Industry Coverage

Tech issues, even small ones, can have an enormous impact on customer experience. Today's contact centers are extremely complex, featuring multiple communication channels, self-service applications, routing schemes, agent groups and vendor equipment. Often times, companies may not even know there is an issue until it is reported by a customer.

"Mobile traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 48 percent from 2010 to 2015. Mobile data services generate significantly higher average revenue per user rates for mobile operators, which will force them to invest in order to attract (and retain) more profitable subscribers," said Patrick Kelly, research director, Analysys Mason. "Empirix is providing solutions that provide real time data network analytics to improve customer loyalty."

Networks have become a strategic asset, the lifeblood of organizations. Once considered a "techy thing," networks are now mission-critical for every member of the organization – from the IT manager to the marketing VP and the CEO. An increasing number of companies now recognize the impact network quality has on the customer experience and, in turn, on the bottom line.

Networks have evolved into a strategic asset. Along with voice, video and data packets, enterprise networks carry customer relationships, revenue opportunities, operational efficiency and expense control. Companies are investing heavily in preemptive testing and quality assurance monitoring solutions to prevent customer dissatisfaction and revenue leakage while still containing costs.

While a growing number of consumers are expected to be buying goods and services regularly via their mobiles within the next three years, retailers appear to be lagging behind in terms of providing the means for them to do so, according to a new survey.

The vast majority of brand owners and retailers in France, Germany, the UK and US are not currently matching consumer expectations regarding mobile commerce, a study has revealed.

Even as consumers are looking at buying goods and services via their mobile devices within the next 36 months, retail businesses are not yet ready to provide these services, according to a survey by Empirix (News - Alert), a provider of service quality assurance solutions for customer experience management.

Unified communications (UC) requires many components, protocols, back-end processes and pieces of communication equipment to work together seamlessly. But users don't care about the complexities involved. If they experience poor voice quality, frozen screens or inconsistent performance, they won't use any solution, no matter how cutting-edge.

This paper reveals that financial services self-service is an area of high activity - and uncertainty. There has been a big shift towards self-service, creating much higher levels of customer empowerment.

As people increasingly incorporate smartphones and tablets into their daily lives, networks are tasked with handling more video, more music, more games, and more social media. This article provides strategies for optimizing the customer experience in the face of device proliferation.

Empirix has announced that the company's Empirix Testing as a Service (ETaaS) on-site solution supports Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) environments.

With the adoption of Unified Communications solutions growing at a substantial rate worldwide, the importance of network quality across devices - desktops, smartphones, tablets - is consequently increasing.

According to a new study from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) conducted in conjunction with Empirix, businesses are lagging behind consumer expectations in the mobile shopping arena. The research points to an increasingly demanding consumer who wants a mobile shopping experience now without cost or security implications.

When it comes to mobile networks, "more" is the word of the times: more smartphones, more tablets, more video, more music, more games and more social media. Data traffic on mobile devices now exceeds an exabyte worldwide. Supporting this growth is a tremendous challenge for operators, who must balance profitability and customer demands for high quality communications.

Mobile phone providers are in the news for the wrong reasons this time. According to a recent release, they have been blamed for service issues experienced by users in a massive online survey of 2,180 smartphone users conducted February 2011which found that a massive 77 percent of German users, 80% of US users and users and 86% of UK users reported that they were experiencing issues with their service.

Carl Weinschenk spoke with Bob Hockman, director of product marketing for Empirix. Earlier this month, the company released a survey performed by Harris Interactive that revealed mobile carriers often are blamed for problems that don't occur on their networks.

Empirix Inc. has recently introduced the Unified Communications Assurance Platform, a system that tests and monitors communication networks to help service providers and enterprises make sure their applications run properly and provide a quality experience to users.

Even though software companies and agencies create content for the mobile phone, mobile providers need to take ownership of their subscribers' experiences. New research shows that nearly half of smartphone users blame mobile providers for service issues.

Test and monitoring vendor introduces a new unified communications service assurance platform, saying its experience in the enterprise tells it carriers will soon be needing similar capabilities.

Long-Term Evolution (LTE) 4G technology promises many service-delivery benefits for both customers and operating companies.

Companies can no longer be satisfied with running a monolithic contact center. Social media has insinuated itself into businesses, rapidly transforming from a form of entertainment into a required asset for customer care.

