How CTI And Other Contact Center Technologies Changed My Life
Posted on: Tuesday, 11 July 2006, 12:00 CDT
By Sumner, Roger
I began working at Rockwell International in 1978 as a co-op while I was finishing my college education. At the time, the airline industry was extremely competitive. If an airline couldn't provide their customers with the appropriate information or could not answer their incoming phone calls quickly enough, their customers were likely to conduct business elsewhere.
A few years before I joined Rockwell, Continental Airlines approached Collins Radio Company and requested the first real digital, intelligent call center. At the time, Collins was known to Continental Airlines as a reliable supplier of products and known to the airline industry as a whole for its data packet switchers. Collins, which merged with Rockwell International in 1973, collaborated with Continental Airlines to invent Galaxy, the first intelligent automatic call distributor (ACD). The system was installed in Continental's Houston Reservation Center and was initially used to handle the airline's reservations and information calls throughout the Southern U.S., in addition to private automatic branch exchange (PABX) functions and management reporting. Galaxy was quite the invention: it triggered a chain reaction and launched a new industry, creating thousands of new jobs and most important, forever changing the way companies interacted with their customers.
We saw the next technological advancement in the late 1970s/ early 1980s when airlines with contact centers in various cities wanted to divert calls from overly busy centers to underutilized centers. We worked with them to make geographically dispersed contact centers appear to customers as though they were one cohesive center. Overflow, which was based on agent availability and queue levels, allowed the airlines to look at their centers across the country and easily move calls to agents in different time zones without incurring expensive routing changes in their networks.
By 1982, we had invented some of the first notions of computer- telephony integration (CTI) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and deployed the technology for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for tax collections purposes. The task of the system was database look-up using CTI. For the first time, IRS agents were able to view delinquent taxpayer information on their computer screens and hit buttons to initiate calls to collect tax dollars that were owed. Shortly thereafter, we worked with directory assistance for one of the large telephone companies to implement CTI to decrease call lengths, key strokes and mistakes resulting from misdials and redials. The new system enabled agents to hit buttons on their computer screens to transfer calls to an interactive voice response (IVR) system, which then gave callers the phone numbers they requested. Prior to the implementation of this technology, agents were required to manually dial telephone numbers tor their callers.
CTI is, without a doubt, my favorite contact center technology. Over the years, it has allowed thousands of companies to deliver better customer service, and has enabled them to know more about the customers who are calling them. CTI brings data together in an appropriate place and allows applications to connect and exchange information with each other. It provides information to agents - the most important resource in the contact center - and gives them the ability to respond in the most appropriate way. CTI helps improve customer experiences by eliminating the need for customers to repeat information, and helps to decrease agent burnout.
There are also a number of exciting technologies we are now seeing emerge in the contact center, including presence, session initiation protocol (SIP), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), open- system IP-PBXs, as well as other new technologies that will change the way customers interact with companies. For example, we've developed speech applications that enable customers to "talk" to automated systems that make it considerably easier for customers to secure answers to their questions or complete transactions without needing to wait in queue for an agent.
Also, in the coming years, presencebased communications will greatly expand the role of the contact center to potentially incorporate resources across the whole enterprise, as well as change the notion of where agents are located and how customers can interact with companies. As session initiation protocol (SIP) becomes more widely deployed, communication links will be automatically established based on an agent's availability. This concept is powerful for the contact centers of the future because SIP-enabled presence detection can be applied to any traditional or non-traditional agent device that supports SIP, such as a PDA (personal digital assistant) or other handheld device. Presence will also be a key requirement for pushing customer service throughout the enterprise. This technology will change the dynamics of how agents are deployed in the contact center space, and how companies contact their customers in a proactive way.
Collins turned to us more than 30 years ago to help them meet a very specific need for something that hadn't yet been invented. We worked with them to make it happen, and we still do the same today.
We are dedicated to working with our customers to move them to new solutions at their own pace, when it makes sense for them and their businesses. The products in which our customers have invested will continue to evolve and otter new capabilities. We're protecting their investments and showing them what they need to look at as they move forward. That is our heritage, and it is our future.
Having been a part of the contact center industry for nearly three decades, I am dedicated to personally helping customers figure out the best way to solve their business problems using the right technology at the right time. Everybody wants to know that they have brought some benefit to the world, and I take pride in being able to look customers in the eye and know that I have honestly made a difference in their businesses and the way they interact with their customers.
By Roger Sumner, Senior Vice President, Technology Office, Aspect Software
Roger Sumner is a recognized industry pioneer and author with more than two decades of experience in the contact center. He is the co-creator of the Aspect Spectrum ACD and also helped guide the development of the first truly open platform for contact centers. Roger also plays a significant role in overseeing and building Aspect Software's extensive patent portfolio.
Roger now serves as Senior Vice President of the Technology Office for Aspect Software, where he is an advocate for developing new technologies and solutions to enhance interactions between companies and their customers. He was previously the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Solutions Technology for Rockwell FirstPoint Contact, where he led the technological direction of the company and managed solution services and engineering while supporting the firm's business objectives.
Copyright Technology Marketing Corporation Jun 2006
(c) 2006 Customer Inter@ction Solutions. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Customer Inter@ction Solutions
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