WEB-BASED TRAINING FOR COSMOCALL UNIVERSE VERSION 4.4.0
SET FOR SEPTEMBER 14

Join us online September 14 for CosmoCall Universe v4.4.0 Upgrade Re-Certification Training, where an investment of 5 hours and $300 will enable you to learn everything you need to know to become certified on the latest release of CosmoCall Universe.

Part 1 of CosmoCall Universe v4.4.0 Re-Certification Training is also open to a general audience within CosmoCom’s customer and partner organizations. Free of charge, it will provide a high-level view without the technical details, which will follow in Part 2.

To view complete details or to register, visit http://www.cosmocom.com/Special/CCU44Training.asp

BEZEQ ONLINE LAUNCHES CONTACT CENTER ON-DEMAND
SERVICES POWERED BY COSMOCOM

Israeli Call Center Outsourcer Finds Growth Strategy

In August, CosmoCom announced that Bezeq Online Ltd., a major call center outsourcer in Israel and a business unit of Israel’s primary telco Bezeq, has added Contact Center On-Demand (CCOD) services based on the CosmoCall Universe platform to their suite of outsourced solutions. Contact Center On-Demand enables Bezeq Online to offer customers the ability to outsource just their call center technology, rather than their entire operation. Osem, one of Israel’s largest food manufacturers, is one of Bezeq Online’s first customers for the new service.

“CCOD is a perfect opportunity for us to grow our business,” said Etay Cohen, Bezeq Online’s CEO. “We’re out there all the time talking with call centers. While some want the traditional outsourcer model, others want to retain the agents while offloading just the technology headaches. The availability of CCOD gives us a more complete range of offerings to meet the needs of more customers. And who better than an outsourcer to offer CCOD? Our contact center experience makes our CCOD customers and prospects confident that we understand their contact center needs and can help them create an effective solution.”

Read the entire news release at http://www.cosmocom.com/pressreleases/PressReleases2004/pr08112004.htm

TELESERVICES OUTSOURCERS WIN TWICE WITH ALL-IP COSMOCALL UNIVERSE

CosmoCall Universe enables outsourcers to not only grow their businesses by adding Contact Center On-Demand to their service suite, but also to enhance the profitability of their existing services.

With Contact Center On-Demand, outsourcers, such as Bezeq Online, can offer customers the ability to outsource just their call center infrastructure, rather than their entire operation. This provides customers with all of the benefits of the latest call center technology without the large capital investment and ongoing operating costs of an in-house platform. Leading analysts are bullish about CCOD and so are telcos, many of which are offering CCOD now. Outsourcers should also offer CCOD, because:

Outsourcers are an ideal channel for CCOD. The sales organization is already in touch with prospects. Outsourcers can use their unmatched contact center knowledge and experience to win deals and build a track record of CCOD success while other service providers are still just getting oriented to call center applications.

CCOD can contribute substantially to outsourcer growth. While some organizations seek an end-to-end outsourced solution, some would simply like to offload the headaches associated with deploying and managing their call center infrastructure. By offering CCOD, outsourcers can provide a more comprehensive set of outsourced solutions. Plus, by being an incumbent vendor, the outsourcer could be on the inside track for incremental traditional outsourced business.

CCOD from other service providers could be a serious competitive threat. Because of CCOD’s compelling value proposition for the customer, analysts project that CCOD will claim at least a third of all contact center seats in the next decade. If you don’t offer CCOD, some of your current projects might migrate to CCOD providers or you might miss out on major opportunities.

CosmoCom’s CCOD platform is also ideal for the internal needs of teleservices outsourcers. Since CosmoCall Universe is inherently virtual, it allows outsourcers to quickly and easily locate agents anywhere, facilitating the cost-saving opportunities offered by home agents and offshoring. Moreover, with CosmoCom's utility pricing, whereby providers pay for usage when it’s used, outsourcers have a solution to the expansions and contractions that are a normal part of the business.

For more information about how CosmoCall Universe can help teleservices outsourcers win twice, visit http://www.cosmocom.com/Solutions/Outsourcers.htm

COSMOCOM LAUNCHES ECOCOSM PARTNER PROGRAM

No single company can address the technology requirements of today’s modern contact center. Industry vendors need to work together to deliver solutions that interoperate effectively to provide a complete response to customer needs.

CosmoCom is committed to cooperative interaction with other organizations, and the EcoCosm Partner Program is built on this commitment. By doing so, we can extend and enhance the value of our products and services, creating a more comprehensive solution for our customers and new opportunities for our businesses.

