Introducing IP Telephony into the
Contact Center
Al Baker
Vice President,
Product Management
Siemens Global eCRM Solutions
Outline
• Why Talk about IP Telephony in the Contact
Center?
• What Types of IP Technology can be brought
into the Contact Center?
• What Can be Gained?
– Today?
– Tomorrow?
• How Real is IP Telephony in the Contact
Center Today?
• What Should I do Next?
Setting the Stage
Analyst Predictions
• VoIP will account for ~75% of world voice
services by 2007
Frost & Sullivan
• 90% of Enterprises with multiple locations will
begin switch over to IP in next 5 years
Phillips Group
• Enterprises will migrate voice from traditional
networks to data networks and create a $16.5
billion dollar IP-PBX market worldwide by 2006
Allied Business Intelligence
• Purchases of IP contact center solutions are
expected to grow by more than 100% annually
through 2004
Gartner Group
Challenges for Enterprise Businesses
Relationship Value
Capturing &
Leveraging
Customer
Information
with Every
Contact
Mobility
Evolving from
the Fixed to
Distributed
Enterprise
Multi-media
Providing fully
integrated
multimedia
contact
management
Convergence
Retaining Business
Applications As
Infrastructure
Evolves
Meeting the Challenges Today…And Beyond
Increase ROI
Lower TCO
Support Mobile
Workers
Enterprise
Productivity
& Profitability
Renew Focus on
Core Business
Build Responsiveness
to the Market
5
Controlling Costs:
Top Challenge for Contact Centers
• Survey taken at June 2002 Contact Center
Users Group
• Challenges facing contact centers in 2002
– Controlling costs: 75% of contact center
managers
– Finding ways to increase customer satisfaction
– Decreasing agent turnover
– Measuring ROI in a meaningful way to show
bottom-line results.
The Future of Enterprise
Communications Technologies
Future IP value creation will be
based on business process
productivity – and differentiation
VoIP
IP PBX
Current focus of IP value creation is
on operating cost reductions and
improvement of asset efficiency
Mid Term
Long Term
Communications Applications:
Driving Productivity
Multi-Modal Communications
Drives the
Workforce Productivity Revolution
of the
IP Network Convergence Era
Maximize
Effectiveness of
Every Knowledge
Worker’s
Interactions
Leverage Presence
and Instant
Messaging for
Interactions
Independent of
Media Type
The Leader in Real Time Communications
Remove Barriers to
Information Access
(location and time)
Convergence is not
about IP.
It’s about value.
Outline
• Why Talk about IP Telephony in the Contact
Center?
• What Types of IP Technology can be brought
into the Contact Center?
• What Can be Gained?
– Today?
– Tomorrow?
• How Real is IP Telephony in the Contact
Center Today?
• What Should I do Next?
Voice Over IP Applications
IP LANS
Backbone and
Carrier Services
Enterprise
Infrastructure
Moving to TDM/IP
Convergence
 Routing Servers
 Reporting Servers
 Multi-Site
 Network SCP
 ASP offerings
 IP ACD/IP IVR
 Branch Office
 Remote Agents
Front Office
Internet
 Web Chat
 Voice over
the Internet
IP Carrier Services:
Senegales company takes French calls
Source: Forrester Research
Average cost of customer contact
$500+
$65
< $5
Field Visits
Call Center
Website
Today 300 Senegalees agents are offering VoiP
contact center services to French companies.
In 3 years times, there will be 3000 agents!
Multi-Site Contact Center: Sears
5,000 Agents,
16 Call Centers
Contact Centers
HiPath ProCenter
IP
WAN
Converged Platform:
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
• Swiss newspaper, one of the oldest in Europe
• Wanted to optimize workflow by extending it
to include post-processing of customer
requests
• Fully IP-based multimedia contact center
solution
– Customers can contact the agents by phone,
fax/email or via the NZZ homepage.
• Efficiency savings eliminated the necessity
for additional staff during peak hours
– Resulted in annual cost savings of $268,016
Remote Agent: Aon
• Corporate value - expansion of business - new
markets
– Moved from insurance to home warranty &
auto warranty
– New products to new customers.
• Contact Center solution required expandability and
flexibility
– Agent skills key to routing
– Segmenting calls to different agents
– Reports now business transaction based
– Detail related to these new markets
• Remote agent capabilities
– Cost control and labor savings
• Ability to hire regional insurance agents
that match the customers’ they serve
Web Chat: Land’s End
Outline
• Why Talk about IP Telephony in the Contact
Center?
• What Types of IP Technology can be brought
into the Contact Center?
• What Can be Gained?
– Today?
– Tomorrow?
• How Real is IP Telephony in the Contact
Center Today?
• What Should I do Next?
Number of Service Channels Used
by Customers
• Even with the collapse of many dot.coms,
online retail continues to grow at an
exponential pace
• Research shows that online buyers use
multiple channels of communication for
customer service about these purchases
Source:
Forrester
Research
Now: Web Collaboration Application
• Customer clicks button to initiate live agent
Web chat
• No customer download or install required
• Two versions of browser based application
– JavaScript, Java applet
• Means no install or configuration required
– Ensures widest possible browser compatibility
• Customer application easily customized to
match enterprise Web site look and feel
Web Collaboration
Customer Application
Chat Transcript
Customer Input
Customer can see
pages “pushed” by
the agent
Web Collaboration Agent Desktop
•
•
•
•
Inserts agent standard greeting
Gives contact details: name, URL, start time
URL screen pop associated with call type
Library of standard phrases
Web Collaboration Media Library
• Library of
standard
phrases and
URLs speeds
agent reply
time and
ensures
accuracy and
consistency
• One click
automatically
inserts
standard text or
URL greatly
reducing input
time
Emerging: Voice Browsers: Motivation
• More people today have access to a
telephone than to a computer with an Internet
connection
• Voice interaction escapes the physical
limitations on keypads & displays as mobile
devices become smaller
• Web access while keeping hands & eyes free
• An advantage to people with visual
impairment
• The next generation of contact centers
– Will become Voice Web portals to a company's
services and websites, accessed via telephone or
Internet
Voice Browser
• Provides an “audio browser”
– Access to text information that is available via
standard web sites
• Interaction via:
– Key pads
– Spoken commands
– Listening to prerecorded speech, synthetic
speech and music.
