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A P R A C T IC A L G U ID E

0Call Center Technology

by Andrew J. Wai t e

CRC Press
T a y lo r & F ra n c is G r o u p
Boca Raton London New York

C R C Press is an im p rin t o f the

T aylor & Francis G ro u p , an in fo r m a business
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

First issued in hardback 2017

© 2001 by Andrew Waite

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ISBN 13: 978-1-138-41254-5 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-57820-094-8 (pbk)

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Table of Contents
p r e f a c e _________________________________________ i
The ch ie f customer o f f ic e r ______________________________________________ 2
The influ ence o f the i n t e r n e t ______________________________________.— __3
Serving the c u s t o m e r __________________________________________________ 4
The evolution __________________________________________________________ 5
Winning and keeping c u s t o m e r s ______________________________________ __6

INTRODUCTION ___________________________________ 7
Why use a customer co n ta c t c e n te r_____________________________________ —8
A seismic s h ift in call center "p lu m bin g” technology _____________________ 9
The cost o f a c o n ta ct ________________________________________________ 14
The e q u ip m e n t________________________________________________________ 17
Response center _______________________________________ _______________ 19
A b it o f h isto ry ________________________________________________________ 20
Broad Process reengineering __________________________________________ 21

CHAPTER 1 The traditional Call C e n te r_______________ 23

Winning or p ro te ctin g revenue _________________________________________24
C utting an o rg a n iz a tio n 's costs ______________________________ _____ ___27
Good service assures fu tu re sa le s_______________________________________31

CHAPTER 2 The role of the customer contact c e n t e r ___ 35

Adequate f a c ilit ie s ____________________________________________________ 40
Death o f the Autom atic Telephone Call D is trib u to r? _____________________ 45

CHAPTER 3 The Parts and principles of the typical

customer contact c e n t e r __________________________47
A b ird 's eye v ie w ______________________________________________________ 47
System elem ents and resp o n sib ility _____________________________________51
The telepho ne circuits and se rv ice s_____________________________________52
Telephone in s tru m e n ts ________________________________________________ 57
Management too ls ____________________________________________________ 57
S ta ff and w o rk sta tio n s________________________________________________ 58
The in t e r n e t __________________________________________________________ 58
The fu lfillm e n t in t e r f a c e ______________________________________________ 58
Customer co n ta c t center sizes _________________________________________59
Planning a customer c o n ta ct c e n te r_____________________________________61
Ordinary & extraordinary customer call centers growth issues ___________ 62
Computer telephony in te g ra tio n _______________________________________64

CHAPTER 4 Connection to the outside w o r ld __________ 67

The netw ork hierarchy ________________________________________________ 68
The players____________________________________________________________ 85
Voice telephone t r a f f ic ________________________________________________ 86
Forecasting caller b e h a v io r____________________________________________ 87
Incoming customer call center t r a f f ic E n g in ee rin g _______________________ 89

CHAPTER 5 Staffing issues ________________________ 91

M aintaining Economy o f scale with a d ecentralized s t a f f _______________ 94
Hyper-drive to autom ate ______________________________________________ 95
S ta ffin g to caller demand: demand fo re c a stin g _________________________ 96
Customer demand fo re ca stin g and s t a f f scheduling systems _____________ 99
In cen tives and at risk com pensation components _____________________ 105
S ta ffin g challenge fo r the customer co n ta c t center ___________________ 105
Customer experience mapping and management _______________________ 105

CHAPTER 6 The budget: building a business case _____ 107

P u ttin g costs into perspective _______________________________________108
Customer co n tact center costs _______________________________________109
Cap ital investm ents versus o perating costs ___________________________ 116
Mission critica l versus technical and adm inistrative r o le s _______________ 117
S tra te g ic b u y i n g ____________________________________________________ 118
Autom atic call se q u e n cers____________________________________________ 121
The Universal customer co n ta ct center platform _______________________ 122
Finding ACD bargains - secondary market a lte rn a tiv e s _________________ 122

