[August 30, 2004]

The Evolution of the Contact Center

BY ADAM GROSS

Call center technology and telephony systems in general share a common history with the computer.  From the earliest days, the two have evolved hand in hand; the first computer innovations –even the transistor – were developed for telephony applications.  Some of the first large scale computer systems, such as the SABRE reservation network, were developed to support what are essentially call center applications. 

While it may seem that many advances in enterprise IT, including the shift to web services and on demand applications have little to do with the call center, the call center technology and computer advances continue to move in lockstep. The same set of on demand principles that have changed the face of CRM (news - alert - tutorial) are poised to similarly change how we build, manage and use contact centers. Once the call center completes its shift to the on demand model, central sales and support will become simpler, more affordable and more successful – and potentially even unrecognizable when compared to systems of today.

Telephony as an Internet Application

While still in its early stages, the Internet has clearly already had a huge impact on how companies – and even consumers – think about telephony.  As many had predicted, the telephone is now yet another “application” atop the existing Internet infrastructure. Like Web and e-mail applications, the new telephone protocol, or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), (news - alert - tutorial) has similar benefits, including location independence (a phone number can ring literally anywhere in world) and essentially free operation (almost too cheap to meter).

This change, from physical system to Internet application, mirrors related trends in the design and construction of call centers.  Once the elements that make up a call center, including routing, handling, etc. are transformed to an on demand infrastructure and integrated with both hardware and software, they can be fully customized with the same flexibility as other on demand applications. What happens when these systems make the next leap, from on-premise software to on demand applications, promises to be as exciting as VoIP itself.  Understanding how on demand is evolving can help describe what this future may look like.

CRM as the Premiere On Demand Application

In the short history of on demand systems, a prominent application of this new architecture has been in CRM systems.  Salesforce.com, for example, has pioneered both on demand in general, and its applicability to CRM in particular. The company has also demonstrated on demand CRM’s acceptance within some of the world’s largest companies along the way.  Enterprises such as Corporate Express, ADP, SunTrust and others have joined thousands of other companies using on demand CRM instead of traditional enterprise software.

From modest beginnings supporting primarily small and medium size businesses, on demand CRM has grown to meet the requirements for enterprise-wide, global CRM.  This ascent has been enabled by the addition of new CRM functionality, including advanced forecasting, marketing automation and custom support modules.  As important are underlying advances in core features, such as the ability to handle large, multi-divisional security and sharing models, support for a variety of languages and character sets, and database advancements necessary to handle huge datasets.  But most of all, the emergence of on demand CRM as true enterprise solution is due to the creation of the on demand platform.

The On Demand Platform

The larger the enterprise, the more sophisticated its integration and customization requirements become.  While on demand applications have quickly established a reputation for eliminating the cost and complexity of software-based CRM deployments, the question about how such systems can meet demanding enterprise requirements has lingered in many technology executives’ minds.  However, following the June 2003 launch of sforce, salesforce.com's on demand platform, the rules about what is possible with on demand – and its ability to customize and integrate with the rest of the enterprise architecture – quickly changed.

Almost all computer systems we interact with on a day-to-day basis have a separation between applications and platforms. The different between Office and Windows is perhaps the most familiar example, with new applications and platforms emerging in server appliances and even cell phones providing addition references. The reason why this separation pervades computers of all kinds is simple; in order to customize and integrate a system beyond the “out of the box” capabilities of an application, one directly accesses the platform “engine” under the hood to tap into the systems raw capabilities.

Historically - and for many existing application services - this application vs. platform distinction has not existed in the on demand world.  Companies who sought to extend their on demand applications were left without options, because those systems were provided as “closed” solutions.  With sforce, however, the industry has its first on demand platform, and the limitations traditionally associated with on demand have been removed.

Web services as the Key

Sforce features two main components; the sforce API, a web services interface for integrating and extending salesforce.com within popular development tools and languages, and Studio, a revolutionary new on demand application development tool.  Together, these capabilities allow enterprises to connect and customize their on demand CRM deployments with all the power and fidelity of traditional enterprise software, with little of the complexity or cost.

At the heart of these integration features is the sforce API.  Leveraging the latest Web services standards, include SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and XML, this API’s open, standards-based nature stands in contrast to those of traditional enterprise applications.   Rather than requiring proprietary tools or special middleware, sforce is aligned with the web services strategies of industry leaders including Microsoft and IBM. These open strategies allow developers to use the skills they already have and development environments they know and love.  As a result, companies can develop sophisticated CRM solutions that participate in the enterprise architecture with all the functionality and fidelity of traditional on-premise software.

Web services + VoIP

So what do the two related, but still largely separate trends in on demand platforms and VoIP have in common?  Based on the types of integrated systems companies are already building with web services, the answer is plenty.

As discussed above, on demand systems and VoIP share a few important virtues: location independence, ubiquitous availability, and significant cost savings over traditional technologies.  Translated into the call center, this means the traditional boundaries that have defined such organizations – proximity to the call handling systems, access to specialized software, and relatively high start-up and ongoing costs – no longer need be the rule. 

Instead, the new contact center can be entirely virtualized. This allows for an arrangement of systems and resources that uniquely fit the different requirements of each organization.  Through on demand platforms and accompanying web services, the VoIP technologies that power telephony for this new virtual application can be tightly integrated with on demand CRM, and thus provide all the functionality of sophisticated CTI systems.  And since these integrations can be developed with standard tools such as Microsoft .NET and Java, a new class of enterprise developers will be able to build such systems – thus lowering cost and complexity in the process.

VoIP promises to revolutionize telephony, much as web services have already started to change enterprise application development.  Together, these technologies provide unique benefits that may ultimately render the contact center unrecognizable from its current form.  Enterprise technologists involved in deploying either of these solutions would be well served to start planning for how their joint capabilities can contribute to the success of their initiatives, and their company as a whole.

Adam Gross is the director of product marketing, sforce division, for  salesforce.com