• Typically powered by VXML
What is VoiceXML?
• A dialog
markup
language
designed for
telephony
applications
• Applications can speak to the user via synthesized
speech or by pre-recorded audio files
• Software can receive input from the user via speech
or by the tones from their telephone keypad
VoiceXML-Based IVR Development
Dynamically
created
scripts
eliminate
need for
traditional
IVR
development
Web Server
Response
VXML
Document
HTTP Request
IVR
VXML’s Role in the Contact Centers
• User can transfer from a VoiceXML
application to a customer service agent
• Agent has the ability to view information
about the customer collected during the
preceding VoiceXML application
• Ability to transfer a session identifier can be
used to retrieve this information from the
customer database
Tomorrow: Instant Messaging
• It's faster than email for getting live assistance
• It's two way
• Customers don't have to disconnect from a web
connection for an IM connection, if they have only a
single phone line
• Text dialogue is captured for an audit trail
• Cheaper than a toll-free telephone number
• User has access to web-based information during IM
• Can be used to "push" requested information
dynamically to a customer whenever the customer is
connected
Instant Messaging Catching Fire
• “Within 4 years, most
corporate users of
email will be using
instant messaging.”
• Corporate IM users will
go from 18.3 million in
2001 to more than 229
million in 2005
according to IDC.
Presence Management
• IM relies on Presence Management
– Detects whether the target party is active on the
Internet.
• Allows a customer to determine if there is live
assistance available at the moment
– If not, can choose another form of contact, e.g.,
voice call or email
• Contact center can exploit
– Respond to a prior email request for assistance
– Outbound customer campaign.
Outline
• Why Talk about IP Telephony in the Contact
Center?
• What Types of IP Technology can be
brought into the Contact Center?
• What can be Gained?
– Today?
– Tomorrow?
• How Real is IP Telephony in the Contact
Center Today?
• What Should I do next?
IP Telephony Adoption
InfoTech Study, 2000 versus 2001
IP Contact Center Adoption
• “We’ve had a slower adoption of multimedia
and IP contact center technologies in 2001,
thanks to a weak economy.”
• “You want to make sure is that you’re with a
vendor that will keep you whole as the
infrastructure underneath you changes…”
• “You want to make sure that you’re not going
to somebody that can only do TDM or IP, but
one that can transition you across as the
technology changes.”
Technologies 2002: What’s Now and Wow?!
ICCM Weekly, February 2002
Siemens Skyport Facility
• Silicon Valley
Headquarters
• 2,000 ports
• Production
Showcase for
Customers
• Full Business
Operation –
Business
over IP
Sales
Marketing
Development
Product Management
100 % IP
Siemens Skyport Facility
IP PBX
PC Clients
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IP PBX
PC Clients
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IP Phone
Clients
m
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IP Phone
Clients
Building 1
Building 2
IP Gateway
PSTN
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Wireless
IP Phones
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LAN
802.11
Access Point
WAN
Super Gateway
Contact
Center NSC
Mutimedia
Messaging
Server
Network Data
Center
Headend in the Sky
“One of the reasons we’re already looking at
the HiPath 5000 enterprise soft switch was the
maturity level of the Siemens products versus
the competitors. I sat through I can’t tell you
how many presentations where people were
saying ‘this is what we’re going to be doing in
the future—this is what we hope to be doing
next year.’ But when Siemens came in, they
said, ‘This is what we’re doing right now.’”
Jeff Hathcote
Sr. Director of Network Operations
AT&T Digital Media Center’s Headend in the Sky
Outline
• Why Talk about IP Telephony in the Contact
Center?
• What Types of IP Technology can be
brought into the Contact Center?
• What Can be Gained?
– Today?
– Tomorrow?
• How Real is IP Telephony in the Contact
Center Today?
• What Should I do Next?
Predictions – A Word of Caution
“Trying to assess the true importance
and function of the Net now is like
asking the Wright brothers at Kitty
Hawk if they were aware of the
potential of American Airlines
Advantage Miles”
Bran Ferren, Chief Imagineer, Walt Disney Company
IP: An Option Not to be Ignored
“I see networked telephony continuing to
replace traditional PBX systems throughout
the decade. Any company facing outlays for
telephone infrastructure should look at this
technology.
Compare vendors' offerings. Do the features
offer you competitive advantage? Look at
total costs over the life of the equipment
installation, service, expansion costs.”
Joe Gagan, Senior Analyst
The Yankee Group
Beyond Voice Over IP
• Voice Over IP is Not the End-Game
• Excellent Productivity Gains for IT
Department
• Strong Benefits to Networked Enterprises
• Limited Benefits to End Users & Customers
• Doesn’t Resolve Emerging Communications
Problems
• Conclusion
• Current Benefits Are Significant But a
Applications Will Drive The Productivity
Revolution of the 21st Century
Contact Center Technology Migration
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT CUSTOMER SERVICE
MARKET LEADERSHIP
Cost Reduction Strategies
Expansion Strategies Web-Integration Strategies
Technology Advancement
What does your future hold?
Practical Convergence. Today.