CHAPTER 7 Managing telephony workflow __________ 127

Inbound customer call flow __________________________________________ 129
The uniform call d istrib u tio n (UCD) system _____________________________ 131
The ACD______________________________________________________________ 132

CHAPTER 8 The typical switching syste m ____________ 137

The in te rn al sw itching netw ork o f the system _________________________ 140
Ports into and resources a tta c h e d to the system _____________________ 142
Backplane and signal d istrib u tio n subsystem ___________________________ 157

CHAPTER 9 The advantages of a purpose built ACD system _161

A rch itectu re and c a p a c itie s __________________________________________ 162
System re lia b ility and fa ilu re resista n ce _______________________________ 171
High v is ib ility into the system _________________________________________177
Ease o f u s e __________________________________________________________ 177
In te rfa c e w ith o ther customer co n ta c t center re s o u rc e s _______________ 178
A lesson to be l e a r n e d _______________________________ _______________ 179

CHAPTER 10 BCD Basics___________________________ 181

Customer co n ta ct center s i z e _________________________________________181
The ACD — fe a tu re s and d e f in it io n s ___________________________________186
S tra te g ic c o n s id e r a t io n s ____________________________________________ 189
CHAPTER 16 CRH within the customer contact
center environment _____________________ 313
Call sourcing ____________________________ _________________________ — 314
I nteracti ve voice r e s p o n s e _____ _ _ _ ________________________________ 317
Databases and systems i ntegr ati on __________________________________ 319
Intel l i gent n e t w o r k i n g ________ __ __________________________________ 322

CHAPTER 17 I n te g ra tin g th e in te rn e t in to a tra d itio n a l

c a l l c e n t e r ______________________________________________________ 3 2 5
Call a n a l y s i s ____________________ ___ _______________________________326
Relative tr ansacti on costs _____________________________________ 326
Self-service. ________________________________________________________ 328
Universal service __ ________________________________________________ 330
v i d e o ____________________________________________ _____ — --------------- 332

CHAPTER 18 The te c h n o lo g y acquisition process _______ 3 3 5

Str at egi c buying _______________________ ______ _____________________ 335
The politics of p u r c h a s e_____________________________________________ 336
There are two sides to every s t o r y ____________________________________ 339
Winning concepts ................................................................... ............. ........................ 341
Justifyi ng a business specific s o l u t i o n ________________________________ 341

CHAPTER 19 The tr e n d s ___________________________________3 4 3

Evolution of the customer service i n du s t r y ____________________________ 343
C u s t o m e r - f a c i n g ___________ _______________________________________ 344
Market drivers ______ ______________________________________________ 348
The c h a l l e n g e s _____________________________ _ ____________________ 349

EPILOGUE _____________________________________________________ 3 5 1
"Move a register, f or get hi story” ____________________________________ 351
The customer is king ______________________________________________ 3 5 2
Costs of sales continue to rise ______________________________________ 353

A P P E N D I X I: Request for Informati on: Computer Telephony _____ 3 5 5

APPENDIX lit Request for Proposal: flCD System ________________ 4 2 1

APPENDIX III: RFP: Recording and Analysis S o lu tio n _____________ 4 4 9

GLOSSARY _____________________________________________________ 4 6 7
Analog or d ig ita l ____________________________________________________ 192
Call answering process ______________________________________________ 194
Workflow ____________________________________________________________ 201
Special call processing tre a tm e n ts_____________________________________202

CHAPTER 11 The ACD as a customer workflow manager 205

Call Processing — the basic steps _____________________________________208
Other call processing steps ___________________________________________214
VoIP ACD fe a tu re m aturity____________________________________________ 217

CHAPTER 12 Bullet-proofing the customer contact center_219

D isaster recovery and business resum ption p la n s _______________________ 220
A business c o n tin u ity stra te g y _______________________________________220

