July 1998

BY LISA CHIRANKY

Not long ago call centers were corporate stepchildren, viewed by senior management as a cost of doing business. The best available technology offered only limited capabilities. As a result, call centers could do little more than react to customer requests. Theorists envisioned a future in which customer service representatives (CSRs) with vast information resources at their fingertips could answer virtually any customer request on the spot. Some experts imagined call centers anticipating customer needs, and tailoring transactions and promotions based on each individual’s usage patterns.

Meanwhile, despite companies’ best efforts, customers often experienced long queues, multiple call transfers, repetitive requests for name and account number, long waits for requested information, and lack of definitive information such as order status.

That’s changed. Service considered adequate years ago is unacceptable today. Next-generation technology — the successor to traditional CTI middleware — automates CSR desktops and integrates back-end customer data from across the enterprise in new, flexible ways. Leading companies are already leveraging the automation technology to competitive advantage, extending customer relationships to retain customers and open up new revenue streams while keeping call center costs in check. New revenues flow from technology-enabled cross-selling and upselling. Along with these capabilities, technology deployment times are routinely measured in days or weeks, rather than months or years.

This upward spiral — consisting of enabling technology, competition-driven service improvements, and higher customer expectations — has kicked into high gear. Using new solutions, companies are transforming traditional, reactive call centers into progressive, profitable "answer centers" encompassing all contact channels to the enterprise: voice, fax, e-mail, Web, and more. Suddenly, progressive call centers enabled by post-middleware technology aren’t stepchildren anymore: They have been reborn as strategic assets integrated with departments and business functions throughout the enterprise.

CALL CENTER CTI EVOLVES
First And Second Stages
First came hardware advances: Proprietary, self-contained systems such as increasingly "smart" PBXs, voice response units, and automatic call distributors. Second, minicomputers and desktop systems emerged, giving rise to telephony servers and initial efforts at computer telephony integration (CTI) on the CSR desktop, marking the emergence of CTI middleware.

Middleware gave call centers tight integration into specific devices — a particular brand of PBX, for example. Middleware vendors spent considerable effort getting down into the guts of a PBX to connect call data with CSR workflow. Integrating proprietary solutions like these with a company’s business applications and customer data, though, required custom programming — an arduous and costly process.

Further, proprietary CTI middleware and other hardware-dependent solutions contributed to the proliferation of information silos. A silo is a relatively isolated database designed to support back-end specialists; for example, people in accounting, manufacturing, materials, inventory, and logistics operations. Such silos, common to many companies, stand as barriers between CSRs and real-time customer data squirreled away in various departments. Enabling ready access to this data is crucial to transforming call centers into answer centers.

The Third Stage
Call center technology evolved into a third stage in which CTI middleware matured, offering features and functions that went beyond simple screen pops. But middleware solutions still depended on proprietary hardware to operate, and custom coding to access data. Such middleware solutions are still widely used today. Customizing them to the needs of a large call center — or to multiple call centers — still requires software development that often drags on for a year or more. Much of this effort is devoted to making disparate applications and databases work with each other in complex ways to support a company’s unique business needs.

CTI middleware solutions, based on proprietary protocols and hardware, tie users to vendors, locking-in costly technology. Long development and deployment cycles means these solutions obsolesce even before they are fully installed. Modifications must be custom-coded in C, limiting flexibility. And with custom software maintenance, long-term ownership costs soar.

FOURTH STAGE: IAA EXTENDS CTI
A new breed of solutions — Patricia Seybold Group dubs it inter-application automation (IAA) — catapults CTI beyond middleware and into the next evolutionary stage. Several advances together give IAA call center solutions their dramatic impact. For example, these solutions are totally software-based, freeing users from dependence on proprietary hardware. IAA software offers a modular framework — making it easy to develop custom solutions and to maintain, modify, and upgrade them — which places the total cost of ownership among the industry’s lowest. Key features of an IAA framework include an automation engine, "access modules," and business rules scripting.

