Vertical Introduces Powerful Array of Cost-Effective Voice Applications for Wave IP

Updated: January 06, 2011

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vertical Communications, a leading provider of next-generation IP-based phone systems and voice applications, today announced the release of three new voice applications – Wave Contact Center, WaveNet and Wave Call Classifier – available as a software upgrade on its award winning Wave IP 2500TM and Wave IP 500 TM Business Communications Systems, the industry’s first comprehensive IP PBX with the unique Applications InsideTM architecture.

“Today’s release illustrates the power of Wave IP’s Applications Inside architecture – the ability to deliver high-value voice applications integrated with VoIP telephony as a single system, and made available as a software upgrade,” said Peter Bailey, Senior Vice President Product Management and Business Development for Vertical Communications. “Wave IP offers customers a full portfolio of voice applications that can enhance business operations, increase productivity through best practices, and drive savings in operational and management costs. As a fully integrated “on-the-box” solution, these capabilities do not require any additional infrastructure investment and can be deployed and managed through Wave IP’s Global Administrator console. With the addition of a Wave Contact Center agent license, a customer service or accounts receivable employee can be transformed into a full-scale call center agent and realize an increase in productivity as well as quality of customer service. With the addition of a WaveNet license, users across multiple Wave IP sites can easily connect and collaborate, while system administrators can add and intelligently network sites with a few simple mouse clicks.”

The Wave IP Business Communications System is a comprehensive IP business phone system family designed for enterprises of all sizes. Cost-sensitive small- to medium-sized businesses, and larger distributed organizations seeking to reduce overhead associated with managing business communications can easily transform their legacy telephony infrastructure into an application-rich, next-generation VoIP solution by deploying Wave IP. As a fully integrated solution, Wave IP offers customers ultimate flexibility and features – unified communications, contact center, call recording, reporting, networking, management, custom call routing applications and IVR – in a single system.

“We have been using Wave Contact Center in our customer service department for the last three months, the applications are just great and very easy to configure. In fact, it took less than 20 minutes for our customer service queues, agents, in queue announcements and call recording to be setup and in production,” said Chet Lytle, Jr., President, Communications Diversified, Inc. “The full integration of Wave Contact Center with ViewPoint allowed our supervisors to access real-time queue and agent information instantly. Wave Contact Center Reporter provides a broad range of historical reports, again, conveniently from within ViewPoint. The ability to create any desired custom reports utilizing Crystal Reports is an added bonus. Wave Contact Center is a winner!”

“Using Vertical’s WaveNet application we where able to quickly convert the discreet Wave IP systems in our network into one single communications system. Doing so was a very seamless exercise using the Wave Global Administrator and was accomplished through just a few simple mouse clicks! With WaveNet, our users can now call other users on a different Wave IP system as if they are on the same system. Using ViewPoint we can now see the status of different users all across the network. WaveNet is a great addition to the suite of applications on the Wave IP system,” said Matt Tesdell, Vice President, Tesdell Electric Ltd.

New Applications:

WaveNet

WaveNet creates an enterprise-wide Wave IP-PBX infrastructure that streamlines all aspects of administration and enables your organization to operate more efficiently.

WaveNet aggregates multiple locations into a single telephone system, combining users from various locations to present a single network wide extension list and dial plan. Employees everywhere can reach each other through seamless intercom dialing, view presence & personal status (via phone or ViewPoint) and seamlessly exchange voice mails without the need to remember location or complicated dialing codes.

WaveNet dramatically simplifies administration by eliminating repetitive manual tasks. Adding a node or changing a user on the network only takes a few mouse clicks as WaveNet automatically handles the configuration, dial plan synchronization, inter-site call routing and ongoing management tasks to keep all systems synchronized. Depending on system configuration and site preferences, WaveNet can route enterprise calls using either SIP over a VoIP network& or traditional PSTN via PRI or Analog for maximum flexibility.

WaveNet uses a peer-to-peer architecture to eliminate any single points of failure – this enables offices to continue to function even if intra-office networks are interrupted, or if an individual location loses power. Robust error recovery and fault management mechanisms built into WaveNet ensures that information such as voicemail, presence status etc are automatically cached and synchronized when network connectivity is reestablished.

WaveNet is certified to support networking of up to 100 Wave IP nodes.

