Do you think this site focuses too much on Genesys CTI?

[Genesys CTI Forum Administration Team]

[b]Dear Genesys CTI User Forum Community!
[/b]
Over the past several years, we have witnessed a drastic change in capabilities of Genesys CTI products. What used to be a mere pop-up with add-on reporting and routing running on top of PBX is now all-in-one call center solution, no longer complimenting but directly competing with the underlying PBX platform, the above CRM and adjacent workflow engines.

We have also seen how a lot of our work has shifted from supporting daily call center operations to deciding what is right for a particular contact center, whether it is deciding on the underlying platform or the overall roadmap. As many of us get older, and move up the rank, the days of just shifting through the logs looking for a reason why a particular agent received an out-of-skill call are drifting farther and farther away in a rear-view mirror. Instead, a lot of our time is now spend on creating the sales proposals, coming up with the budget, deciding on whether to upgrade or migrate, and justifying the reason behind what we want to do.

It is hard to keep up with all the technological innovations and capabilities and what we thought was unique just a few years back is standard and maybe even obsolete.

As Genesys version 8 looms on the immediate horizon and TCO and ROI become the main factors in many of our decisions, overweighing the preferences and product capabilities, we feel that we should start addressing this critical but less discussed topic - what is the best for us and our clients.

We have taken Genesys CTI to be the best, but we feel that blind faith is the wrong path for us to follow. We strongly feel that Genesys solution is the right answer for the call center market; however, due to our limited know-how and experience with other packages out there, we feel that we owe it to ourselves and our clients to ensure that this is the case.

Lastly, if Genesys is to continue to be the leading call center solution, we should ensure that we are aware of its competition, the capabilities and how to address these weaknesses within Genesys.

[color=red]Make no mistake, this community is dedicated to promoting Genesys products; however, we feel that it is time to make sure that we do it for a reason and not on a whim.
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What do you think?

Sincerely,

Genesys CTI Forum Administration Team

[tony]

Only a very short note to add, from my perspective...

Genesys are Number One at some things within the CTI space - but not everything in terms of CRM.  To me, that means the TServer (CTI Link) and the Routing Engines are top class...

That being the case, I think it might be beneficial to see/compare components with what is out there in the marketplace and see how it fairs.

Tony

[cavagnaro]

I also would like to understand and know more about Cisco and Avaya, for example, technologies, when we try to go against them I get short when trying to discuss some features but they know very well from Genesys...however, reading only questions and answers will not be like putting your hands on a live platform. I personally have 0 chances to manage an Avaya, Cisco or whatever brand and my access to live platforms is almost blocked.
So, if we do begin to do this as user would love to see some guides as the ones that Tony made but for all the competitors...ideal scenario 

[jayjay]

I second this motion! It is hard to find any reliable information on what is good for us. I already know what Genesys can do and I want to know how it is compared to Avaya - Interaction Center. Neither this site nor avayauser.com have anything on this despite that I need to decide on which by Q2!!! Who do I believe? Genesys VAR or Avaya VAR? A must to have on this forum if you ask me!

[Mikael Jansson]

Hi !

I think is a good idea to compare Genesys with what´s outhere.
It would also be a good input to get new ideas how to use the Genesys platform.

/Mikael

[Ali]

Hi to all,

To be able to ensure the fact that Genesys CTI is the best solution for contact centers, we need to lean our thoughts on solid knowledge and the product experience.

First of all, knowing what kind of alternative CTI products out there, their architectural structure and capabilities, their market ratio, and customer satisfaction give us a clue on competitiveness and what Genesys CTI should develop, or what kind of improvements Genesys should do. So, what I can advise you is to have a discrete discussion topic named "Technical Reviews on Alternative CTI Products" in where we can discuss about other CTI products, such as Avaya IC or CTI/TAPI Link, and compare with what Genesys CTI offers/has.

Secondly, sharing with development experiences and knowledge -which we already have- and testing phases ([i]e.g. test steps, results, bugs we detected, and etc.[/i]) -which we should have- also carry great importance, so we can clearly state what kind of changes or improvements Genesys should do.

[color=blue][font=Verdana]Plus to the above, Forum Admin could also share Genesys Road-Map with us, so we can also make our comments on this, or organize Webinars or chat sessions with Genesys officials, so we all can share our questions and/or comments.[/font][/color]

That's what I can say...

