Keith Dawson's Analyst Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about Altitude, now part of Enghouse, drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address buyers’ requirements for contact center software. The index is structured to replicate an RFI/RFP process by incorporating all criteria needed to evaluate, select, utilize and maintain technology, and maintain relationships with vendors.

In all of our Value Indexes we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for contact center in the cloud. We evaluated Altitude and 13 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product and experience (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the customer experience (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our benchmark research. Altitude Software’s overall performance rating in the Value Index is at 82.4%, with customer experience at 84.8% and product experience at 81.9%.

Altitude Software was acquired by Enghouse Interactive during the evaluation process for this Value Index. The company’s core product is Altitude Xperience, a suite of applications atop a contact center routing platform. It incorporates core interaction handling for voice, email and chat with modules including a voice portal, chatbot, call recorder and quality monitoring. Altitude was ranked 11^th overall and categorized as a Vendor with Assurance, scoring slightly better in categories related to the Customer Experience than on Product Experience. The company performed its best in Manageability.

Altitude’s higher ranking in Customer Experience is due to its higher ranking in TCO/ROI, thanks in part to the information and tools that buyers can use to measure the platform’s effectiveness to contact center needs. Its overall good performance in Manageability is from its support for technology and business administration, and from its privacy and security.

Altitude’s areas for improvement are in Reliability and Capability where it needs more depth in its performance and scalability, and for capturing interactions. The shift of Altitude Software to an Enghouse company is a significant transition of people and products that should be a caution flag for buyers until more clarity is provided.

This assessment was based on Altitude’s cloud contact center products available at end of March in 2021. Since then, Enghouse has taken over all aspects of Altitude’s development and support, and has transitioned the employees to Enghouse.

When cloud contact centers first emerged a decade ago, the focus for many was on finding the lowest cost provider. Today’s organizations should consider a broader range of criteria in their selection process, which we outline in this Value Index. A modern contact center requires technology that provides continuous innovation and a product and customer experience to meet their long-term goals. With this in mind, when organizations begin the process of evaluating their efforts, they might consider Altitude from Enghouse.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of contact center in the cloud software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.

Regards,

Keith Dawson