Contact Center Integration Overview and CCI

Much of the integration required in legacy call centers is unnecessary with CosmoCall Universe , all-in-one virtual contact center suite. The IVR, ACD, and Agent, as well as interaction history and recording, are pre-integrated and automatically synchronized, and always have the same complete call-related information available. This alone greatly reduces the time and cost of integration.

CosmoCall Universe supports a wide range of capabilities for integration with the application environment. Agent desktop integration can be achieved quickly and inexpensively, often in hours rather than days, or in days rather than weeks or months. This works especially well in the hosted environment, where different tenants have different applications with which to integrate, and in environments in which each agent may require multiple integrations and multiple screen-pops. The platform also supports more traditional back-end (third party call control) integrations using XML-based CTI.

From CTI to CCI

The "I" in the phrase "CTI" stands for "Integration." On this subject, CosmoCall Universe has two major advantages over traditional circuit switched architectures. 

• Within itself, CCU embodies far more functionality than other products in its space. This is the "unity" factor, in the sense that "unity" is superior to "integration." CCU includes fully unified multi-channel access for telephone, e-mail, and web contacts, and fully unified reporting and recording capabilities.
   
• Any contact center platform, no matter how broad its own capabilities, has to exist within a larger IT environment. CCU is not only the most unified platform in its own right, it is also the most "integratable" one. 

Regarding its integratability, CosmoCom has developed an alternative to CTI called "CCI." To understand what CCI means and to explain its many advantages, we need to begin with an explanation of CTI. 

CTI, or Computer-Telephony Integration, is the umbrella term for the methodology used to connect the various piece parts of a complete call or contact center system. The term arises from the recognition that the worlds of Computers and Telephone Systems are far apart in concept and in design, and implies the fact that it requires very specialized methods to get them working together in a well coordinated manner. 

The following picture is a schematic view of how the traditional CTI approach works:

This diagram has been intentionally simplified, since the modern contact center typically has more than ten different elements using such connections. However, anyone who has experienced first hand a complete CTI implementation which used a CTI Middleware Server to link just these three - CRM, IVR, and PBX - will probably recognize that there is a lot of room for improvement in this paradigm. Anyone who has ever called a call center, dutifully provided the requested identification data to the IVR application, reached a live representative, and had to give the same identification information to the rep, will understand some of this "room for improvement" from the customer perspective. 

This CTI-everywhere approach is in sharp contrast with the simplicity of the CosmoCall Universe approach. CosmoCall Universe achieves results that are as good as or better than those realized by CTI, and does so with significantly less effort. This approach is based on three key advantages of the CosmoCall Universe architecture: 

• Since CosmoCall Universe is a software product that runs on industry standard computing elements, you might say that CosmoCom has replaced the "T" of CTI with a "C." In fact, CosmoCom calls its method CCI, Computer-Computer Integration, rather than CTI. This is much more than just a clever play on acronyms. It points to new ways of getting things done that have many advantages over the traditional method. The CCI approach is exemplified by CosmoCom's CRM Integration tool, CosmoConnector.
   
• IVR is an integral part of CosmoCall Universe, not a separate system that has to be integrated through special methods. A GUI application design tool, CosmoDesigner, allows the application developer not only to define the IVR dialogue, but also to design the entire call flow through the ACD queues and to specify the information items that will be delivered with the call to the Agent desktop.
   
• CosmoCom has developed a methodology for connecting to legacy PBXs called IP Integration, or IPI. IPI does not rely on CTI links, but on the IP trunk and line connections that most PBX manufacturers are now adding to their legacy circuit switches.

The following diagram, then, summarizes the CosmoCall Universe approach:

CRM application integration is certainly a very important part of CTI, and this is achieved in CCI with CosmoConnector. However, CosmoConnector is only one facet of CCI. The term "CCI" includes all of the exposed and supported APIs and open database schemas that exist within CosmoCall Universe. Using these very standard software integration tools, CosmoCall Universe makes it possible for software developers to completely customize just about every user interface to the system, and to make Universe work as integral part of the larger Information Technology environment with a level of effort that can literally be an order of magnitude less than is required with CTI technology.

The CCI methods of CosmoCall Universe are equally effective for integrating CCU to existing IT applications, including both standard packages and custom-developed ones, and for providing a tool set to develop new applications designed from the beginning to integrate with CosmoCall Universe. Both of these tasks have been achieved numerous times by CosmoCom customers. CCI is one of the primary reasons that OEMs are making CosmoCall Universe the platform of choice for their Contact Center in-a-Box (CCIAB) products.