CHAPTER 13 Telephone terminals and workstations___ 229

Plain old tele phone or 2500 s e t _______________________________________229
The proprietary PBX instrum ent _______________________________________231
ACD instru m ents______________________________________________________ 232
Terminal displays ____________________________________________________ 233
The PC telephone connection _________________________________________235
The PC re v o lu tio n ____________________________________________________ 236
The in te g ra te d d e s k to p ______________________________________________ 238
The ACD Agent in stru m e n t____________________________________________ 240

CHAPTER 14 Data gathering and reporting __________ 257

Management g o a l s __________________________________________________ 259
ACD system s______________________________________________ 261
The human resource and legal im p lic a tio n s_____________________________ 267
Reporting c a p a b ility __________________________________________________ 268
Report developm ent and p re s e n ta tio n _________________________________ 270
The call center reports ______________________________________________ 272
In summary __________________________________________________________ 283

CHAPTER 15 Customer Experience:

mapping and management 285
Second generation logging and recording te c h n o lo g ie s_________________ 288
I t 's all in the name ___ ______________________________________________ _290
Recording and monitoring goals _______________________________________291
Regulatory background ______________________________________________ 292
Call re c o rd in g ___________________________________________________ ____293
The Process: service observation becomes qu ality m onitoring_____________ 295
Lim itations w ithin the second generation arch itectu res _________________ 304
Tactical applications for call recording ________________________________ 305
Customer experience Management: the next stage in the contact recording
evolution? ___________________________________________________________307
In summary .311
A P r a c t i c a l G u i d e t o Ca l l C e n t e r T e c h n o ' o a v Preface

Preface
Total Customer Focus -
Easier Said than Done

I have ju s t fin ish e d a meeting with a leading insurance com­

pany (USAA of San Antonio, TX) that is morphing to a full service financial serv­
ices company providing life, casualty and health insurance, retail banking,
investment and related services. Their mission is to serve their clients; primarily
family units, up the wealth generation side of the life curve AND down the back­
side of the curve through their retirement years. This not only means serving the
head of the household or primary breadwinner, but the surviving spouse and
family in the event of the death of the head of the household.
Their business is tidily organized in “silos” reflecting the regulations, skills
that apply and various products offered. W hen a spouse goes through the unfor­
tunate, but inevitable life event of losing a partner, these silos within the busi­
ness spring into action to provide prompt response to the survivor's financial
requirements individually, and in doing so usually manage to request the death
certificate...four or five separate times!
On reviewing their processes from a customer point of view, this business
leader decided that “silo-ed” operation worked to its benefit and not its cus­
tomers. The result has been the development of a czar-like “survivor relationship
team” whose job is to take an absolute customer focus: cross-silo, cross-product,
cross-channel and cross-application. Now, the customer drives their customer
management, the convenience or organization of the business does not.
USAA, a recognized customer focused business leader for over a generation,
very elegantly expresses the spirit of customer focus with their action: looking at
customer data from a customer point of view.
Preface Total c u st o m e r f o c u s — Eas ier said than done

Most important in this USAA illustration is their recognition of:

• the strategic objectives of customer focus and service,
• the need to examine and correct processes,
• the necessity of ensuring that the underlying parts or technologies were in
place, and
• the power of training and m aintaining staff commitment and human capital
necessary to execute the strategy.
At various points in this book, we will revisit these values.

