliver results to you. This is a trend we’re seeing more and more in large enterprises.”
 
It should be. Not only is text-messaging emerging as an increasingly mainstream communications means – especially among younger people (experts tell us they expect SMS to emerge as a lynchpin for all advertising within five years) – but automating tasks traditionally handled by live agents is gaining traction among businesses navigating this slower economy.
 
For Voxeo, the IMified acquisition signals an important step toward filling out what the company calls its “unified self-service strategy.”
 
“It’s a model where you get people to the information they need through whatever means makes sense to them,” Dan York (News - Alert), Voxeo’s director of conversations, told TMCnet.
 
Specifically, Voxeo’s strategy is to enable both unified self-service and live UC apps that can work across SMS, IM, USSD and the mobile Web as well as voice and video.
 
Taylor described the acquisition of IMified as primarily strategic. He declined to provide specific financial details (it’s a private transaction), though Voxeo officials say there will be no changes to terms of service for existing IMified customers and developers, and all IMified employees have joined Voxeo. The free, hosted IMified platform is now available here for developers.
 
That platform works with popular IM platforms from Yahoo, Google, Microsoft (News - Alert), Cisco/Jabber and AOL, company officials say. To date, more than 7,500 developers are creating IM bots that do things like track packages, provide emergency notifications, respond to customer service inquiries, conduct surveys and provide access to Google (News - Alert) calendars.
 
IMified officials say on their site that they take a lot of the headaches out of building and hosting IM agents, which in the past were hindered by standard protocols that didn’t support various IM networks. The company offers enterprises and developers a single Platform-as-a-Service, or “PaaS” API to communicate with any IM network or platform.
 
“IMified functions allow applications to send and receive instant messages and determine the presence, or availability, of IM users,” company officials say. “With IMified, instant messaging capabilities can easily be added to existing applications or used to build entirely new communication and self-service solutions.”

Taylor’s point about the cost-saving potential in IM for enterprises is key, and we expect to see even more businesses turn to IM as a preferred communications means as they turn to technology to operate more efficiently.
 
“You see consumer vending Web sites today turning toward IM because it’s very cost-effective, especially when compared to live agent telephone support,” Taylor said.
 
Voxeo estimates that, on average, an IM interaction is one-tenth the cost of IVR, and one-hundredth the cost of live agent calls.
 

Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.


Michael Dinan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Michael's articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Michael Dinan


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