Alcatel-Lucent launches industry’s first active skills-centric workforce optimization solution

New Genesys Workforce Optimization suite tightly integrates intelligent routing for customer-centric business outcomes

Paris - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced a breakthrough solution for managing customer service resources across the enterprise, including optimizing employee skills and training in both the front and back offices.

The Genesys Workforce Optimization suite (WFO), which is part of Alcatel-Lucent’s Genesys 8 solution, analyzes employee performance across all channels including social media, SMS and Web chat in real-time. The solution includes significant new capabilities to centrally measure and manage employee skills and work allocation against performance objectives. The resulting training plans and schedules create a more engaged, efficient and effective organization while reducing service costs and administration.

“As our workforce grows over time, we see value in driving up employee productivity and performance through better workforce optimization, including workforce management and real-time training,” said Mr. Han San Lim, Customer Contact Centre Director, Shangri-La Hotels. “By accurately understanding skill gaps, targeting training and quickly assessing the business impact, we can improve employee effectiveness and personalize customer engagement based on the right skills and right staff. This eventually leads to higher customer satisfaction.”

“Today’s customers require support from a broader employee segment in the enterprise who are trained on multiple channels used to interact with a business,” said Jim Davies of Gartner. “The effective integration of traditionally siloed contact center functions such as training, scheduling and performance management, with centralized skills management of both front and back office resources, is an essential requirement for workforce optimization.”

The Genesys WFO solution is based upon a unique, five-step employee effectiveness model that helps companies contain costs and achieve growth objectives while improving employee satisfaction. Genesys WFO includes workforce management, recording and quality management, and skills and performance management. These features enable: 1) Planning and scheduling of staff enterprise wide; 2) Delivery of work using the intelligent routing capabilities of the Genesys platform 3) Control and adjustments in real time 4) Analysis of data and correlation of performance gaps 5) Development of talent pools based on exact training needs and accurate schedules.

Genesys WFO is part of the Genesys 8 suite of customer service solutions, the leading software used by enterprises for customer service across all communication channels which includes traditional voice lines and social media sources. Genesys 8 software addresses critical enterprise needs in the contact center and beyond by enabling a single, coordinated customer conversation across channels and contact points, by optimizing customer service processes across the extended enterprise and by providing visibility into business performance. Genesys 8 software helps enterprises integrate every interaction and touch point, so they can engage customers with the ideal service experience at the right time across any channel. This dynamic customer engagement leverages native SIP and multi-channel routing capabilities of Genesys 8 along with unique analytical capabilities tied to customer service requirements and business outcomes.

The new Genesys WFO solution is available today. For more information please go to: external linkwww.genesyslab.com

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted transformation partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries such as defense, energy, healthcare, transportation, and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP and optics technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 15.2 billion in 2009 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow us on Twitter: external linkhttp://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.