□ THE CHIEF CUSTOMER OFFICER

Roy Dudley, an early thinker behind the whole customer relationship manage­
ment movement, most succinctly made a vital point when he said, “A company
is only as good as it's list of customers.” Buried in that simple statement are the
, ,
oft misunderstood disciplines of list m a n a g em en t direct marketing sales force
autom ation and custom er experience and relationship m a n a gem en t that have
been made more complex by multiple channels crossing multiple disciplines
and technologies.
The technology industry has taken the concept of a list of prospects and cus­
tomers, along with the vision of a sales process with continuity of treatment and
fulfillment, and created an industry worth billions of dollars.
As individual business disciplines, each is destined for implementation fail­
ure at your company, IF there is no one person with an overall customer-cen­
tered view and the authority to make everything and everyone work together.
This is the underlying argument for the creation of a customer czar or chief cus­
tomer office.
Just take a few minutes to consider the number of points where your compa­
ny can touch customers. Now look at the organizational silos. It is tough enough
for you to make sense of it and you work there! W hat about your customers?
It is time for a fundamental corporate rebuild that breaches the walls of mar­
keting, sales, support and service “silos,” that no amount of automation and
technology will materially help.
As this book is written, a new Administration is arguing for a review of the
m ilitary because the current organization is structured around a 200-year-old
Napoleonic war fighting model of massive field armies and naval fleets. The
world no longer looks like this, so budgeting and adding to an already obsolete
model is putting off the inevitable and sapping productivity now.
4 P r a c t i c o ! Gu i d e t o Cai ! C e n t e r T e c h n o l o g y Preface

Companies are like that. They are organized around disciplines that reflect
business models perpetuated by business schools and business structures that are
way out of date. Customers are everything to a business yet a marketing organi­
zation finds them, a sales organization sells them, an installation and support
organization installs them and a yet another organization services them.
Different people, different systems and often, different databases. No continuity
or experience “threading” and as a result, little loyalty on the part of customers.

□ THE INFLUENCE OF THE INTERNET

“The more things change, the more things stay the same.” Anon. Witness the
arrival of the Internet with its ubiquitous media and ecommerce opportunity
offered to all.
“Ideas are free, implementation is a bitch” Anon. Brilliance and success lie
with those who can execute on the vision with the fundamental steps needed to
make these ideas work.
Never before has there been so much hype or so many fortunes made and lost
as have been delivered by the Internet, but the realities remain the same. Good
managers, who understand business, can take the Internet and the new tech­
nologies and weave them into existing and emerging strategies, techniques and
technologies to win more market share and build stronger business positions
than ever before. W hat do they know and why are they successful?
The answer is simple: Common sense, learning and applying the lessons pre­
vious generations of marketing, media and distribution strategies and technolo­
gies have taught us - only with a twist. There is an overwhelmingly strong
argument for a customer czar who has a cross discipline, cross channel and cross
application mandate to manage the business from a customer point of view.
,
This book began life in 1987 as The Inbound Telephone Call Center How to
Buy and Install an Automatic Call Distributor. The plan was to help non-tech-
nical buyers introduce telemarketing and direct response telephone techniques
into their companies. The book then tried to provide guidance in buying the
best technologies to protect their advertising, marketing and sales investments.
The book has sold over 25,000 copies and became the best selling standard text
in buying call-handling equipment.
Ten years later, in 1997, integrating computer databases with telephone sys­
tems was the big trend. The Inbound Telephone Call C enter evolved into
,
Customers: Arriving with a history Leaving with an Experience. This discussed
Preface Total c u st o me r f oc u s — Easier said than done

the burgeoning business of tying customer communications, mostly telephone

calls, to a customer's record or computer telephony integration.
The conclusion reached then was that manufacturers and the industry at
large was still being too calculating about handling calls as transactions. These
communications represented individual customers with needs and wants, but
more importantly, people. People with feelings and perceptions that needed
something from a company. This was a manifestation of using technology to
serve mass markets as customized one-to-one relationships.
These transactions were not just a bunch of engineering and telephone traf­
fic statistics, but real customers with business that had better be addressed in a
businesslike way. Powerful inexpensive computing made growing personaliza­
tion and mass customization possible. The age of computer integrated telepho­
ny was coming into the mainstream.
Now the World W ide Web is upon us. The Internet has potentially inverted
everything: threatening to destroy traditional cost models, accelerating business
and heightening the need for near-instant customer response. Now your cus­
tomers are more often than not, dotcom customers, moving at a pace and an
understanding that anything less than prompt and knowledgeable support is
unacceptable. Despite the tech bubble of the late Nineties, this will be the last­
ing legacy of the dotcom revolution.
A Practical Guide to Call Center Technology: is here to help. W ith the book,
the “C h ief Customer Officer" or equivalent has help to enable him or her m ain­
tain the best “front door" to your business, while navigating the choppy waters
of a mixed communications media and its channels to profitability.

