SAN JOSE, Calif. -- September 13, 1999 -- As an integral component of Cisco AVVID, its Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data for the corporate enterprise, Cisco Systems, Inc., today introduced the Cisco IP Contact Center (IPCC), a solution delivering intelligent call routing, network-to-desktop CTI, and multimedia contact management to enterprise agents over an IP network. Cisco is demonstrating this solution at CT Expo, New York, N.Y., September 14 - 16, booth 1312. Commercial availability of the IPCC solution is scheduled for the Q1 2000 timeframe.
The IP Contact Center melds IP networking and intelligent contact management by applying Cisco's VoIP product base in conjunction with technology from recent acquisition GeoTel Communications. By combining software ACD functionality with IP telephony in a unified solution, IPCC represents the next generation of contact center applications.
At the same time, the IP Contact Center enables server- and agent-level IP telephony to co-exist with traditional TDM networks supporting ACD/PBX/IVR systems and desktop applications. By providing a seamless migration path from the legacy call center to the IP-powered, multimedia contact center, this solution enables an organization to add IP telephony, IP-based services, and new media channels at its own pace while leveraging the existing IP data infrastructure and preserving heterogeneous legacy investments.
Equally significant, through the ubiquity of IP transport the IPCC solution enables a company to readily deploy branch office, small office/home office (SOHO), and other remote agents as full participants in the virtual contact center. This flexibility enables users to better leverage existing and on-demand resources, fully extend CTI functionality across the enterprise, and eliminate the need for ACD-extension products.
"The IP Contact Center connects the worlds of traditional voice and IP telephony while managing multiple contact channels - including the PSTN, the Internet, e-mail, and fax - from a unified solution," explained Jane Eisenberg, director, marketing, Cisco Systems. "As such, it enables companies to consolidate business rules in a single application in order to accommodate individual customer preferences for multimedia contact options while maintaining consistent service standards. By helping companies migrate to a converged IP infrastructure for voice and data - while leveraging installed systems and non-traditional resources - the IPCC can reduce costs, improve customer responsiveness, and create competitive advantage."
Features and Benefits of the Cisco IP Contact Center Solution
The IPCC solution provides a single, fully integrated architecture for managing customer interactions and associated data originating in and transported via the Internet or the PSTN. Specific capabilities include:- Enterprise management and control: The IPCC solution enables a company to consolidate business rules and enterprise contact center data in a single repository to automatically maintain consistent service and productivity standards and generate normalized reports across heterogeneous platforms.
- Network-to-desktop CTI: By unifying contact center resources from the network to the desktop, the IPCC solution distributes each incoming contact to the best available resource the first time and simultaneously delivers a rich set of relevant data to the targeted agent's desktop - personalizing customer service and improving contact center efficiency.
- Geographic independence: By utilizing IP transport, the IP Contact Center solution supports geographic independence of both agent resources and IP-based application servers, enabling customers to redefine the contact center enterprise.
- Scalability: The IPCC readily scales from a single-site contact center to a multi-site enterprise to a network-based service offering, protecting an initial Cisco investment and ensuring that the solution accommodates future business and technology developments.
- Carrier-class reliability: Since managing customer contacts is a real-time, mission-critical business application, the IPCC solution meets carrier-class quality standards - which are significantly more stringent than traditional data-level reliability - through distributed fault tolerance of all system components.
- Competitive advantage: By supporting new IP-based applications, the IPCC solution creates competitive advantage by enhancing both productivity and profitability while reducing total cost of ownership.
Cisco ICM Software
Cisco ICM software provides enterprise-wide intelligent contact management by distributing voice and data from multiple channels - including IP networks, TDM networks, fax, and e-mail - to enterprise resources such as ACD and IVR systems, SOHO agents, and desktop applications. ICM software combines Pre-Routing and Post-Routing capabilities with an extensive management-reporting system and supports distributed fault tolerance to ensure the mission-critical reliability needed for customer interaction. Solutions are provided for single-site, multi-site, and network-integrated deployments.Cisco CallManager
Cisco CallManager (CCM) extends traditional telephony features and functions to packet telephony devices. Installed on a server-class PC, CCM software provides basic call-processing, signaling, and connection services to Cisco IP phones, voice over IP gateways, and software applications. Additionally, CCM can provide voice applications that perform basic voice messaging, softphone, voice conferencing, manual attendant console, click-to-call, and other functions without the need for voice-processing hardware.Cisco AVVID
For more information about Cisco AVVID, please see today's announcement titled, "Cisco Delivers Enterprise Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data Networks."Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is theworldwide leader in networking for the Internet.Cisco, Cisco Systems and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.
