vice problems. Overall, demand from all these areas is building a market that topped $2.3 billion last year, with CTI services alone (not including hardware and software) representing $302 million, according to Dataquest.
But what about the technical nightmares? There's good news on that front, too. At the high end, portable APIs, such as ersit, offer a universal interface to help connect data systems to automatic call distribution (ACD) and PBX hardware. Also, new CTI middleware is helping resellers focus on integrating computer telephony within existing business processes rather than creating the glue that binds telephony and data systems together.
PC-based CTI implementations are becoming easier as open standards such as Microsoft's Telephony API (TAPI) and No
vell's Telephony Server API (TSAPI) mature. And new classes of telephony hardware and software let resellers assemble the right pieces for each client without having to write new server and workstation code for every project.
We talked to a number of resellers and systems integrators that serve large corporations or smaller companies. Here's how they ring up profits from CTI.
Capitalizing on Call Centers
The boom in corporate CTI is making established consulting and telephony companies rethink their business. For example, KPMG Peat Marwick, a venerable integrator, started a unit devoted to call centers after more and more customers wanted to build or expand call-center services.
Similarly, Aspect Telecommunications, a long-time manufacturer of ACD systems, opened its own CTI practice when it saw the market growing. Both KPMG and Aspect focus on launching or upgrading call centers in Fortune 1000 corporations. Andy Zazzera, managing principal for Aspect's Consulting and Systems Int
egration Business Unit, worked on one of the first call centers back in 1983. He remembers when integrators had to hardwire ACD units to Unisys hosts for basic "screen pop" applications (where sales scripts or perhaps pricing information appear on a sales rep's display during a phone call with a customer). Today, CTI tasks are easier thanks to DDE and other technologies that link Windows desktop programs with CTI servers.
John Higgins, in charge of KPMG's Call Center Solutions, sees call centers as a natural outgrowth of sales-force automation projects within large communications firms and the banking industry. "Deregulation is forcing these industries to reinvent their product sets and redesign their business infrastructure," Higgins says. "CTI is one way to do that."
Consequently, the screen pop is becoming a simplistic example of CTI. That's partly because many large corporations today have already made some additional investment in CTI, such as IVR systems. Thus, many projects don't require l
arge outlays for programmable telephone switches or powerful desktop machines.
Instead, Higgins says, the job of his practice is first to ask clients to articulate their customer-service goals and then to explain why they think the system needs fixing. From that, KPMG determines what CTI features the client needs and creates a
cost/benefit
outline.
Then, the most obvious problems are tackled. For example, many companies that installed an IVR system use the canned scripts supplied by the vendor. These scripts often get shoehorned into an individual business process, and customer-service glitches--in the form of callers having to repeat their customer number over and over, for example--can be deadly. This part of the CTI project "isn't particularly sexy," Higgins admits, but it's essential to getting technology to work smoothly within an existing workflow system. Statistics from the Gartner Group bolster this view. Gartner estimates that 30 percent of all CTI projects have to
be redone within the first year because project leaders didn't give enough thought to how implementations mesh with company processes. Similarly, 20 percent of all IVR projects are redone within three months of launching, according to Gartner.
Database Integration
The real technical work comes when it's time to integrate the corporate data store with the CTI system. It's here that resellers invest the lion's share of their time and budget. The main challenge comes with building a bridge between the legacy data system and the agent software.
To help it better address this area, Aspect acquired Prospect Software, a company that developed a line of CTI server software and application development toolkits. One of the three main components in the product line is a CTI server that can be either NT- or Unix-based, starting at about $10,000 for 25 simultaneous connections. The server sits between desktop clients and the ACD hardware to translate client requests into message formats and protocols
the ACD unit understands. This intermediary service means developers don't have to rewrite CTI applications if the corporation runs different ACD units throughout the enterprise or if it changes them.
The second component, an API tool-kit, provides C-based programming tools for messaging between the server and the desktop CTI applications. Tools include ActiveX components, DLLs, DDE, a Java class library, and Unix linkable libraries (ULLs). The controls start at about $15,000 each. A "routing wizard" gives developers a forms-based platform for creating call-routing algorithms.
According to Prospect president
Gary Barnett
, TAPI and TSAPI aren't sophisticated enough for ACD systems, so the company relies on two other classes of telephony APIs. Prospect developed native APIs individually for the Lucent G3, Nortel Meridian, Rockwell Spectrum, and Aspect CallCenter switches. The APIs were designed to handle features unique to each of the proprietary ACD models. When complete port
ability is important, the company relies on Versit.
Project goals dictate which set of programming tools to use to build a CTI application, Barnett says. "We start at the agent's desktop and work our way back to the switch, asking the customer what he wants," he explains. "If the desktop application uses X Window, then we work with static ULLs. If it's a Visual Basic application, then we use ActiveX. The company may want to glue in a special feature, and that's when we choose between one of our proprietary APIs or Versit."
Although the close relationship with Prospect makes that brand of CTI products an obvious choice for Aspect's integration group, resellers have a number of other choices. For example, AnswerSoft sells Sixth Sense, a call-center automation application, as well as Silhouette, which lets call-center agents handle inquiries that come in from their company's Web server. Sixth Sense NC performs similar chores within intranets.