The automation engine, a flexible platform for making rules-based decisions and initiating action, is able to handle thousands of simultaneous data and voice transactions per minute. This engine manages sophisticated operations such as data mining — extracting information from databases across multiple business units, reading records, and, based on their content, making multi-level decisions for action — all in real time.

The automation engine integrates with enterprise systems, monitoring a company’s communications and computer infrastructure, including legacy systems. Any event stream occurring within a company’s business applications can trigger automated decision-making processes and resulting actions.

When an event occurs (such as an incoming call or Internet query), the automation engine makes decisions: For example, where should a call should be routed, what data should accompany it, and how should the CSR service this customer. The decisions are based on user-defined rules that reflect each call center’s specific, unique business requirements and workflow.

WORKING WITH ACCESS MODULES
An IAA software framework employs access modules to integrate with a company’s existing infrastructure and to deploy customized solutions rapidly across the enterprise. Access modules — prepackaged links to existing data exchange and technology standards — reside between IAA applications and a company’s information and communications systems. These modules (along with other features such as scripting) enable companies to develop and deploy sophisticated, customized IAA solutions in 28 days on average, rather than the 9–18 months commonly required for a full-blown CTI middleware solution.

Access modules open up previously isolated information silos and telephony systems to full integration. Each module provides transparent access to standard protocols such as ODBC for databases and TCP/IP for communications. Other access modules integrate applications and devices based on standards such as TAPI, TSAPI, File I/O, OLE, HLLAPI, MAPI, and HTML. Further, a module can be provided to integrate virtually any proprietary or custom protocol.

As standards evolve and protocols emerge, new access modules are quickly and easily created to integrate changes into existing environments. Investments are protected; costs, reduced. Users gain immediate access to new competitive advantages without their having to become experts in a new technology. Further, users are shielded from excessive complexity to the extent they desire. And because they are grounded in standards, access modules free IAA users from dependence on any one product or vendor for future customization.

BUILDING AN OPEN FUTURE
The first companies to migrate to inter-application automation solutions are those that are rapidly deploying new technologies to stay ahead: Customer-focused companies for whom world-class service provides a critical strategic advantage.

These companies pursue productivity and wring unnecessary costs from every business process. They must stay flexible in the face of unpredictable change for years to come. Such organizations retain customers by creating presence: A strong, consistent relationship with each customer, propelled by highly-individualized service delivered in real time whenever, wherever, and however a customer contacts the enterprise.

As enabling technology, service levels, and customer expectations continue their dizzying upward spiral, IAA will provide the capabilities and rapid deployment needed to create competitive differentiation in a world of parity — the key to evolving progressive call centers into the next decade.

Lisa Chiranky is director of marketing for AnswerSoft, Inc. Chiranky has 17 years experience in the field of high technology marketing with a focus on emerging markets. AnswerSoft is a global provider of business process automation solutions. They help call centers capture competitive advantage by improving agent service and responsiveness to create a more personalized call experience. AnswerSoft’s mission is to deliver value to customers through automation technology to enhance agent/customer transactions that build brand loyalty and streamline operating costs. For more information, contact the company at 972-997-8300 or visit their Web site at www.answersoft.com.

BY JERRY L. WHITE

We can define the virtual call center as multiple groups of agents, usually in geographically dispersed locations, that are treated as a single center for management, scheduling, and call handling purposes. As a call center adds agents or sites, the increased complexity of operations can result in management issues such as inconsistent service, complex costs, unbalanced workload, or the inability to seamlessly integrate new sites. Taking a virtual call center perspective can have an immediate and dramatic effect on the performance of multisite call center operations.

Jerry L. White is director of TotalNet products for IEX Corp. IEX develops products and creates solutions for call centers, telecommunications carriers, and private networks. IEX integrates telecommunications with information technology, from concept to deployment and support. The company creates products for call center management, enhanced network services, network management and maintenance. For more information, contact the company at 972-301-1300 or visit their Web site at www.iex.com.