Minneapolis, MN — Calabrio, Inc., a leading provider of workforce optimization and unified desktop software for IP-based contact centers, today at VoiceCon announced a new architectural direction for its software that will be built in an Enterprise 2.0 framework. The new approach will help improve business process integration by providing unified, flexible views of customer interaction, workforce optimization, performance management and analytics activities within the contact center. To reflect the new direction, Calabrio One™ is the new name of the suite of products formerly known as the Calabrio Unified Interaction Suite.

Calabrio also announced new product versions and feature enhancements within the Calabrio One suite, including enhanced graphical reports, knowledge worker support and strategic planning capabilities. In addition, the company announced pre-defined desktop integration approaches between Cisco Agent Desktop and three leading CRM applications: salesforce.com’s Salesforce CRM, Oracle’s Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The integrations facilitate screen pops and automated workflows between the CRM applications and Cisco Agent Desktop, which Calabrio distributes through an OEM relationship with Cisco.

“Satisfying customer demands while meeting business objectives is tough enough. Contact center personnel should not have to struggle with their daily tools to interact with the customer, collaborate with team members, and keep their performance on track,” said Paul Lidsky, CEO of Calabrio, Inc. “These product improvements further our mission to enhance and streamline the right set of tools into a single view of the daily activities and performance metrics that are appropriate for each individual user.”

Calabrio One™  Name Sets the Stage for a New Architectural Paradigm
Calabrio is re-naming its Unified Interaction Suite Calabrio One to reflect the new architectural approach that will integrate a variety of applications into one framework. Today, Calabrio customers can create forecasts, generate work schedules, measure quality and efficiency, access reports and alerts, and collaborate within their teams to impact performance in real time – all from a common desktop. In a move toward further streamlining those business processes and providing one single view of the customer and each user’s activities, Calabrio is re-architecting these capabilities as services within the contact center.  Calabrio One will present the appropriate services to each user’s desktop based on their specified role, such as agent, supervisor, evaluator, manager, executive or knowledge worker.

“The vision for Calabrio One is to provide flexible views so that each user can access specific services in a way that is most appropriate for their work style,” said Tim Kraskey, vice president of marketing and business development for Calabrio, Inc. “Accessed within a single container, presented as widgets, used within a browser, or accessed from a system tray for integration within business applications, the software will unify the processes that comprise each user’s daily activities in a single, convenient view.”

The unified framework streamlines information so users can be more efficient and effective at achieving their performance metrics, such as customer satisfaction, first call resolution, and revenue and profitability. To accomplish this, the newly architected software will leverage Enterprise 2.0 technologies including Web services, IM/presence, Wikis, RSS feeds and tagging, as well as Calabrio’s patented workflow actions – some of which are available today.

“To reach the top level of effectiveness and excellence, contact centers will require tight integration of contact center applications, including agent and supervisory desktops that combine a 360 degree view of customer information, and KPIs for monitoring and performance management, in a pre-integrated suite,” said Ken Landoline, program manager in Yankee Group’s Enterprise Research group. “Calabrio’s announcements today are an important step toward this next frontier in performance optimization.”

Calabrio will make announcements over the next 6 to 12 months regarding enhancements to Calabrio One in line with this paradigm.

Calabrio Quality Management Release 2.5
Calabrio Quality Management release 2.5, a Calabrio One product, enables quality recording and evaluation, as well as archival recording, in an IP-based network without a dedicated server at each location. New features include:

• Knowledge worker recording. Contact centers can now record non-ACD users with Calabrio Quality Management. The software enables knowledge workers to record on demand, and recordings can be archived and used for quality evaluations. This is especially beneficial for contact centers that leverage subject matter experts and other sources to complete a transaction.
• Graphical dashboard. Contact centers can view team quality averages, evaluation totals and customer contact totals in an enhanced graphical format.
• On-demand recording. Users can leverage the Application Programming Interface (API) to create an on-demand recording button within an agent desktop application.
• Extended screen recording for after-call work. Contact centers can capture, archive and evaluate all after-call activities.
• Custom metadata for recordings. Contact centers can add up to ten fields of custom metadata from a third-party application. The capability adds context to calls during playback for improved evaluation, and enhances search capabilities for archived call recordings.

Calabrio Quality Management release 2.5 is available now through authorized Calabrio partners.

Calabrio Workforce Management Release 8.3
Calabrio Workforce Management release 8.3, also a Calabrio One product, offers simple integration and is more user-friendly for managers and supervisors. New features include:

• Enhanced Vacation Planning. The enhanced vacation planning module helps managers approve agent vacation requests based on the number of total requests, allocated vacation time and staffing forecasts.
• Strategic Planning Module.  The new strategic planning module assists managers with long-term workforce planning and decision making. This provides contact centers the foresight to make manpower adjustments strategically based on staffing and activity forecasts.

Calabrio Workforce Management Release 8.3 is available now through authorized Calabrio partners.

Integrations for Cisco Agent Desktop and Leading CRM Applications
Cisco Agent Desktop (CAD), the desktop interface that is integrated with Calabrio One products in a Cisco Unified Contact Center environment, provides a single interface for screen pop applications, customer interaction workflows, and access to call and performance data – without costly custom programming. To support this paradigm, Calabrio is announcing defined desktop integrations for three CRM applications: salesforce.com’s Salesforce CRM, Oracle’s Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The integrations leverage Cisco Agent Desktop’s built-in business application workflow actions. Calabrio has published this set of pre-defined integration approaches to simplify the process of achieving tight integration between agent desktops and business applications.

The documented integrations are available today on www.cisco.com, as well as through authorized Cisco partners.

About Calabrio, Inc.
Calabrio, Inc. develops and markets Calabrio One™, a comprehensive suite of customer interaction and workforce optimization software that’s easy to implement, use and maintain in new IP-based customer interaction networks. By integrating workforce optimization within the agent and supervisor workflow, Calabrio helps customers align their contact center business processes and performance with their business objectives. Calabrio distributes their software through channel partnerships and an OEM relationship with Cisco, and has installed software on more than 500,000 desktops. Calabrio is also a member of the Cisco Technology Developer Program (CTDP). Find news and information at www.calabrio.com.

Calabrio, Calabrio One and the Calabrio logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Calabrio, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Albert Leung, Weber Shandwick
T: (952) 346-6255
[email protected]