SAN JOSE, Calif. -- September 1, 1999 -- Cisco Systems, Inc. today announced that it is expanding into new markets with enterprise contact center and service provider solutions based on software developed by recently acquired GeoTel Communications Corporation. Cisco is showcasing its offerings at the Incoming Call Center Management (ICCM) Conference and Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, August 31 - September 2 in booth 430.
Cisco's entrance into the market for multimedia contact management and computer telephony integration (CTI) gives companies the flexibility to interact with their customers via phone, Web, fax and e-mail while maintaining tight integration with existing ACD, IVR, network and desktop applications. By unifying the systems underlying voice and data distribution, Cisco enables companies to implement New World solutions at their own pace while leveraging their current technology infrastructure investments. Moreover, the ability to manage every contact center resource from a single control point enables companies to rapidly adapt their operations to evolving customer expectations and changing market conditions.
"This announcement today marks the start of a New World Order in the contact center marketplace as we begin to see the deployment of applications not only within circuit-switched environments but also within an IP framework," said John C. Thibault, Senior Vice President, Application Technology Group, Cisco Systems. "Through its acquisition of GeoTel, Cisco is offering the market end-to-end solutions that lead the industry in network-to-desktop CTI and enable customers to leverage investments in traditional technologies while allowing them to explore and implement new contact center options."
For premises-based applications, Cisco is demonstrating Cisco ICM software, an enterprise-wide, intelligent contact management solution based on GeoTel's Intelligent CallRouter. ICM software enables a company to effectively manage customer interaction by intelligently distributing incoming requests from multiple contact channels including carrier networks, the Internet, fax, and e-mail to resources across the enterprise such as ACD and IVR systems, SOHO agents, and desktop applications.
As each incoming request is received, the system profiles the customer to select the most appropriate resource the first time. ICM software readily scales to support single-site or multi-site contact centers.
Cisco is also showcasing Cisco NAM software, which delivers network applications management capabilities to the service provider market. This solution, which is based on the GeoTel Network ICR platform, enables service providers to participate as full partners with their customers in all aspects of customer interaction. Most fundamentally, carriers can now offer full-featured automatic call distribution (ACD) as a network service using network agents combined with a customer's own ACD agents in an enterprise-wide virtual call center. Network prompting and CTI can be provided either in the network or on a customer site or both, with complete customer control and integrated call processing across all platforms.
Cisco Exhibit Highlights
- Cisco is demonstrating ICM functionality that seamlessly integrates remote agents not connected to an ACD into the contact center enterprise, enabling companies to better utilize branch office and other on-demand answering resources. All ICM capabilities - including intelligent call distribution, data-rich CTI such as screen-pop and third-party call control, and enterprise reporting - are provided for remote agents. Real-time agent-state information collected from the agent's desktop is used to route incoming contacts to the best resource regardless of location, while enterprise data collected by the ICM platform is delivered to a remote agent's desktop in the form of a screen pop along with an incoming contact. Being able to employ agents from beyond a contact center's geographic area provides companies with added staffing options and the ability to supplement the agent pool during peak periods - improving agent satisfaction and customer service, and reducing turnover.
- The CTI capabilities of Cisco ICM software bring telephony functionality and the rich data set collected by the system to agent workstations. Based on a collection of ActiveX controls, the Cisco desktop application enables developers and contact center managers to quickly implement CTI without the need for complex programming or systems integration. The features include a fully functional softphone, a set of softphone controls which can be placed into existing business applications, a developer's toolkit, a real-time feed of agent statistics to the desktop, and full desktop fault tolerance. Additional integration options include a Java client and a fully compliant TAPI 2.1 interface.
- Enterprise reporting capabilities provide users with real time, enterprise-wide, and historical data from which comprehensive reports can be generated. An open software architecture allows for the consolidation of timely and accurate information from carrier networks, the Internet, ACDs, IVRs, Web servers, databases, business applications, individual agent desktops, and other resources, creating a complete enterprise view of the contact center. Contact, customer, and peripheral data are collected and stored in a Microsoft SQL Server database for use in real-time and historical reporting. Data relative to individual agents in the contact center enterprise cal also be collected, eliminating the need to gather this information from individual switches while providing users increased reporting flexibility and a comprehensive picture of agent activity.
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is theworldwide leader in networking for the Internet.Cisco, Cisco IOS, Cisco Systems, the Cisco Systems logo, GeoTel and Intelligent CallRouter 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.