□ SERVING THE CUSTOMER

In this book, we discuss building an integrated market position using existing
electronic and emerging marketing, promotion, sales and customer support
channels, tools and tactics.
The authors background includes selling technology, building and running
sales organizations, publishing magazines and building and managing subscriber
lists and all that implies. This has left the author with an overwhelming respect for
each of the required disciplines. This respect is attended by a constant frustration
at the inability of each discipline to seamlessly apply themselves to integrated cus­
tomer support for the mutual benefit of customers and business stakeholders alike.
4 P r a c t i c a l Gu i d e t o Cal l C e n t e r T e c h n o l o g y Preface

Since this book's first edition in 1987, core principals for serving customers
arriving by phone, mail, fax, em ail and electronically have remained relatively
constant. Your business has presented itself as available to do business and cus­
tomers still expect service, within their perception of reasonable standards. If a
business does not meet that expectation, these prospective customers vote by
doing business elsewhere with their had won earnings.
Over the intervening ten plus years we have seen massive advances in data­
base marketing, prospect identification and customer ranking technologies,
customer “propensity modeling," printing, direct m ail, coupled with predic­
tive dialers and overall follow up technologies delivered by sales force
automation and customer relationship m anagem ent systems. This means
com panies can reach prospective customers faster, more easily and less
expensively than ever before.
Other news is both good and bad. The Year 2000 census count of the United
States identified over 280 million individuals resident in the United Sates. The
bad news is that there are only 280,000,000 consumer prospects in the United
States and provided they all have phones we can deliver them all a telemarket­
ing or em ail message within three months with the technology available today.
With all this new marketing technology you can reach out and touch these folks
as never before. Any market is increasingly finite.

□ THE EVOLUTION
This book is written for the business technophobe so that essential com munica­
tion with the “computer guys" is maintained. Failure to remain on the same
page produces unintended and undesirable results. “Plumbing" all these data
and systems together to produce a cohesive and responsive customer-centric
“face" is a discipline that requires the skill and knowledge to look at business
objectives first, then articulate them to the technologists to meet the business
goal in an integrated customer contact systems environment.
One of the first things we are going to do is to redefine the call center as the
customer contact center. Because the term “call center" perpetuates the notion
that customer contact is limited to a live person answering a telephone call to
and from a customer or prospect. M ail, electronic and personal contact are
ignored as alternative, integrated or complementary processes. This will be one
of the first issues dismissed.
Preface T o t a l c u s t o m e r f o c u s ~~ E a s i e r s a i d t h a n d o n e

Customers have communication choices and they will contact a business when­
ever, wherever and however they choose. Our mission is to anticipate and manage
any communication with the same sensitivity, quality and concern for success.

□ WINNING AND KEEPING CUSTOMERS

Keeping a customer happy and maximizing the lifetime value of your relation­
ship with that customer is more important than it has ever been. Yet often we
only emphasize new customer acquisition.
The customer contact center is there when our customer wants to:
• Get more information.
• See a demonstration.
• Place an order.
• Check order or delivery status.
• Ask questions on how the product works (or is meant to).
• Troubleshoot remotely (manual or remote diagnostics).
• W hen all else fails, dispatch a service person and manage a service call.
This book examines the customer contact process, not only from an inbound
and outbound perspective, but also integration with the any other market con­
tact techniques a customer or company may use to reach and serve pending and
existing customers. W ell look at philosophies, applications, and the strategic
and tactical tools and uses of a customer contact process. We will discuss the
techniques, tools and technologies available to aid the customer contact center
owner and manager in realizing their expectations of winning and keeping
sophisticated dotcom customers more successfully and more profitably.

