Scenario - bxp Integration with a Phone System

1 Overview

It is possible to integrate bxp software (bxp) with a phone system or unified communications platform.

Solutions have been available in this area since the 1970s.

The primary form of CTI is that as a call arrives to the user that a customer's details are "popped" up on screen. This "screen pop" provides the person taking the call with information about the customer. This information is identified through a number of means but primarily through looking up the customers phone number and matching it in a customer database. An IVR (Integrated Voice Repsonse solution, press 1 for sales, 2 for support, etc.) can also add further information to the screen pop further improving efficiencies.

There are many benefits to this integration which is called CTI (Computer and Telephony Integration).

1. Reduces Costs - Call Handling Time (CHT) which is rolled up into Average Handling Time (AHT) is reduced as you don't need to recapture details.

• If decreasing Average Handling Time (AHT) is a concern, pop ups / automated look ups can drastically reduce the amount of time spent at the start of the call trying to identify the customers record. If an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is used, a guaranteed record lookup for the right customer can be found instantly, which can reduce AHT by up to 60 seconds.

2. Improves Service - By knowing who the caller is before answering the call you can tailor a more personalised service.

• Customer experience can be greatly enhanced. An agent can answer the call as "Good afternoon Mr Lacey. My name is Philip. How can I help you with your Product X account today?" as opposed to the usual "Good afternoon. My name is Philip. Can I get your customer number please?"

3. Increases Sales - When used in an outbound capacity , telephone calls can be made automatically, this speeds up connection, data management and avoids mis-dialling.

4. Improves Productivity - Through screen pops users can enter notes right away without losing time trying to find appropriate screens, campaigns or tabs to use.

5. Improves Data Quality - As the solution can auto format and auto populate appropriate to the caller.

6. Collaboration enhancement - If a call is transferred or conferenced in, all the caller’s information is shared with the next person.

7. Reduces Training - The solution reduces the amount of training for agents.

8. Enhanced reporting - It is possible to link call and customer data for enhanced Business Intelligence (BI) reporting.

There are many solutions extolling the virtues of CTI

• http://blog.talkdesk.com/benefits-of-computer-telephony-integration-in-the-call-center
• https://downloads.avaya.com/elmodocs2/ip_office/DOCS3_0/DATA/Additional/mergedProjects/productdescription/ccc_v5/thebenefitsofcti.htm
• http://www.ddvc.com/solutions/cti/advantages-of-cti.php
• http://benefitof.net/benefits-of-cti/

2 Why integrate with bxp ?

There are a number of key advantages to bxp over other platforms in this area:

1. Technology agnostic - bxp can be integrated with numerous phone technologies in numerous sites for the same campaign
2. Secure data storage - Rather than loading customer information into the dialler or other unsecured telephony platform, bxp provides out of the box security
3. Customisation - The simplicity of change of a bxp form reduces the overhead on IT and Telephone support resources to update scripts and manipulate data
4. Generate dialling lists - bxp has numerous tools to generate dialling lists in the format required by your phone system to reduce configuration and loading times
5. Flexibility of data capture - Whatever information your telephony solution can output to the screen pop can be captured by bxp
6. Redundancy - With an outbound management of its own, should your dialler / telephony platform fail, bxp comes with stand alone data management solutions for inbound, outbound and blended campaigns.
7. Cost - There is no more cost effective feature comparable integrable solution
8. Support - bxp and the All n One team have performed numerous integrations and are very versed in support and configuration of numerous solutions

3 Elements

Regardless of platform there are a number of common components to a CTI solution.

1. A customer (green person icon) attempts to get in touch with the company, usually via phone or email.
2. A communications platform, usually a phone system, accepts the call
3. The communications platform, based on rules, routes the call to an agents desktop
4. On that desktop is client software listening out for a contact
5. When a contact arrives the client software responds and can perform a number of actions.
6. In this example it has an inbuilt web browser, in which it can show a web page. Our bxp page. Other versions just open a browser such as Internet Explorer, or the computer's default browser.

Usually outbound campaigns present calls to the agents desktop as if they were an inbound call. i.e. the Phone System makes the call and then sends the screen pop to the agent. This is why inbound and outbound configurations are not very dissimilar.

4 Opening bxp

When a user wants to log into bxp the default process is to go to a login page such as https://ww3.allnone.ie/client/client_demo/main/login.asp

bxp has an Application Programming Interface (API), which allows more automated options.

Through CTI there is an option to:

• Log the user in
• Go into the Inbound Contact module
• Open a campaign
• Provide a field to search on
• Supply a value to lookup on
• If an exact match is found display this record to the user

This entire process happens in less than a second.

5 Technical Setup

The instructions for this setup are covered off in our BEAPI document BEAPI

It is achieved through using a URL such as:

https://ww3.allnone.ie/client/client_demo/cti/userCTI_GenericEntry.asp?system=datalogging&user_id=abc123&user_key=passkey&campaign_code=CODE_001&parameterA=passedDataA&parameterB=passedDataB

Breaking this down

• https://ww3.allnone.ie/client/client_demo/cti/userCTI_GenericEntry.asp is the API page
• system is the function to perform, in this case "datalogging" is inbound contact logging
• user_id is the user to log in as
• user_key is the second level identifier for the users account
• campaign_code is a unique identifier for the line / campaign the user called about
• paramaterA, parameterB and so on all the client software to pass extra information

Different client software have this ability to "pop a URL on call arrival"

Why not try a demo for yourself. Your IP will need to be approved though! Bxp_API_-_Pop_a_URL

6 Client Software

Your communications platform will usually come with client software.

If it doesn't here are some commonly used alternatives:

• Cisco Unified Communications Platform
• Avaya Genesys Agent Desktop (GAD)
• Zoiper has a free and a paid business version. The functionality is not in the free version but is in the business paid version.
• iSymphony
• ASTassistant
• 3CX client has limited options

Just for noting:

• X-Lite doesn’t have incoming configuration capability.
• Bria 3 also from CounterPath does have “click to dial” but not incoming pop ups.

6.1 Aeonix Integration

Aeonix from Tadiran Telecom allows integration. Using the ETAS.INI file on the server under the users login folder, it is possible to include a screen pop on triggers and button press.

command= c:\\Progra~1\\intern~1\\iexplore.exe https://ww3.allnone.ie/client/client_demo/cti/userCTI_Record.asp?user_id=abc123&user_key=passkey&ID=3&strCDA_X_field_Y_Z=%calling

6.2 EaziPopper Integration

For Avaya and Cisco solutions it is possible to use Eazipopper http://ct-solutions.com/zendesk/

CT Eazipopper is the result of a collaboraXon between Zendesk, Cisco and CT SoluXons. This application would allow any URL to pop with configurable parameters attached.