Telephony pros have plenty of VoIP monitoring tools for troubleshooting an IP phone with no dial tone. But when a multi-point, multi-vendor video conferencing call gets buggy, those tools are useless. Independent monitoring vendors aren't ready to fully support unified communications (UC), and many enterprise UC deployments are still too immature to need them.

Gordon Eddy, Director of Product Management for Test Solutions at Empirix, writes about the importance of the industry-wide testing standards that the Network Test Automation Forum (NTAF) is developing.

Empirix customer 360networks offers high-quality cost-effective Internet Transit Services via the company's wholly-owned and operated fiber-optic backbone, capable of delivering high quality, scalable IP Transit service from100mbps to 10Gig.

You can't ignore social media but you can't rush into a social media deployment without planning and validation; this article discusses what you need to know to make your unified communications implementation a success.

Opus Research's Dan Miller and Empirix's Bob Hockman discuss the ways in which companies can unify their contact center communications platforms in a strategic as well as tactical fashion.

Empirix, a provider of service quality assurance solutions for new IP communications, unveiled the Hammer Edge 2.0, a next-generation test solution that measures the effects of varied network traffic on real-time voice and video quality.

Empirix Hammer Edge 2.0 improves end-to-end testing of IP networks, UC solutions, ENUM servers, security threats and network devices supporting voice, video, e-mail and chat.

Deploying an advanced analytics engine for VoIP call detail records (CDRs) has enabled Momentum Telecom to slash its troubleshooting time, pursue new business opportunities and keep its core product lucrative.

Amtrak's traditional voice network will be consistently monitored with the Empirix OneSight Voice Quality Assurance solution. Voice quality issues will therefore be identified and prevented by Amtrak before they negatively impact the customer.

Amtrak, America's nationwide passenger railroad, selected the Empirix OneSight Voice Quality Assurance solution to consistently monitor Amtrak's traditional voice network to identify and prevent voice quality issues before they negatively impact the customer.

To start, many consumers phoning a call center aren't happy to be spending time on the phone dealing with a customer service issue. Those frustrations are exacerbated when they can't hear or understand the agent they're speaking with because of poor voice quality stemming...

I just couldn't help think about how stress impacts health as I read a new survey from Empirix showing that poor customer service in organizations not only costs companies billions of dollars but it adds to customer stress...

It's bad enough when you feel like you are talking to a powerless operator several timezones away, the least they can do is make the call quality decent, right? Empirix commissioned the Consumer Experience Foundation to survey consumers globally who had used a call center to communicate with businesses and found some interesting results...

There was a time when network testing and monitoring was all about setting some network probes, responding to alarms and getting out in the field with the protocol analyzer weapon of choice.

Once a bit of a gimmick, internet chat is really starting to take hold in the call centre – particularly with the younger generation. We asked a number of experts for their top tips on dealing with chat.

Bob Hockman, Director of Product Marketing, Enterprise Solutions, Empirix

How can we can make sure that we are putting policies in place to use diallers without fear of falling foul of regulators asks Trevor Richer, marketing director EMEA, Empirix

The new LTE and IP core/system architecture evolution support is now part of Empirix's IPXplorer solution and part of its overarching X-DMA monitoring platform.

As LTE rolls out, network operators need to ensure that user experience doesn't degrade as connectivity bounces between legacy and 4G technologies.

Lastminute.com has implemented Empirix's Hammer CallMaster system to test and improve the quality of its interactive voice response (IVR) service to customers.

Once upon a time call centre agents simply took calls and they made calls - nothing more, nothing less. It was a fairly straightforward transaction, but it was limited and could be frustrating for customers and agents alike.

Unified Communications Magazine recently spoke with Bob Hockman, director of product marketing at Empirix, about how the company is addressing UC.

Unified Communications Magazine recently spoke with Bob Hockman, director of product marketing at Empirix, about how the company is addressing UC.

The deal to pick up Italy-based Mutina gives it additional IP core and mobile monitoring capabilities, as well as a foothold in Europe.

Unified Communications, or UC, is a buzzword often heard these days within the enterprise and contact center. Although it is not a new concept, UC has only recently become widespread, and those who have implemented it in a successful manner have begun to gain a competitive advantage. But what exactly is UC, and why are companies so interested in it?