Andrew J. Waite
Phoenix, AZ
September 1, 2001
4 P r a c t i c a l Gui de to Cai ! C e n t e r T e c h n o l o g y introduction

Introduction
The Customer Contact Center
is the Focal Point
S tra te g ica lly , the call or customer contact center is the
point of entry for most customer communication. This is where a customer
can make any type of inquiry or contact, oblivious to the type of connection,
content and context of the communication, and expect a meaningful response.
The processes, technology and people with the skills, training and motivation,
all exist to serve this relationship.
Once available to do business, a company establishes and advertises an entry
point where an inquiry from a prospect or customer can expect to be answered.
This communication can arrive at the company via any medium. Here the con­
nection is defined in the broadest sense:
By telephone:
• advertising or response via 800 call
• an outbound telephone solicitation
Electronic: Internet inquiry
• assisted browsing
• request a callback, “click to call” or even a
• web chat or kiosk visit (ATM etc.)
By text:
• mail solicitation and any response
• correspondence delivered by mail or
• FAX
• Email
introduction The Customer Cont act Cent er is the Focal Poi nt

In person:
• visit to a retail store
• visit by a salesperson
The options are many; and, as long as choices exist, customers will find a way
to use them all. However, are you able to serve any customer request arriving via
any media with the same level of service quality?

1. Telephone 2. Electronic 3. Correspondence 4. In Person

Call E-commerce Web chat E-mail Fax Mail Report

Customer Contact Center ÀC

Customer Sales and Support Applications

Figure o.i

□ WHY USE A CUSTOMER CONTACT CENTER

At some stage, nearly every company on the planet decides their sales process
needs some formality and organization. The simple reason for this is simplicity:
A single business focus with one phone number or web address to remember
and to contact.
The next stage is fulfilling the expectation that is created, that is to receive
orders and deliver answers to customer questions. To do this a number of cus­
tomer communications mechanisms are usually established. This can be as sim­
ple as opening a retail store on a busy thoroughfare. If a prospect wishes to buy
or an existing customer desires help, they simply go to the store. Thus, all of the
customer contact center elements are met: an advertised location where the
business is prepared to serve customers.
This is the simplest manifestation of customer contact and probably the most
A P r a c t i c o I Gui de to Call C e n t e r T e c h n o l o g y introduction

mature execution as the staff has corporate memory for particular customers,
their likes and dislikes and their status in relation to the business.
As a business grows, adding more complex products, more complex disci­
plines, longer sales cycles, extended product life cycles, the business itself
becomes more complex.
Added complexity arises when a company begins to identify alternate places
prospects and customers can be served so as to deliver greater convenience for the
customer and improve contact performance rates (increased sales and faster and
easier customer satisfaction) for the company. This is the point where a business
establishes a customer contact center where the staff are equipped to serve and
treat prospects and customers as you would expect to be served. A formal cus­
tomer contact center should be positioned to provide dramatic reductions in:
• cost of sales,
• length of a sales cycle,
• time to customer satisfaction, and
• speed of payment.

□ fi SEISMIC SHIFT IN CALL CENTER " P L U M B I N G ”

TECHNOLOGY
The great Confucian curse is “M ay you live interesting tim es!” These are now,
and it will only get more complicated. We are entering a sea change in con­
nection technology that is bringing a shift from separate telephone, data net­
works and address identification for physical delivery, to telephony and data
converging into a single Internet protocol-based voice and data network, broad­
ly described as the Internet.
This book relies heavily on the proven lessons of a traditional call center
because most of the equitable customer focused work distribution, workflow and
service level managem ent were developed for responding to high volumes of
real time customer calls in larger call centers. Updating “the plum bing” or
adding different types of customer contacts and methods adds complexity, but
does not negate those lessons.
Previous technical shifts were generally “plum bing” based accompanied by
heavy vendor marketing efforts that most often failed to meet buyer expectations
and reality during the early years of the adoption cycle. This change offers sig­
nificant cost and process advantages but requires massive investment at the end
customer level and changes in culture.
 introduction The Customer Cont act Cent er is the Focal Poi nt

Two other realities remain and will take some time to change: the fact tele­
phones, wired or wireless, are still the most ubiquitous and easily used commu­
nications devices in the world and remain fundamental to more than 80% of all
customer contacts. Given the massive worldwide capital and political invest­
ment in telephone companies and infrastructure, this is not expected to be dis­
placed fast.

