Lifesize announced a merger with Serenova, a little over a year ago. Both parties merge and joined a venture capitalist group that also has a stake in AVI-SPL. It took a while before it was obvious how these merger could benefit all parties involved, but here is how Lifesize shapes the new organisation.

The most difficult job for a contact center specialist and a video conferencing specialist is to make believe that their respective components are complementary to each other. It is very obvious that video conferencing could be a useful extension for a contact center agent and it could be equally obvious that contact center solutions could thrive with video conferencing, but in the past decades, these worlds lived apart from each other.

CxEngage has been a stand alone solution and Lifesize has been a provider of video conferencing software (and hardware) but in the above video it is clear how these products merge into each other and form a logical solution.

The idea of a vide enabled contact center is not new, but complexity arises when a contact center wants to make it easy for the user and wants to avoid even more complexity than for the problem dialling in for. Lifesize and Serenova now optimally utilise today’s potential: ubiquitous video conferencing, using any client through easy invites, embedded into the dashboard of the call center agent.

A typical example in this video looks cheesy, but it really depicts very well what this is about. The agent gets in contact with his customer for typical customer service issues and the need to check on the far end is more visual. Today’s smartphones, tablets or computers are capable enough to provide eyes and ears on the location of the customer. The embedded video conference call allows the agent to immediately inspect the problem with more knowledge and security.

The video enabled contact center is a great opportunity for ‘on site’ inspections, second opinion visits, speeding up technical interventions, double checking operations and procedures and much more. But the market for this solution is so much bigger than just a technical site survey. Think of doctors being able to inspect first hand, surgeons checking on progress of operations, dentists checking first hand, and these are just examples in a medical field. Insurance companies could drastically speed up their processes by doing local investigations, police work could be much more interactive, online training could become more engaging and there is much more.

Lifesize is the inventor of HD based video conferencing and has been making video conferencing a much more affordable product with compelling price/quality relationships since 2005 and merged with Serenova in 2020.