Regards and cheers,

Ali

[frdesimo]

Hello,
from my point of view it is a very good idea to have a comparison between different vendors of the CTI world.
Actually i'm facing with the migration of the call center of Telecom Italia from Genesys 5.1 to Genesys 7.6 and here we have a lot of different vendors that are involved in this project: the pbx is Avaya, the IVR is Siemens, the CRM is Siebel and the CTI is Genesys.
I think that this scenario is very common, so i'll appreciate a lot to know more about different technologies.
Francesco

[makkerc]

I worked a Lot with Siemens ProCenter [WAHT?]

I could do a bit of comparisson on that, and also have a storng contact out there with Enterprise Genesys Dev Exp.

I'd be glad to help in the revolution.

[Cough!!!!]  - Doesn't the Wire do this? - [Cough]

Vic> I don't want to break the thread, so excuse inline comment. This site and Wire magazine are to compliment each other and not to compete, because of different media type, update intervals and inherent differences between print and electronic media. 

[Haldane]

Hey Guys,
  Been awhile since I did any posting but that doesn't stop Vic tracking someone down for a comment 

Yes I think its a brilliant idea to compare and contrast other CTI products on the market and also new emerging products. To echo Vic and Tony's comment's Yes we are all deticated to promoting Genesys but we also have been working with Genesys long enough to see where they product falls down. This would be the perfect forum to see where other products excel compared to Genesys and why they do so. Remember the Genesys suite has grown to the mammont it is today out of neccisity and a need in the market for a complete solution, But i have always been a firm beliver in purchasing products for what they are good at (i.e. Tserver) and not just because it comes bundled. This brings up the old chestnut about overheads, double config, costs and of course ROI, but that aside a forum to discuss the pro's and con's of other products should go down well.

Side note .  This shouldn't just be a discussion on Genesys competitors is Cisco/Avaya etc. Lets include products used by SME's and Open Source products being worked on. Maybe there is a good product/idea that could be brought on by Genesys for the enterprise market..... Wouldn't be the first time....

[Scottyjohn]

Yes all sounds good, there is so much out there

[Adam G.]

Don't forget Interactive Intelligence...

Guess who voted no.....

[PFCCWA]

I dont think there is too much focus on Genesys CTI at all.
This is a highly reliable forum (best and longest running) especially for new users of Genesys.
As for allowing other product it would certainly add some neutrality to the site but unnecessary as Genesys is the best product for contact centres - in my opinion anyway!
If anything the forums should probably be split into the different areas of Genesys (Routing/Outbound/WFM etc) however I hesitate to suggest this as other forums tried and failed with this structure (including Genesys!)
Thanks,
WA

[Gulden_NL]

Absolutely the right thing to do.  There are other solutions and having a good idea of how they approach it from a technical stand point is good.  I also believe that it will be positive to contrast level of documentation against Genesys' which still feels like pulling information from the old KGB.

[bcyk]

Yes, agree and support

Genesys products are excellent but it, in term of complexity and performance/price ratio, may be too heavy in many small to medium size call center environment. Alternative product suites or integrated solutions information are helpful and of course, subject to specific user requirements!

Genesys is not only a CTI server; it is a collection of solutions based on the Genesys CTI framework. Thus, comparison should be apple-to-apple.

Additional forums/topics, for example, could be:
  - CTI solution suites
      e.g., Avaya, Nortel Symposium (filed for bankruptcy! someone to buy it?), Siemems, ...
  - IP switch solutions
      e.g., Cisco, Asterisk (why not? it is open source!), ....
  - CTI-servers only
      e.g., Envox CT-Connect, TSAPI, .....

Points to be considered are that what new forum(s) should be created and how many available "experts" here for knowledge sharing.

It is suggested to open couple new forums now and to add more later.
Potential "candidates" can be "Avaya CTI solution suites" and "IP switch solutions", just named as examples.

[surajj29]

I strongly agree with the idea of comparing product offerings of Genesys with Avaya and Cisco (and others as well). Comparison on Pros and Cons in an unbiased manner will help all of us.

Further, We can then also add our inputs on how these CTI servers integrate with Technologies such as Voice loggers and WFM products.


Suraj Jethwani
Tech consultant.
Nice, Systems
India.