Doto Systems
W ide availability of solid state computing technology for business applications
is about five decades old and has gone through various changes: mainframes and
time-sharing, mini-computers, PCs, client server and now, Internet-based net­
works and databases.

Telephone Systems
PBXs and telephone switches have experienced a similar evolution, although it
10 has occurred more slowly because of past regulation. First, there was the telco
government regulated or “tariffed” crossbar analog PBX of the early sixties and
the solid state analog switch of the early deregulated interconnect days (1967 to
1980). This equipment has been widely replaced by computer controlled digi­
tal switching systems running proprietary operating systems with fixed hardware
address structures, proprietary signaling and proprietary computer telephony
links. These systems have a life span of approximately 20 years and many are
reaching the end of that life span.
This market space is ripe for rework. IP protocols allow data and voice to trav­
el on the same cable (or wireless) network to a common address and provides
common packetization and control signaling that completely eliminates the
requirement for a separate PBX switch or key system (as we now know them).

N û t € * The earliest technology iterations still have major application today, albeit, on
newer hardware.
Software and applications are far more resistant to the obsolescence that plagues hard­
ware, mainly because hardware manufacturers have the tendency to use proprietary
strategies to improve hardware and gain supposed market differentiation.
Only when operating systems and related standards became ubiquitous and program­
mers plentiful did “ branded” computers lose sway. That’s when “open” systems became
widely adopted and volume computing became cheap and accessible to nearly everyone.
4 P r a c t i c a l Gui de to Coll C e n t e r T e c h n o l o g y introduction

However, for this to occur, there may be a need for substantial upgrade in band­
width in the corporate networks.

Voice-over-IP (VoIP)
VoIP or voice transmission over the Internet has entered the telecom m unica­
tions fray. Although there are still volume and fidelity problems that need to be
resolved before it can become a viable communications option for most busi­
nesses. For instance, many times the audio quality and reliability of the call con­
nection is currently less than is required for a business transaction. Nevertheless,
VoIP does have its attractions: a unified network within the company premises
where IT controls ample bandwidth (voice and data capacity potential) and the
integrated applications for customer contact and contact centers.
The rate of change related to the adoption of VoIP will be faster than any pre­
vious generational migration. The move from mainframes to minis to PCs, or
analog to digital PBX systems, was slow as new code (and more work) was
required. But few major end user advantages accompanied these plumbing
improvements. VoIP brings huge efficiencies by elim inating redundant net­
works, elim inating the middleware required to perform protocol translation
between proprietary systems, and simplifying applications development. Less
work, less cost, fewer systems and faster performance.
If a new contact center at a new site is required, VoIP may soon be a foregone
conclusion. Updating an older PBX (ACD) to a “newer technology” PBX is
merely an “expensive paint job” when VoIP is an option.

S et ti ng the Applications Stage

C all centers have proven themselves as successful customer sales and support
tools for over a generation. The customer contact center has its roots in the call
center (beginning with airline reservations and even earlier manned telephone
exchange services), so initial call center philosophies, structures, references and
m anagem ent standards are the baseline for building the next wave of integrated
customer contact centers. The roots of this next generation of integrated cus­
tomer contact centers lies with the old — just more options are available with
the next generation center.
If your business objective is to sell and service customers to the point of mutu­
al satisfaction, the technology and process should be subordinate to the business.
W hen technology goals supersede the business strategy, things get confusing
and can cause failure. All of the ensuing contact center discussion, put achiev-
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