This unification is now affecting contact centers' single most critical appliance: the headset. There are new features, options, and application considerations that must be looked into so you can optimize the functionality of this vital tool in this new unifying environment.

The IP/UC Revolution

IP telephony, replacing old-fashioned TDM is enabling voice/data and video communications integration into a single pipe to the terminals: be they desktops, laptops, or smartphones. The benefits include an easier enabling of a single view of customers, greater flexibility and lower capital and operating costs.

IP can allow you to do away with bulky, expensive, separate real-estate-chewing handsets and replace them with less costly -- by 60 percent or more -- and much more flexible softphone applications connected to headsets. With softphone/headset combinations calls are quicker and much more accurate: one on-screen radial button to push instead of 10 buttons to press. There are fewer wires to install, and to worry about. Moreover softphones can be easily accessed anywhere: from other agents' desks, home offices, or mobile via Web-based applications.

Equally if not more importantly IP can also permit via wideband (a.k.a. HD) voice that enables greater voice range, hence, more natural sounding acoustics compared with chat delivered over TDM. A Wikipedia article explains that the range of the human voice extends from 80 Hz to 14,000 Hz. While traditional TDM calls is limited to 300 to 3,400 Hz, IP-enabled wideband covers from 30 Hz to 7,000+ Hz.

The benefits of wideband/HD voice are tangible. For example it enables agents to distinguish between similar-sounding names and syllables much easier, thereby cutting down on the instances where callers asked to repeat themselves. This reduces talk time and call costs and boosts customer satisfaction.

To enable wideband companies must ensure that their phone systems recognize it via codecs such as G. 722 and G. 722.2 AMR-WB, explains Mohamed Alaa Saayed, an industry analyst with Frost and Sullivan. Most major IP PBX vendors already incorporate G. 722 into the list of allowed voice codecs in their systems. Firms must check and see that their LANs and WANs are capable of managing G. 722 data transmission rates. Lastly they need to make sure that the IP phones or headsets purchased are compatible with and adequate for wideband voice. (continued...)

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