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

[Fra]

Hello guys,

I do agree with Ali, the best to do is comparing different CTI brands\technologies; we love Genesys, but that may be not the best choice in every single project we face; or, anyway, this would help understand its pros and cons; last but not least, pointing at Genesys weaknesses would benefit just Genesys itself!

Further, I enjoy helping in troubleshooting, but I do wish I could see on here also an "Architecture\Design section".

Fra

[Marc Robinson]

I'd very much like to see discussion of other vendor products. For our installation (one application, small call center, routing done by PBX) Genesys was clearly the wrong choice. It's like a Swiss Army knife with corkscrew, nail file, and toothpick. What we needed was a simple pocket knife with one blade. I think we'll be down-converting in a few years, and I want to gather information about competing products in the meantime.

I've been in this business since 1991, and used to write system software at an IVR vendor. I've dealt with several different platforms. But the technology has continued to change, and I want to keep up to date with vendor offerings. I'm very interested in opinions and ratings of those vendor products.

[mark]

I strongly believe that we should allow a comparison to other products out there on the market.
There is a silent majority who visit this site and walk away with information, that information could be seen as a little biased as we all talk about Genesys in the main.
Just because it is known as one of the best in the industry doesn't mean that its the best product for every customer or installation.

[cavagnaro]

[quote author=Marc Robinson link=topic=3915.msg17117#msg17117 date=1236174585]
I'd very much like to see discussion of other vendor products. For our installation (one application, small call center, routing done by PBX) Genesys was clearly the wrong choice. It's like a Swiss Army knife with corkscrew, nail file, and toothpick. What we needed was a simple pocket knife with one blade. I think we'll be down-converting in a few years, and I want to gather information about competing products in the meantime.

I've been in this business since 1991, and used to write system software at an IVR vendor. I've dealt with several different platforms. But the technology has continued to change, and I want to keep up to date with vendor offerings. I'm very interested in opinions and ratings of those vendor products.
[/quote]

Hum I find this interesting and worry about. Yes, Genesys can do a lot of stuff but can do easily what a basic call center do too. In many projects I had to start with very tiny basic as a simple route strategy with out even popup and then educate the user and make them see how to evolve to use more power or Genesys. Maybe your real lack is a good deployer, which is a matter or other nature but that we also have discussed here, guys who go to install and knows nothing or very little about it.

[MarcRobinson]

Cavagnaro wrote: "Maybe your real lack is a good deployer, which is a matter or other nature but that we also have discussed here, guys who go to install and knows nothing or very little about it."

I'm willing to admit that I don't know everything about Genesys (who does?) -- but our vendor, which is highly experienced, did the install. I didn't. And I've been to several Genesys training classes. Not to mention that any time there's the slightest question, I consult with other people because I know how fragile this stuff is. Here's a quote from the front page of this user forum: "We all know how hard and painful it is to get Genesys products to work and support. If you are one of those thousands of people who spend countless hours a day ... "

Here's the grim fact: bits and pieces of our installation break when we make changes in areas that should be unrelated (and even when we don't even make any changes). I suspect that any honest Genesys customer would admit that they've had similar problems. I've been in this business a long time, and quite frankly Genesys is unnecessarily complex. Their offering looks like it was pasted together from a lot of software that wasn't designed to be consistent and compatible. There's a lot of glueware and patchwork. Even Genesys employees can't debug some problems properly -- as when I went to one of their classes, and the teachers spent at least a quarter of their time trying to figure out why they couldn't get various things to work, and ended up skipping whole sections of the class because they couldn't debug the problems. And this was in Daly City!

As you say, Genesys can do what a basic call center application can do -- but why do I need it? The debugging takes time away from more productive pursuits. Complexity we don't need is not worth our trouble. Simpler is better, unless you actually need the extra features.

So yes, I'm interested in comparisons with other vendors. I think I have good reason to be.

[mike kamlet]

I find this thread interesting...

The concept of "complexity" is a topic of great debate...

The business requirements we get can be complex regardless of the technology used.  Additionally IT can very often make things more complex by the design of the system. As we all know the great thing about is Genesys is that it can do just about anything you want it to do.  The bad part about Genesys is that it can do just about anything you want it to do.

So it all comes down to the benefits -- is "complexity" worth it??

As we have very large centers, even a 1-2% reduction in FTE produces great benefits..

[Steve]

Of course it is good to look at other products and solutions, and to compare and contrast these with what we know.
But in my view the best thing about this forum is the fact that it does specialise in Genesys. There is a wonderful breadth of knowledge, from right across the world, that is freely shared simply by asking.

If this forum does expand, how would it stand out from the other forum sites on the web? One comes to mind that already has forums dealing with Nortel, Cisco, Verint and Witness and well as Genesys. Most of these are very active forums but in terms of Genesys, most of their (few) posts point to this forum, proving just how good this site is!

So whilst i'd like to see this forum expand, i'd hate to see it lose the things that set it apart - the specialist knowledge. Oh ..... and of course the banter.

[siddharth.taneja]

Hi All,

This indeed is a great idea. For instance, a couple of months earlier, we felt the need to replace Audio Codes/ Cisco media gateways with Asterisk and Digium cards. This was primarily done to reduce implementation costs.

Had there been a discussion on Asterisk and related technologies in this forum, with all the trustworthy people replying on my queries, our journey could have been a lot comfortable.

We would have all the pros and cons already covered in here.

I think we should really go ahead with this.

[color=blue]Probably we can dedicate one section on this forum for Whitepapers, personal experience and reviews. Basically when some has something to discuss and its not really an issue, it would be highlighted for a good amount of time and not get overshadowed by new coming queries.
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Siddharth.