Legacy Call Center IP Integration (IPI) with
CosmoCall Universe™

IP Integration (IPI) makes CosmoCall Universe the optimum ACD and Contact Center upgrade path for a traditional PBX. IPI, enables graceful, investment-preserving evolution from a telephone-only, circuit-switched environment to an IP-based, multimedia contact center. The term IPI contrasts with the term Computer-Telephony Integration (CTI), which describes the traditional way of upgrading a PBX to a contact center. IPI is more efficient, cost effective, full-featured, and seamless than CTI, making CosmoCall Universe an attractive alternative to the CTI upgrade paths offered by many of the PBX manufacturers themselves, such as Nortel’s Symposium Call Center and Avaya’s Interaction Center. IPI has the additional advantage of being suitable for implementation both as a premise-based facility and as a service provider hosted offering.

How IPI Works

IPI works by connecting the all-IP CosmoCall Universe (CCU) to the legacy PBX via the IP trunk and line cards that most PBX manufacturers now provide. Using IPI with the PBX, and CCI (Computer-Computer Integration) with the CRM Application, CosmoCall Universe greatly simplifies the process of creating a complete contact center and eliminates most of the complexities and costs of the traditional CTI tools.

The following picture shows the traditional CTI approach:

Contrast this CTI-everywhere approach with the simplicity of CosmoCall Universe IPI:

While both of these diagrams are intentionally simplified, anyone who has experienced a complete implementation of CTI linking PBX, IVR, and CRM will begin to recognize that IPI/CCI offers many advantages over CTI. 

Features and Benefits of IPI

• An advanced skills-based, priority-based, and value-based ACD routing engine that applies to all types of calls.
   
• New media channels such as web and e-mail in the contact center. 
   
• Combines multiple legacy locations into a single virtual ACD, with unified queuing and administration for all agents at all locations.
   
• Home Agents and Remote Supervisors with no special equipment at either the main or remote location, seamlessly integrated into to the global call center operation.
   
• No need to deploy dedicated IVR and CTI systems at each location.
   
• Investment Protection for your PBX, with an evolution path to a completely IP-based Contact Center infrastructure.

Additional Benefits of IPI in Hosted Call Center Deployments

When IPI is deployed as part of a Hosted Contact Center offering, the service provider's customers are get a feature-rich, low-risk approach to moving their contact centers into the 21st century:

• Minimal on-site equipment - most equipment is hosted in the Service Provider's network 
   
• Minimal initial investment 
   
• Rapid deployment - no complex, dedicated infrastructure to install

Figure 1 (below) is a block diagram that shows how IPI adds CosmoCall Universe to an existing PBX by using one of the PBX manufacturer's standard VoIP cards.

These cards can be added to the legacy switch at a very moderate cost, providing the bridge between the circuit switch and the IP contact center. Telephone calls are delivered to the customer premises using the existing circuit T1/E1 connections to the PBX.

These telephone calls can then be connected to CosmoCall Universe agents. All agent types are supported, including PC Softphone, IP Phone, Hybrid PC and circuit phone, and circuit phone only. IPI brings telephone calls to the agents with a minimum of change to the existing telephone infrastructure, but provides the full capabilities of CosmoCall Universe. For example, agents can use the CosmoAgent application to handle Internet calls, e-mail, and voice mail, in addition to telephone calls.

Service Provider Perspective on IPI 

IPI provides a very feasible way for contact center Service Providers to add the ACD capability to premises PBX and ACD installations. The method may be particularly effective for customers who have not yet deployed a full-fledged ACD, but who do have a premises PBX in place. In these cases, the SP is effectively competing with other advanced ACD options for whatever PBX exists. The usual SP selling arguments apply to this situation. But the SP's case is strengthened by the existence of a very feasible and cost effective method to add ACD capability as an overlay via the simple installation of IP cards in the premises switch.