AWS Launches Cloud-Based Contact Center Amazon Connect

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Amazon knows a thing or two about providing customer support at scale. The e-commerce giant supports customers from more than 75 service locations around the globe.

Now, it’s bringing that knowledge to the masses with Amazon Connect, a self-service, cloud-based contact center based on the same technology used by Amazon’s customer service associates.

AWS says that with Amazon Connect “there is no infrastructure to deploy or manage, so customers can scale their Amazon Connect Virtual Contact Center up or down, onboarding up to tens of thousands of agents in response to business cycles (e.g. short-term promotions, seasonal spikes, or new product launches) and paying only for the time callers are interacting with Amazon Connect plus any associated telephony charges. Amazon Connect’s self-service graphical interface makes it easy for non-technical users to design contact flows, manage agents, and track performance metrics – no specialized skills required.”

The launch of Amazon Connect comes on the heels of the launch of Amazon Chime in February, a cloud-based unified communications service that, similar to Amazon Connect, requires no upfront investment, and will be available starting in Q2 2017.

Customers can design contact flows based on the information retrieved by Amazon Connect from AWS services or third-party systems, and customers can also build natural language contact flows using Amazon Lex, an AI service that uses the same technology that powers Amazon Alexa.

“Ten years ago, we made the decision to build our own customer contact center technology from scratch because legacy solutions did not provide the scale, cost structure, and features we needed to deliver excellent customer service for our customers around the world,” Tom Weiland, Vice President of Worldwide Customer Service, Amazon said in a statement. “This choice has been a differentiator for us, as it is used today by our agents around the world in the millions of interactions they have with our customers. We’re excited to offer this technology to customers as an AWS service – with all of the simplicity, flexibility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of the cloud.”

Amazon Connect also integrates with a broad set of AWS tools and infrastructure, as well as with leading CRM, analytics and helpdesk offerings, including Salesforce, Freshdesk and Zendesk.

“At Freshdesk, we believe it’s critical to deliver the experience our 100,000+ customers need and expect. We work closely with companies like AWS to build powerful and seamless integrations that enable customers to run their entire business in the cloud,” Francesco Rovetta, VP of Alliances & Distribution at Freshdesk said. “AWS is a natural fit for us: we are both known for our simplicity in design, ease of use and innovative approach in product development. We are proud to support Amazon Connect at launch and look forward to introducing our customers to this amazing new solution.”

“An Amazon Connect and Zendesk integration provides our many shared customers with a seamless experience,” said Sam Boonin, vice president of product strategy at Zendesk. “These companies are placing customer relationships at the forefront of their business and, in return, creating loyal customers.”

Available in the U.S. and 18 countries through Europe immediately, Amazon Connect will expand to more countries in the coming months.

This article originally appeared on Talkin' Cloud.