There really are two types of unified communications or, more specifically, versions of UC at different levels of maturity. The contact center is smack in the middle of both.

The Government's recent decision to take more agressive action against companies making silent calls has captured the attention of businesses throughout the UK. Most notably, fines have skyrocketed from £50,000 to £2m. Against this backdrop, organisations are assessing their strategy for using predictive dialling to ensure that the technology adheres to the Government's regulations...

Rolling out wholesale voice over IP (VoIP) services for competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) in the Western United States proved to be a revenue boon for one service provider, but troubleshooting time-division multiplexing (TDM) to IP translation hiccups remained a challenge...

Nobody disputes the fact that any telecommunication network or IT infrastructure element should continually be monitored to make sure that any developing issue...

Using an IP network to offer voice services can provide significant cost savings over traditional phone systems. Making this move can also result in productivity-increasing benefits, such as extension portability, unified messaging and softphone clients on a PC, all of which are advantages that can give your organization a competitive edge.

Communicating with customers is the cornerstone of success for any enterprise. New IP communication solutions present unique opportunities for businesses to interact with their customers and employees. A positive experience is essential for building loyalty and winning new business.

I had a briefing yesterday with Empirix, which just announced OneSight Voice Quality Assurance, its newest product for measuring voice quality. It's a pretty slick-looking system, but in some ways it also shows just how much of a moving target voice quality monitoring and assurance is.

Technology rolls out in two interrelated ways: The bits and bytes and the marketing. In the best rollouts, these happen in synch, or close to it.

Contact centers present an opportunity to make a lasting customer impression. When technical issues result in a low QoS level, the result is a negative QoE - and that bodes badly for business opportunities and your bottom line.

There has been a lot of talk about SIP trunking throughout the telecommunications industry as it offers enterprises easier infrastructure integration and management as well as increased scalability. At the same time, this technology can also deliver significant cost savings, flexibility and better integration with other business applications.

In a competitive marketplace, businesses are working hard to avoid any drop in profits, whether it is associated with losing customers or by incurring additional costs to recover lost customers. One way to increase both customer satisfaction and revenue is to offer the best possible experience...

Operators that have VoIP Peering relationships need to ensure that any service issues are identified and corrected before they affect service levels and customer relationships...

A new survey has shown that technology project glitches have a dramatic impact on costs of contact centre projects. The study, conducted by the Customer Experience Foundation (CEF) and sponsored by Empirix, paints a picture of an industry where project delays and budget overruns have become an accepted part of rolling out new IT solutions...

A survey conducted by the Customer Experience Foundation (CEF) and sponsored by Empirix found that the financial implications of delays to technology projects are largely overlooked by businesses...

A new study has revealed the hidden costs of technology failures with 25 percent of contact centre projects suffering cost overruns and delays, not helped by the chronic lack of testing...

A new study has revealed the hidden costs of technology failures with 25 percent of contact centre projects suffering cost overruns and delays, not helped by the chronic lack of testing...

Quality of Service (QoS) is merely about metrics: packet delay, loss and jitter. Certainly delay and loss are critical because of a recent increased boom in the use of conferencing applications: videoconferencing, internal/external webinars/webcasts, etc...

The ability to optimize network operations efficiently while assuring customer service quality has been a major selling point for Empirix and its Hammer XMS...

BUSINESS PROBLEM: Your new interactive voice response system is up and running, but how can you be sure it's actually working, and what can you do to improve it? TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION: Product: Empirix's Hammer On-Call Solution...

Manx Telecom, part of the Telefonica group and the Isle of Man's largest telecommunications and Internet provider, has selected Empirix to provide service quality assurance for its new IMS network.

Empirix Testing as a Service is a quality-assurance solution for business-critical contact centers that have recently installed new platforms or are upgrading to new technology. It combines Empirix products and professional services that are tailored to meet an organization's unique need...

"That's something Empirix has based our whole business on – the quality experience, from end to end," said Tim Moynihan, a vice president of marketing for ...

Empirix Inc., a provider of service quality assurance solutions for new IP communications, has announced the immediate availability of Empirix Testing as a Service.

Empirix, an IP communications testing company, announced Empirix Testing as a Service, which is designed as a way for large contact centers to validate the performance of their voice services and the quality of the user experience while using a "pay as you go" model. The new service uses Empirix's Hammer testing technology and the company's expertise in addressing contact center performance issues to provide custom solutions that fit the organization's specific testing needs...