The EcoCosm Program is open to Complementary Technology Providers, System Integrators, ISVs and Consultants. To accommodate the varying technical and marketing needs of each partner, the EcoCosm Program offers three levels of participation, and each level offers a range of certification, training, technical support, marketing and sales benefits as outlined below:

Certification – For Complementary Technology Providers, we will conduct interoperability and certification testing with CosmoCall Universe. System Integrators can gain the status of Certified Solution Provider.

Product Training – Partners will receive detailed technical product training about CosmoCall Universe’s features and functionality.

Technical Support – Partners will have access to our technical support team for integration or development purposes.

Partner Advisory Council – The Council enables partners to share their product experiences, influence development priorities and exchange information with CosmoCom and other EcoCosm partners.

Marketing Programs – CosmoCom will engage in various marketing activities to promote your solution or services.

Sales Resources – EcoCosm partners may be invited to present their technology solutions or services to our sales organization.

Join CosmoCom’s EcoCosm today! For more details, please contact your CosmoCom representative or info@cosmocom.com.

COSMOCOM PARTNERS WITH SALESFORCE.COM, USA

CosmoCom has teamed with Salesforce.com as a Solutions Partner in the Contact Center/CTI category. The Solutions Partner Program targets organizations whose products extend and complement the Salesforce.com application, and its goal is to furnish customers with the CRM solution that’s right for them.

As a Solutions Partner, CosmoCom is featured in the Contact Center/CTI Solutions Partner section of the Salesforce.com web site, which describes the CosmoCall Universe solution and links to a page on our site that details the advantages of our application. The program also offers a number of other benefits to CosmoCom, including sales and marketing opportunities.

CosmoCom believes in win-win cooperation. These relationships not only benefit the participating organizations, but also provide enhanced value for the customer.

As a Solutions Partner, CosmoCom is featured in the Contact Center/CTI Solutions Partner section of the Salesforce.com web site, which describes the CosmoCall Universe solution and links to a page on our site that details the advantages of our application. The program also offers a number of other benefits to CosmoCom, including sales and marketing opportunities.

CosmoCom believes in win-win cooperation. These relationships not only benefit the participating organizations, but also provide enhanced value for the customer.

THE COSMOCOM ADVANTAGE

CosmoCall Universe provides many distinct advantages over all alternatives in the market today. And for CosmoCall Universe customers, these advantages translate into greater efficiency, lower costs and increased customer satisfaction. Here’s how:

The Power of Unity. In CosmoCall Universe, all major functions – ACD, IVR, CTI, administration and reporting, recording and predictive dialing – reside on the same platform and all contact channels – telephone, email, voice mail, and web chat/voice/video/collaboration – are supported via that platform. A single agent GUI serves all channels, and a single graphical call flow definition tool controls IVR, CTI and ACD for all channels. Queues and business rules are universal, and all channels are tracked and managed through one database and one set of reports. Administrative changes are implemented once and propagated immediately to the entire contact center. This unified approach results in quicker implementations, streamlined operations, reduced maintenance/management costs and, perhaps most important, enhanced customer service.

All-IP Architecture Is Virtual By Design. This enables the rapid and cost-effective deployment of a virtual call center, which allows you to manage and use agents in multiple locations as a single entity, provide every agent with all functions and features, and enable seamless call routing and transferring across the organization.

Integration in Hours or Days, Rather than Weeks and Months. Our system’s unified design eliminates many major integration/deployment challenges, since much of the functionality is built in. Furthermore, integration is greatly facilitated by our open, standards-based interfaces and CosmoConnector™, our out-of-the-box integration enabler.

Field-Proven, Scalable and Reliable. CosmoCall Universe robustly scales up to carrier-sized systems and economically scales down to very small sizes, delivering optimum performance regardless of call volume or agent population. It is built for mission-critical contact applications and has demonstrated carrier class reliability in multiple telecom deployments. It also achieves a high standard of availability in smaller configurations. Designed in 1996, it is field-proven worldwide with hundreds of systems and thousands of agents, making it the most mature IP call center technology in the world today.

To learn more about the CosmoCom Advantage, visit http://www.cosmocom.com/Solutions/CosmoComAdvantage.htm

COSMOCOM AT THE FIRST ANNUAL CALL CENTER EXHIBITION IN SEPTEMBER

Visit CosmoCom at booth 310 during the first Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE), which takes place September 13-15, 2004 at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle. The ACCE also features the ICMI Knowledge Exchange conference program.

