Seeking input on switching to Contact Center

JMakowski · ‎09-17-2010

Hello all. We're currently working with our reseller and Cisco reps to determine if using Cisco Contact Center is right for us. We are currently using a Nortel PBX along with portions of the Nortel CCMS system, along with their CRQM (Contact Recorder/Quality Monitor) system.

Over many conversations, we're almost ready to get the quote and budget the change.

What we're looking for now is to talk to anyone who uses Contact Center in a manner similar to the way we will intend to use it.

Mathematica Policy Research (www.mathematica-mpr.com) is a Social and Economic Policy Research company that does studies for federal, state and local goverments along with some private foundations.

Our Survey Operations Center does our telephone interviewing and is 98% outbound calling. Very few studies are initiated with respondents calling us, most incoming calls are requested call-backs to established 800 numbers.

We also use a specialized Interviewing package called Blaise, which currently is primarily a flat file database type of system. So our Survey Information Systems programmers are tasked with a lot of the programming required to move data back and forth between the Blaise system and other reporting and data mangement systems we have. This includes moving simple data such as a phone number from Blaise to the phone system for autodialing.

The Survey Operations Center staff like the user management features of the Cisco Contact Center. But our Survey Information Systems programmers are concerned with the openess of the API's for initiating dialing, as well as the ability to tag recording with information that is meaningful to us so we may more easily locate these recordings for review or archival.

Is anyone in these forums running Contact Center in a similar setup, is happy with the capabilities and flexibility of the system and would be willing to receive a short call from us to briefly discuss the system?

Thanks,

James Makowski

Systems Analyst

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

geoff · ‎09-17-2010

But our Survey Information Systems programmers are concerned with the openess of the API's for initiating dialing ....

I would agree with that. The way to get the customers into the Dialer for dialing is through the import utility running on logger A, and then through the Campaign Manager to the Dialer in batches, pulled on demand by the Dialer.

It is difficult to deal with if you are trying to manage the campaign in other ways. As long as you understand the limitations, it is effective. But we often wish there was another way. There is a back door - but Cisco should open the kimono.

Regards,

Geoff

thomascollins · ‎09-17-2010

James - We don't use outbound, so I can't comment on that. But regardng recording, look into Quality Management/Compliance Recording. For Contact Center Express it would be Cisco WFO. For Contact Center Enterprise it would be from Calabrio. Same product, just OEM'd through Cisco for Express.

The tagging of recordings is actually very easy. Assuming your agents are using Cisco Agent Desktop, you can use the CTI interface to post custom data to the recordng server. So you can tag the calls wth any meta data that you would like. And then it's easily searchable through the recording GUI.

david.macias · ‎09-18-2010

I'm currently working on an outbound project and the number one thing to understand is that the Cisco outbound option is very basic, if you want any intelligence you will need some sort of 3rd party application (e.g. Austin Logistics).

david

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