Empirix Testing as a Service combines Empirix's technology breadth with deep testing expertise to help contact centers ensure a quality customer-agent experience at low cost...

"On-demand" services are a sign of the times as financial pressures lead companies to avoid capital expenses without compromising the quality of services offered customers or the quality of life for employees. Risk reduction is a big part of the decision process as well. Customer care support infrastructure has become fragile (some would say "brittle") when trying to accommodate changes in delivery channels (from phone to Web to social media to mobile devices and any mixture that customers can conceive)...

Empirix Inc, the market leader of service quality assurance solutions for new IP communications announced the immediate availability of Empirix Testing as a Service, a combination of best-in-breed Empirix products and professional services that are tailored to meet an organization's unique needs...

The coming of IP Communications to the world's networks means that not just service providers and enterprises, for communications equipment manufacturers and communications software applications developers must take into account a complex, hybrid TDM / packetized network and how this impacts on Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE)...

"Empirix has once again proven its market leadership and innovation by developing a first-to-market test solution that is specifically designed to ensure superior service quality over SIP/IP infrastructure," Frost and Sullivan analyst Olga Yashkova said in a press release on the topic published by Empirix.

Many companies are looking to improve their customer experience. To help you with a few ideas we asked a number of our readers for their tips on how to improve customer experience – including a few from Empirix's Sue Andersen.

Fred Sammartino and Timothy Moynihan have new executive jobs at Empirix Inc., a Bedford company that specializes in service quality assurance solutions for new IP communications.

Empirix Inc, a provider of service quality assurance solutions for new IP communications, has announced the immediate availability of Hammer Edge, an intelligent, high performance realistic behaviour emulation tool.

Network difficulties are often the bane of an IT manager's existence; if the network sputters for even a few moments, it can put applications, storage, and other resources at risk, not to mention prompt a rash of user support calls. Here are some tips for finding network problems before they turn into nightmares - including one from Empirix's Sue Andersen.

The explosion in video and voice traffic over IP networks is testing those systems in novel ways, and test and measurement vendors are hurrying to release new products and new technologies to help service providers, and network gear makers, assure that users are actually getting the experiences they expect...

It's happened to everyone - that bad experience with customer service that you shared with all your friends. The call where you had to wait "on hold" forever. The call where the agent wasn't very helpful in addressing your issue and even he was frustrated by the tools he had to work with. The call that made you think, "Maybe I should take my business elsewhere."

Empirix Inc. has been snapping up awards in recent years for its VoIP Testing and Monitoring solutions and this week were forced to make more room on the trophy case yet again when research firm Frost & Sullivan honored the company with its 2009 Global VoIP Test & Monitoring Equipment Market Leadership of the Year Award.

JDSU and Empirix have integrated the latter's content traffic and signaling-layer monitoring product with the former's service assurance platform.

JDSU's (JDSU) service assurance platform, NetComplete, now includes Hammer XMS from Empirix. The companies say the integrated solution helps service providers deliver the highest quality service over broadband/IP wireline and wireless networks.

The recession has prompted many organisations to trim the fat from their business practices but how can companies ensure the cut backs don't mean cutting down on customer service? Verity Gough argues that using a balanced scorecard to inform company KPIs is one way of keeping things in check.

After years of helping organizations adopt complex communications solutions with confidence, Empirix is setting the agenda in the Contact Center Solution space. The Massachusetts-based Empirix today announced that Brian Gollaher, senior product manager at Empirix will participate in a panel session entitled, "Troubleshooting IP Telephony Networks" on Tuesday, March 31.

After a successful demonstration of its voice application testing and monitoring capabilities at the MSF Global Multi-Vendor Interoperability event, Empirix was able to reflect on its success and looked forward to gearing up for 2009.

Empirix, a provider of voice testing and monitoring solutions for NEMs, service providers, and enterprises, has successfully participated at the MSF Global Multi-Vendor Interoperability event.

As voice application testing and monitoring solutions player Empirix extend its business through effective partnerships, it has leveraged its contact center testing and monitoring solutions throughout the technology lifecycle.

Ensuring the effectiveness and reliability of complex next generation networks is a major test and measurement challenge. Nico Bradlee looks for solutions.