CosmoCom will be highlighting CosmoCall Universe’s new features and enhancements, which include easy integration with thin client applications, n-way conferencing including recording, streamlined tenant provisioning and management, and the ability to segment agents according to skill proficiencies by adding weights to skill assignments.

We look forward to seeing you there!

COSMOCOM / LEVEL 3 VOIP OFFERING GETS GREAT RESPONSE AT ICCM 2004

CosmoCom and Level 3 booked adjacent booths at this year’s ICCM show in order to promote their joint VoIP offering. Visitors were, indeed, impressed with how this solution maximizes the benefits of IP in the call center and optimizes the overall cost structure of the operation.

A number of attendees also joined CosmoCom at the ICCM Application Showcase Theatre, where we gave a presentation that explained how virtualization and other benefits of IP could achieve the seemingly contradictory goals of improving customer service and reducing costs. Of particular interest were the TCO and ROI calculations that were demonstrated as a means to build a compelling business case.

If you missed ICCM 2004 and would like more information about the presentation or our joint offering with Level 3, please contact info@cosmocom.com.

BITS AND BYTES

• Insight Research reports that the growth of online services and e-commerce is increasing demand for 800 or toll-free services and projects that toll-free services will grow from $10.9 billion in 2004 to almost $14.5 billion in 2009.

• According to an article in the August 12, 2004 edition of CRM Daily, Datamonitor predicts that the number of multichannel contact centers will triple in the UK over the next four years. This growth is attributed to the high penetration of Internet, mobile telephony, email, instant messaging and SMS. The article also stated that the public and health care sectors will account for the biggest growth and that voice over IP would be the biggest enabler of multichannel contact centers.

• The August 16, 2004 edition of eChannelLine Daily News featured an article that discussed Gartner’s views on the future of Information Technology sourcing patterns. According to a Gartner representative, “Internal IT groups – those organizations that still have them – will be managing outsourcing.” Gartner predicts that by 2009, one-half of all IT will be sold as a service, not as a product.

RECRUITING TIPS

To ensure that agents possess the excellent communication skills required, the following tips are suggested in the book Improve the Performance of Your Contact Center by Raj Wadhwani.

• Telephone Agents – Pre-screen their verbal communications skills by calling them first. In a few seconds, you will be able to determine how good a spoken communicator s/he is.

• Internet/Web Chat Agents – Have the applicants apply online and participate in an online web chat. This will enable you to assess their speed and accuracy as well as grammar.

• General – Whether your agents work on phone calls or Internet channels, check their typing skills as well. Don’t simply accept an applicant’s claim of being a good typist.
  

NEW MEMBERS OF THE COSMOCOM FAMILY

United Kingdom
Tony Newland, Systems Engineer
Tony comes to CosmoCom with more than 10 years experience in the communications industry, including six within the software application and hardware support fields. He has held key support engineering positions at leading technology firms, including Comverse Technology, Digitalk and Clarent.

TRADESHOW NEWS: COMING ATTRACTIONS

	ACCE (Annual Call Center Exhibition) September 13 - 15, 2004  Washington State Convention and Trade Center Seattle, WA USA http://www.cmpevents.com/CCw4/ See CosmoCom in Booth 310
	Call Centre Expo 2004 September 29 - 30, 2004  Birmingham NEC (National Exhibition Center) Birmingham, UK http://www.callcentre-expo.co.uk  Visit CosmoCom in Booth H50
	SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT Internet Telephony Conference & Expo October 4 - 7, 2004  Millenium Biltmore Hotel  Los Angeles, CA USA http://www.tmcnet.com/itexpo/  Speaker: Erik Laurence, VP  Business Development & Product Management Topic: The ROI Case for Hosted Contact Center Services as an Alternative to Premise-Based Systems When: Thursday, June 7, 3:30 - 4:15 p.m.
	Broadsoft Connections 2004 Executive Users Conference - Invitation Only October 10 – 13, 2004 Scottsdale, AZ USA
RECORDED WEBINARS	Meeting the Telecom Customer Care Challenge  Reducing Costs and Enhancing Service with the  IP-Based Virtual Call Center  Took place June 17, 2004 Find out more and view recording Why Contact Center On-Demand? The Bright Future of a New Service Delivery Model  Took Place April 14, 2004 Find out more and view recording

CosmoCom, Inc.
121 Broad Hollow Rd.
Melville, NY 11747
+1 631 940-4200
http://www.cosmocom.com

    
Editor-in-Chief: Vanessa King
Production: Meda Bittermann
Graphics and Design: Kevin Simms