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It was designed to help ensure the Quality of Service (QoS) delivered by distributed and outsourced contact centers using Voice over IP networks as well as traditional TDM networks and converged infrastructures.

The Empirix Voice Watch Call Quality service dials directly into a system such as an ACD, IVR or voice mail system - just as real callers do, using traditional TDM lines over integrated TDM and VoIP carrier networks - to retrieve a voice clip. Utilizing proven voice quality algorithms (industry standard PESQ scoring), the retrieved voice clip is compared to a reference clip and call quality is assessed. Scores are documented and contact center managers can be alerted if performance degrades beyond specified service levels. Thus, potential problems can be addressed quickly before QoS is impacted.

Fiserv Securities, Inc. (FSI), a subsidiary of banking and financial services IT giant Fiserv, sells and supports both in-house and hosted contact center solutions to a wide range of banking, brokerage and insurance industry clients. FSI uses Empirix Voice Watch to monitor and ensure the quality of the applications it hosts for its clients. "As a service provider, it's essential that FSI be able to provide its clients with timely information about the health of their applications," said Dan Deist, Vice President of Operations for Fiserv Securities, Inc. "With Voice Watch, we are able to provide them with up-to-the-minute data that demonstrates the very high quality of service we provide. That visibility is a key component of the great relationships we have with our customers, and is a great differentiator for Fiserv in the marketplace."

As more companies implement VoIP networks in an effort to reduce costs and provide better, more widely distributed services to customers and employees, analysts at Gartner Inc. advise paying close attention to VoIP's impact on QoS. "Ensuring Quality of Service is a top concern for contact center managers implementing Voice over IP, and that concern is compounded for firms moving all or parts of their contact center operation offshore," said Bern Elliot, Research Director at Gartner. "Gartner recommends that companies seek out quality management tools designed specifically for voice environments, because traditional network management tools aren't able to capture the idiosyncrasies of voice - issues such as latency that can impact clarity." Elliot noted that contact center managers ultimately need to ensure that their VoIP networks and applications offer a QoS that equals or exceeds their existing TDM service.

Voice Watch 5.0 also features Call Recording

In addition to the new Voice Watch Call Quality component, Voice Watch 5.0 - available immediately - also features a new Call Recording feature that enables users to record every single test call so technical staff can listen to failed calls to determine what went wrong. This is an extremely useful feature for troubleshooting because it allows users to validate problems and share data with co-workers.

Empirix Voice Watch is the only contact center application monitoring service powered by the Hammer platform - recognized by Frost and Sullivan as the market leading VoIP test system family. Since its introduction in 2002, Voice Watch has been one of Empirix's most popular offerings - customers for the service tripled in 2003. "More and more companies are beginning to manage the lifecycle of their contact center applications - not just testing prior to deployment, but also monitoring the customer experience on an ongoing basis to ensure quality," said Joe Alwan, vice president of Enterprise Marketing at Empirix. "We're seeing many companies who already use Empirix Hammer testing solutions add Voice Watch now for production monitoring. The growing use of VoIP and trend toward outsourcing will continue to fuel growth in this part of our business, as companies seek to gain better control over distributed voice infrastructures."