Every call center manager knows how important it is to get customers to the right agent fast. Perhaps that's why spending on Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) technology accounts for the lion's share of what was, in 1998, more than a 3 billion dollar call center software market.

Yet even as call center managers pour an increasing amount of money into ACD technology, many are finding that traditional products aren't meeting customer demand.

Customers today want to interact with organizations via a variety of communication channels, and they want to get connected just as easily and efficiently whether they're using the phone, fax, e-mail or the Web. This customer demand has prompted call center managers to seek out new routing products that address multi-channel requirements.

Christine Holley
Communications Director,
Interactive Intelligence

Understanding the Differences
Rising to the challenge, vendors from diverse market sectors are flooding the market with new products. The challenge for call center managers is to select from this deluge of products offered by everyone from traditional telecom vendors to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) vendors. Criteria such as vendor reputation, feature set and support services are critical to the evaluation process. What many call center managers have difficulty with, however, is evaluating the technology that underlies these multi-channel routing products. This isn't a surprise given the difficulty that even the most technically savvy manager has in cutting through marketing hype littered with buzz words like "enterprise-class," "portal applications" and "end-to-end flows." Yet unless call center managers know exactly what technology underlies these multi-channel routing products, they're in for what could be a not-so-pleasant surprise.

Computer Telephony Integration
The simplest way to analyze underlying technology is to understand the evolution of communication devices - in particular, computer telephony integration (CTI). Traditional communication solutions began with hardware-based, proprietary devices that were linked using middleware. In the days of phone-only interactions, these solutions worked well for call centers. However, as computers played an increasingly important role in storing customer information, call centers wanted a solution that linked, not only telephony devices, but also IT components such as databases and response libraries.

From this need came CTI. A major hallmark of CTI was the soft phone, which allowed agents to perform call control tasks such as "hold" and "transfer" from their desktop computers. Another hallmark was screen pop, which enabled a phone call or other interaction to trigger a window on an agent's computer screen pre-filled with certain caller information such as name, address, phone number and purchase history.

While CTI can work well in call center environments with only one or two communication channels, its inherit weaknesses begin to show as more channels are added to the mix. This goes back to CTI's basic "balkanized" architecture, which requires a separate device for each new communication channel. In addition to the purchase of new hardware systems like fax servers, voice recorder servers and others, separate reporting tools are also required for each new device, making it nearly impossible to perform end-to-end reporting across communication channels.

It's easy to see how quickly CTI becomes both unmanageable and costly as multiple communication channels are used. Now imagine adding new features like IVR and ACD. For routing, typical CTI technology requires that each type of communication, such as phone call, fax, e-mail and Web chat, get queued and routed separately. While this accomplishes multi-channel routing, it does so using redundant resources and adding exponential complexity.

Customer Interaction Management Technology
Recognizing the limitations of CTI-based multi-channel routing, some vendors are using a different technology. The most markedly different of these technologies is customer interaction management technology. Interaction management technology differs from CTI in that it uses a unified architecture instead of an integrated one. All interactions, including phone calls, faxes, e-mail and Web interactions, are processed via a single platform. Fewer devices at start-up translate into reduced implementation and maintenance costs. Administration is also simplified.

Another major difference is that interaction management technology uses an open, software-based architecture. This makes integration with existing IT systems much easier. It also gives call centers an incremental growth path, in addition to increasing ease-of-customization.

Multi-channel routing solutions based on interaction management technology work differently than CTI-based systems. With interaction management technology, agent profiles indicating skill level, cost and other criteria are set up once using a single administration tool. These profiles are used across multiple communication channels. This also applies for workgroups. Profiling once saves administrators valuable time, especially when profiles must be updated frequently or new ones added.

Also, interaction management technology uses a single queue through which all interactions are routed making prioritization much easier. Because interaction management technology is software-based, there is no limit to the number or size of the queue.

Another big advantage of interaction management technology is that it offers a single customization tool to be used across communication channels. IT staff only have to learn one interface so training time is reduced. More importantly, however, business rules generated by this customization tool can be applied across communication channels. For instance, the same "script" used to route calls to the most appropriate agent, can also be used to route Web chats.

Interaction management technology's unified architecture also offers the advantage of end-to-end reporting across communication channels. Call center managers can use a single reporting tool to measure all customer interactions, giving them an accurate analysis of service levels.

The Future
Perhaps the most important question to ask when selecting a multi-channel routing solution is will it position your call center to take advantage of future technologies. The best technology today might not accommodate new technologies of tomorrow.

Interaction management technology helps to ensure a call center's investment with its open, software-based architecture. While this technology comes with a host of other interaction management applications like IVR and predictive dialing, it does not try to tackle other components of customer care solutions. This approach allows call centers to deploy a powerful multi-channel routing solution without forcing them to adopt a particular switching platform or locking them into a specific CRM application.

Whatever choice a call center manager makes, it should be an informed one. So be sure to look beyond feature sets and marketing hype. Look under the hood. Not all multi-channel routing products are built the same.

About the Author
Christine J. Holley is the Market Communications Director for Interactive Intelligence, a developer of multi-channel interaction management software today in use by more than 900 contact centers, enterprises and service providers around the world. Ms. Holley has worked in the IT industry since 1994 and began freelance writing in 1992, covering topics ranging from IT recruiting and management, to high-tech and customer care.