Genesys History

Genesys Founders Bring Computers and Telecommunications Together

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories was founded in October 1990 to prove that companies could provide better service to their customers by bringing together computers and telecommunications. That insight made Genesys a pioneer in computer-telephony integration (CTI). It also established Genesys as one of the first companies to understand that technology integration could solve a pervasive business problem: poor customer service.

Initially, Genesys' breakthrough solutions greatly improved phone-centric customer contact centers. The company's first product was a client-server architecture that tied together all the systems that had previously worked separately to offer customer service: the telephone system, company data repositories, and applications.

In the early years, organizations viewed their call centers merely as unavoidable expenses. Consequently, companies were attracted by Genesys ability to reduce call center costs. Genesys delivers customer data to agent desktops the instant calls arrive, eliminating the need for agents to search through separate data repositories for customer information. The Genesys "screen-pops" of customer data saved agents time, reduced call durations, increased agent productivity, and decreased overall call center costs. In addition, customers received faster and better service.

Genesys Introduces Intelligent Routing

Another early Genesys innovation was the introduction of intelligent routing, which distributes inbound customer service calls to agents according to the call's priority or the skill set required to handle the call. Over the years, Genesys routing solutions have evolved to handle e-mail, IM, SMS and other communication channels, all prioritized by the rules a company lays down to meet its service-level objectives. For example, high-value customers can be routed to the most skilled agents, customers with open tickets can be sent to the last agent they spoke with, and agents can always immediately access a complete view of the customer interaction history.

Genesys Provides Greater Insight and Control in the Call Center

Through the years, Genesys engineered an entire suite of sophisticated solutions that give companies more insight into and control over their call center operations. In addition to computer-telephony integration and routing, Genesys provides call center managers a comprehensive view of agent activities and real-time reports that reveal which agents or agent groups are busy with incoming calls, how many agents are on revenue-generating calls, customer hold times, and more. The Genesys platform also supports all major switches, server hardware and operating systems for easy integration of existing and new third-party applications - even across multi-site call center operations.

Genesys Unveils Internet Contact Center

Genesys recently applied its experience in blending voice and e-mail communication channels to offer the Internet Contact Center. This is a suite of products that integrates voice and Internet interactions, ensuring that customers receive consistent treatment across all media channels in the call/contact center. Customers gain virtually unlimited choice over how they interact with a company, and companies gain a more unified view of their customers' interactions across the enterprise and better control of their contact centers. From the call/contact center to Web sites to outbound sales calls, Genesys helps companies draw customers closer, build trust, and - form long-lasting relationships.

Genesys and Alcatel-Lucent Poised for Future

In January 2000, Paris-based Alcatel (now Alcatel-Lucent), a world leader in voice and data communications, acquired Genesys. Together, the companies are committed to delivering the most sophisticated contact center functionality for both traditional circuit-switched and IP-based infrastructures. Today, Genesys continues to operate as an independent subsidiary, providing best-in-class infrastructure-independent contact center solutions across any media for the enterprise, e-business, and the service provider. Genesys has established an important brand promise: software products that companies can trust to turn customer interactions into richer customer relationships.