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Chicago-based hosted software and services specialist Clarity Consulting announced a software-plus-services solution based on the Microsoft Unified Communications platform, Clarity Connect. The service was demonstrated this week at Microsoft’s TechEd 2009 Conference in Los Angeles.
Clarity Connect allows businesses to leverage a variety of multimodal and presence-based communications services on top of their existing Microsoft UC infrastructure. These services can help businesses streamline communication and improve information management. Clarity says this translates into reduced costs, improved productivity and enhancement of the overall consumer experience.
Specifically, Clarity Connect builds on the investment companies have made in the Microsoft Office Communications Server and Exchange Server products. Deployed at the customer’s premises, these servers manage all unified communications and feature support for VOIP along with native support for external connectivity.
Additionally, Clarity officials say customers can take advantage of fully secure, corporate-grade instant messaging and e-mail capabilities. The services that are part of the offering include a fully hosted customer interaction management platform and integration with CRM, SFA and support desk applications.
For example, call centers can route calls from customers to agents via their preferred communications tools through an Agent Console that is embedded within Office Communicator. Sales forces are able to access subject matter experts in real time to answer questions in seconds rather than hours or days.
With ‘click to chat’ capabilities on customer-facing Websites, Clarity says leads are more easily converted as relationships are built through Web-based interactions. For employees, the ability to call or IM an internal support desk that routes calls across support staff decreases the call center queue and more expediently connects the customer with the service representative.
The company says given that customer retention and loyalty is at a premium, small and midsize businesses struggle with justifying the cost of linking customer touch points such as the Web, call centers, instant messaging, and e-mails for a consistent user experience. Using Clarity Connect, small business owners can bring together customer touch points through a combination of Microsoft software products installed at the customer site and services hosted by Clarity.
The company’s Chief Technology Officer Jon Rauschenberger said Clarity’s goal is to make customer interaction management more affordable and accessible to the SMB market. “Consumer expectations for superior service are at an all-time high and mega-brands like Apple and Amazon are consistently raising the bar,” he said. “With Clarity Connect, we’ve created a solution that lets SMBs deliver the kind of customer service solutions that the big brands do without expensive third-party licensing or complex on-site maintenance.”