Wave Contact Center

Traditionally, small to medium size business in need of contact center functionality have had to make a choice between expensive full featured solutions or compromise for less sophisticated ACD functionality. Wave Contact Center changes the game by providing robust enterprise class contact center management functionality at marginal incremental cost. Leveraging Vertical’s Applications Inside architecture, Wave Contact Center runs “on-the-box” and thereby eliminates need for any additional hardware or complex integration.

Unlike other contact center solutions that require custom scripting, programming or complex flowchart design, Wave Contact Center lets administrators control all aspects of contact center management including queue management, routing, agents, supervisors, tracking, and reporting with a simple point and click unified interface. For example, with a few mouse clicks you can choose how calls in a queue are distributed to agents, customize the callers’ hold experience by playing single or repeating messages, prompt callers to enter data, configure call priority, setup automatic call routing and more. It’s just as easy to move, add and change agents, setup and change agent or supervisor permissions, grant permissions to individuals or groups, record hold prompts, change routing, manage the queue’s voice mail or take the queue off-line. Calls can be distributed within queues based on various key attributes such as time of day, longest idle agent, least busy agent etc along with some advanced routing models such as agent cost or agent skills based routing, priority queuing based on caller etc – traditionally available in higher end contact center solutions.

Wave Contact Center seamlessly integrates with Vertical’s award winning desktop call management application, ViewPoint, to provide a single intuitive interface for agents and supervisors alike to manage calls and monitor performance. Using ViewPoint, supervisors can monitor queues, coach agents, monitor real-time metrics and service levels and optimize overall contact center performance.

Wave Contact Center comes built in with a reporter that provides a powerful set of reports (over 35 distinct reports) that are designed to keep supervisors and managers informed on key performance metrics and allow them to spot trends in queue and agent performance.

Wave Contact Center is certified to support 100 call center agents.

Wave Call Classifier

Wave Call Classifier empowers organizations to dramatically improve their customer service and competitive advantage with advanced call routing based on real-time lookup of customer data. Service professionals using Wave Call Classifier are informed about the caller and the origin of the lead source or relevant promotion before they answer a call. Wave Call Classifier can provide agents with detailed caller information from any ODBC database (local or external), and intelligently route calls based on who is calling and what they are calling about.

The release and associated documentation is available on V-Connect (http://vconnect.vertical.com), Vertical’s Partner Website. V-Connect allows dealers to directly connect to critical information and people related to Vertical products and business activities through an easy-to-use and highly interactive Web-based system.

About Vertical Communications

Vertical Communications is one of the largest telephony vendors in North America and a global leader in next-generation IP-based voice and data and digital communications systems for business, with a current installed base of over 200,000 customers. Vertical combines voice and data technologies with business process understanding to deliver integrated IP-PBX and application solutions that enhance customer service and business productivity. Vertical’s customers are leading companies of all sizes, from small to large and distributed, and include CVS/pharmacy, Staples and Apria Healthcare. Vertical delivers its solutions through a worldwide network of over 2,000 business partners. With headquarters in Santa Clara CA, Vertical has sales, engineering and operations facilities in Cambridge MA, Charlottesville VA, Phoenix AZ, Sarasota FL, Munich Germany and Hyderabad India. For more information about Vertical, please call 877-VERTICAL or visit our Website at www.vertical.com.

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This document contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events, and these statements are subject to important facts and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this document address a variety of subjects, including, without limitation, statements about the benefits of certain of the Company’s products, including, without limitation, the improved cost and customer service benefits for the Company’s business partners and customers; the Company’s assumptions about the future performance of V-Connect; the Company’s ability to enhance its revenue opportunities in the IP-PBX marketplace; the Company’s ability to continue providing products to the IP-PBX marketplace, the Company’s ability to continue to certify additional Internet Telephony Service Providers in the IP-PBX marketplace and others. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements: the risk that the Company may fail to achieve the anticipated benefits from V-Connect, including, without limitation, failing to obtain the desired benefits for the Company’s dealers and customers; the risk that the Company’s assumptions about the future performance of V-Connect may prove to be incorrect; the risk that the Company may be unable to become a significant player within the IP-PBX telephony market; the risk that the Company will not be able to certify its products with additional Internet Telephony Service Providers and other risks and assumptions detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent filing of the Company’s Form 10Q.

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