No Jitter Roll: Managed SD-WAN for WFH, Contact Center AI

This week we bring you news on managed SD-WAN services, two virtual agent solutions, a meeting room hardware bundle, a UCC analytic and monitoring solution for Google Meet, and a Microsoft Teams voice-Salesforce integration.

 

Software-defined network and cloud provider Masergy this week launched a portfolio of SD-WAN solutions, SD-WAN Work From Anywhere. Extending Masergy's Managed SD-WAN Secure offering to the remote workforce, the solutions feature built-in security, load balancing, and traffic steering capabilities, Masergy said.

 

Work From Anywhere solutions will be available in two versions:

 

Lifesize, the company formed from the March merger between video collaboration provider Lifesize and cloud contact center provider Serenova, this week announced the addition of Omilia, a conversational AI provider, to its partner ecosystem. For customers calling into the contact center, this integration pairs the Lifesize CxEngage platform with Omilia’s conversational AI capabilities.

 

Omilia’s virtual agent greets customers, and can applies conversational AI to detect the customer’s intent and either resolve the issue or route the call to a live agent, said Andy Bird, director of product management for contact center solutions at Lifesize, in an email exchange with No Jitter. Context from the virtual agent engagement flows to the live agent, he added.

 

While Lifesize brings in conversational AI via integration, cloud contact center provider UJET this week announced general availability of its own conversational AI offering, Virtual Agent.

 

Virtual Agent will handle the basic, low-hanging information gathering for a human agent, Anand Janefalkar, founder and CEO of UJET, said in a No Jitter briefing. For example, when a customer calls into an insurance company to file a claim for a cracked windshield, Virtual Agent would gather the caller’s membership and plan information, including deductible. Additionally, it can request a copy of the windshield invoice and use proprietary smart actions like grabbing photos, videos, or screenshots and then present everything its gathered to a live agent, Janefalkar said. With all the basic information at hand, the human agent should be able to work more quickly to address the caller’s issue, he added.

 

Virtual Agent pricing depends on the number of agents, duration of contract, and other factors such as whether this is a standalone purchase or bundled into a suite, UJET said.

 

Jabra this week revealed a Microsoft Teams- and Zoom Rooms-certified meeting room bundle that combines its PanaCast video solution with HP’s Elite Slice integrated conferencing solution. PanaCast provides a 180-degree panoramic-4K video, and the Elite Slice is a center-of -room control console with one-touch Microsoft Teams Rooms and Zoom Rooms capabilities, Jabra said. The Jabra x HP Elite Slice bundle will be available this month from select distributors, Jabra said.

 

UCC monitoring and analytics provider Vyopta this week announced support for Google’s video meeting service, Meet, to its Collaboration Performance Management platform. Admins will be able to monitor calls and meetings for quality and delve into participant-level details for root-cause analysis, Vyopta added.

 

Natterbox, a provider of voice solutions for Salesforce, earlier this month added a Microsoft Teams calling integration that allows Salesforce users to place and receive Teams calls from within Salesforce. In addition, the integration, now available, pushes data from sales and service calls within Teams into Salesforce, Natterbox said. Users receive business updates through activity history tasks and other Salesforce reporting objects, Natterbox said.