Dialogic, another player in this field, offers CT-Co
nnect, middleware similar to Prospect's server for messaging between desktop CTI applications and leading telephone switches, including those from Aspect, Lucent, Mitel, Nortel, Rockwell, and Siemens. CT-Connect runs under NT but not under Unix. For multinational corporations, Dialogic's high-level API, GlobalCall, helps developers through the tedium of low-level signaling protocols, which differ from country to country, and with the challenges of controlling a variety of network interfaces.
Genesys Labs' CTI server offering is T-Server, which includes call tracking as part of its standard features. The company's client interface is InterActive-T, which sends call-specific information to a company's data applications to lessen the work of grafting telephony onto existing applications. Company-designed application interfaces use DDE or custom applications to connect client applications with the CTI server.
These CTI middleware products demonstrate how the technology has matured from one-time, custo
m solutions to projects built from stable, reusable tools. "Systems integrators used to invent CTI solutions over and over," Prospect's Barnett says. "Now, we can use foundation middleware, which helps us focus on specific problems for each customer. This also reduces our risk when we don't have to develop new applications each time out."
Smaller-Scale CTI
Corporate-focused resellers and integrators aren't the only ones pursuing CTI boom times. Resellers oriented to small and medium-size businesses are also opening new CTI practices to serve companies that see the merging of telephony and computers as a step toward better customer service.
For example, Michael Carpenter, president of Carpenter Computing (Marblehead, MA), began watching the CTI market shortly after he opened his networking systems-integration business in the early 1980s. Three years ago he "jumped in with both feet" to bid for projects calling for screen pops. His tool: CallWare's
Phonetastic
, a Win
dows telephone-management system that runs under NetWare. Priced between $60-$200 per user, depending on installation size and requirements, the program uses TAPI and TSAPI to link telephones and PCs and connects desktop applications and databases via DDE, ODBC, and dBase files. Today, the most popular CTI projects in Carpenter's market are call centers and universal inboxes, where people can see or hear and respond to e-mail, faxes, and voice mail from one central application.
The main technological stumbling block that Carpenter sees centers around relationships between resellers and switch vendors. Because telephony resellers sell switches as part of their package of services, switch makers that have been slow to cast off proprietary traditions can be tight-lipped about sharing information helpful in programming the hardware. Relations between the two groups are "very difficult because one vendor has to trust we don't pass information on to another vendor," Carpenter says. For now, the best answer s
eems to be trying to develop trust by working together. Carpenter also hopes that switch vendors will come to see resellers as the data experts that can help them sell more telephony equipment.
Another reseller, AB Microtek (Vancouver, B.C.), sells its CTI customers individual components of a package that includes a phone switch with built-in caller ID, TAPI and TSAPI adapters, and networking software. Currently the company uses NEC NEAX 2000 switches, which, in models for 30 concurrent users, cost about $20,000. Add voice mail capabilities and the price jumps another $15,000.
Chris Dawkins, AB Microtek's manager of operations, says integrators traditionally plug an Ethernet card into these types of switches to tie telephone and data networks together. However, a number of PBX companies are now offering Windows NT servers with built-in telephony functions to perform the same job. Although Dawkins concedes that the newer approach is maturing and offers some advantages, including easier, DSP-based
programmability, AB Microtek more often than not uses the traditional approach. PCs, he says, have a reputation for crashing, while phone equipment symbolizes reliability. "We have to be conservative--a lot of clients would get upset if we came to them with a PC-based phone switch. They don't want to mess with the dial tone."
CTI 2000
In the future, tools that help resellers over the fundamental technical hurdles will free them to create even more innovative CTI applications. Some resellers see a continuation of the trend away from the phone as the focal point for communications. "The CRT will become the window to the world," says Zazzera, referring to phone-dialing software, contact lists, and database records that will all be displayed on a monitor.
Other CTI systems are already helping multinational companies handle a variety of far-away customers. For example, a French-speaking caller dialing into a company in New York can be transferred along with a sales history to a division in Que
bec. Similarly, worldwide companies are able to adopt a "follow the sun" strategy: Late-night callers in Chicago can talk to humans manning call centers in London rather than get a recording that tells them to call back during regular business hours.
The Web is opening new CTI challenges. Customers may now spend time reviewing product prices and spec sheets at a Web site before clicking on an automatic link that establishes a phone connection with a sales representative. "When that call hits a sales agent, it's no longer a cold call," Zazzera points out. If a sales rep is responsible for a large number of products, there's a good chance the caller will be more informed than the sales rep. The CTI system needs to display a record of what information the caller requested and display the same information on the sales rep's screen as quickly as possible. This type of new challenge shows that resellers will be able to depend on CTI complexity for years to come.
Where to Find
Active Voice
Seattle, WA
Phone: 206-441-4700
AnswerSoft
Richardson, TX
Phone: 972-997-8300
Internet:
http://www.answersoft.com
CTI Gets Ready for the Masses
