Organizations are continuing to migrate to IP-based contact centers as they recognize the inherent benefits that can be gained by moving from closed proprietary solutions to a more standards-based environment. With many legacy systems now reaching maturity, enterprises also are looking for ways to protect investments, reduce maintenance and upgrade costs and continue to deploy new applications.
A major driver in the shift to IP is the flexible capabilities it enables including virtualization, technology consolidation and the ability to rapidly deploy new applications. As the number of remote and home agents continues to grow, the ability to efficiently tie together these distributed sites is becoming increasingly important. A virtual contact center enables organizations to use geographically- dispersed agents and provide them with access to the same features and capabilities as agents located in the actual center.
Centralized processing enables organizations to consolidate their core call processing equipment into a single infrastructure that incorporates remote agent sites, satellite locations and outsourced resources, all of which can be centrally managed and maintained. With the previous CTI approach, software had to be installed, updated and maintained at each site, straining internal resources and complicating system management.
Most centers have already made a significant investment in a stable and effective technology infrastructure, and as a result are reluctant to make more changes unless substantial new benefits are expected. Still, one of the biggest concerns for businesses considering the move to IP is how to leverage existing systems. More specifically, they must be convinced that they will not only gain new features and functionality but will not lose existing applications or functionalities. Equally important is the ability to select and deploy new functionality while retaining compatibility with a variety of new or existing applications and product vendors.
Helping to ease these concerns while promoting the adoption of IP is SIP, a protocol that promotes interoperability between IP hardware and software while helping to remove many of the restrictions of proprietary systems. While SIP implementations have been maturing, many initial deployments were focused on the trunk side, allowing the use of standard voice gateways. The second phase, SIP on the line side, enabled the use of standard telephone end points. We are now entering the third phase, SIP on the application side, which allows the IP infrastructure to support multiple distributed voice applications.
The widespread emergence of SIP means organizations no longer need to rip out existing legacy systems to add new IP functionality. In the past, contact center applications were stacked on top of the infrastructure, so any changes infrastructure could potentially impact the underlying applications. The ability of IP to support multiple distributed voice applications means applications can now co-exist independently within the stack. SIP also has opened up the telephony field to many new developers who are now creating innovative applications that capitalize on the potential benefits inherent in IP telephony.
Among the key benefits of an IP telephony framework is location-independence, which results in significant cost savings and eliminates geographic limitations by allowing agents to sit at any PC desktop anywhere in the world. This virtualization capability alters the customer service landscape by eliminating boundaries between the center and the rest of the enterprise. IP also makes it easier for agents to get presence information about available resources, helping to streamline the support process and increase productivity.
When implemented correctly, IPT offers a number of benefits:
Ability to mix legacy TDM hardware with IP telephony components.
Improved efficiency resulting from centralized, consolidated management.
Virtualization of resources and a single point of enterprise-wide call control and routing.
Application portability.
Ability to access enterprise resources outside the confines of the contact center such as customer request fulfillments.
Technology compatibility from multiple vendors.
Flexibility to work with external third-party systems.
Flexibility, compatibility and protection of business continuity are important considerations in migration. Each organization needs to develop a strategy that maps closely to overall goals and current infrastructure needs, one that can create a solution that reduces total cost of ownership without sacrificing existing capabilities.
One way to overcome this challenge is to migrate in a staged approach. This provides cost benefits while preserving the investment in legacy purchases. Key to a successful phased roll-out is identifying users who can show a near-term benefit and targeting them for early implementation. This enables organizations to roll out new capabilities first to those people and migrate to others over time.
Choosing the right architecture is vital. A wrong choice can potentially limit future deployment options and restrict performance of a center as it evolves and grows. Equally important is the ability to retain compatibility with existing infrastructure while ensuring the flexibility to deploy new applications as needed.
In order to establish a more accurate total cost of ownership, organizations should make sure they understand post-sales support and system integration requirements. By choosing vendors that support a standards-based approach, they can deploy multiple technologies from multiple vendors in different places and use SIP to enable all of these pieces to work together.
When considering return on investment, look beyond the short-term, easily-measurable elements. Implemention should be seen as a strategic move rather than a cost-cutting exercise. Ultimately the best approach is to view it as a long-term investment, one that will provide ongoing returns in capital savings, productivity and future innovation.
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