Background
Kaplan is one of the world’s largest and most diverse education providers. Throughout its more than 75-year history, Kaplan has been a beacon for expanding educational access and a leader in instructional innovation.
For more information, visit the Kaplan North America website.
Bill Boga, Executive Director, Communications Platform Engineering at Kaplan, is in charge of managing the institution’s entire communications infrastructure and was faced with a number of challenges.
Bill and his team were responsible for a highly distributed and diverse voice network made up of around 90 different PBX and unified communications platforms from different vendors, 10,000 users, and a Genesys contact center with 1,300 agents that served the entire organization. He needed a way to consolidate Kaplan’s overall communications architecture and simplify management and operations, thereby reducing operating costs and support efforts. The goal was to centralize Kaplan’s phone systems - both the internal enterprise platforms and the Genesys Engage contact center. To achieve this, they needed to work with an expert partner who really understood the intricacies and practicalities of complex enterprise voice networks.
Challenges
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Consolidate diverse, siloed voice infrastructure
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Simplify management and reduce operational costs
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Introduce technological innovation for a legacy, on-premises contact center
"AudioCodes understood the product, they understood our environment and they were able to address each issue as it came up and resolve that issue to help us move along.”
Simplified Voice Infrastructure and Streamlined Operations
Bill knew exactly who to turn to for assistance. AudioCodes had been delivering voice solutions to Kaplan for several years and its professional services team had demonstrated its vast know-how and expertise.
The first step in modernizing Kaplan’s voice infrastructure was to analyze the organization’s voice traffic and calculate the actual usage. Using AudioCodes One Voice Operations Center (OVOC) management platform, Kaplan was able to size its communications infrastructure accurately and determine its requirements in terms of SIP trunk connections to service providers.
Kaplan deployed AudioCodes high-capacity session border controller (SBC) to act as a communication hub, routing calls efficiently and reliably between all the internal systems and external networks. Using the SBC enabled Kaplan to consolidate its connections to external voice networks, making more efficient use of network resources and reducing management complexity. With built-in support for the SIPREC protocol, AudioCodes SBC also enabled Kaplan to connect its contact center seamlessly to a Callminer voice analytics platform to help analyze contact center interactions and improve overall customer experience.
In addition, OVOC remains constantly in use, monitoring the voice network on a daily basis for issues such as voice quality and connectivity and providing invaluable data for troubleshooting any performance or quality issues that may arise.
Improved Agent Experience While Reducing Costs
Another cost-saving measure that Kaplan adopted was to introduce WebRTC-based softphones for all new agents working in the contact center. In contrast to the desk phones used by agents up to that point, AudioCodes Genesys-certified WebRTC softphone is fast and easy to deploy as it doesn’t require any equipment to be delivered or software installation as the solution is supported natively in the users’ web browser. The softphones offer excellent voice quality, can be managed remotely and are also simple to deprovision when an agent leaves the organization, since there is no equipment to return.
Exceptional Voice Expertise and Professional Services
A common theme running through all of the solutions provided to Kaplan by AudioCodes is the high level of service offered by the AudioCodes team at all stages of the modernization project. Leveraging their vast experience in planning, deploying and supporting enterprise voice networks in general and contact centers in particular, AudioCodes’ engineers were able to complement the skills and knowledge offered by Bill and his team to ensure the smooth running of Kaplan’s critical contact center operation.
Bill has nothing but praise for the professionalism and dedication of the AudioCodes team: “They understood the product, they understood our environment and they were able to address each issue as it came up and resolve that issue to help us move along.”
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Session Border Controllers (SBCs)
AudioCodes’ Mediant session border controllers (SBC) deliver seamless connectivity, enhanced security and quality assurance for enterprise and service provider VoIP networks.
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One Voice Operations Center
AudioCodes One Voice Operations Center (OVOC) is a web-based voice network management solution that combines management of voice network devices and elements and quality of experience monitoring into a single, intuitive web-based interface.
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Results
Over a period of nine years, AudioCodes has proved itself to be the perfect partner to help Kaplan meet its current and future voice needs, no matter how complex they may be. For Kaplan’s voice modernization project, AudioCodes delivered the perfect combination of technology and services resulting in multiple benefits:
- CX innovation for a legacy contact center
- Streamlined voice infrastructure
- Simplified management and troubleshooting
- Cost reductions in equipment and operations
- Improved reliability – reduce troubleshooting times
- Peace of mind via a long-term, reliable partner
“We were stuck on a platform that was decades old; there was no innovation, and we couldn’t move forward in our environment with those systems,” explained Bill Boga. “AudioCodes has made that possible and it’s made my job much easier.”
