Cisco Intelligent Contact Management
The Cisco Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) software is probably one of
the most important pieces of the Cisco IPCC. Purchased by Cisco, Geotel (as it
was called then) offered customers the ability to use a solution that provided integration
with multiple vendors: Automatic Call Distributors (ACDs).This let you,
via a single interface, pass voice calls through to different vendors’ACDs, which,
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Figure 7.1 Application Administration for Cisco CallManager
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in turn, allowed you to have a single set of business rules as well as a single
reporting interface that spanned all supported ACDs.
Due to the nature of the solution, it was only a matter of time before Cisco
developed an interface into the Cisco CallManager.This interface now provides
multiple legacy ACD support as well as gaining from the benefits of integrating
with the Cisco CallManager IP-based solution.Via the Cisco CallManager, it
allows you to provide customers with a smooth migration path to IP telephony
while protecting the existing ACD investments, which are more often than not
substantial.
Within the IPCC solution, ICM is the brain that makes the decision on
where to pass a customer contact (a voice call, for example) through to. Based on
a set of rules held with ICM (explained later in this section), it has the ability to
decide which agent or type of agent (service, skill group, and so on) a call should
be passed through. If, for example, you have two people enter your contact center
simultaneously, you need to be able to provide a predefined level of service to
both customers based on certain criteria, like their account number, or the
number they dialed.This allows you to categorize customers, for example,
according to their current status with the company (Platinum, Gold, Silver).You
also need to be able to pass these calls through to the correct agent. In this
example, it may be wise to pass the Platinum customer through to an agent
before the Silver customer. Also, these rules should make sure a customer is passed
to the correct type of agent the first time, negating the need for unnecessary
transfers.
NOTE
Remember to find out if your legacy ACD is one of the supported integrations.
If so, this should ease the move from a legacy solution to one
that’s IP-based. The list of ACDs as well as PBXs currently supported by
ICM is available at www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/icm/.
With ICM, many different combinations of software are needed, based primarily
on customer needs. Some of the more common options will follow
shortly. However, these should only be used as indications of some of the components
needed. Please consult the Cisco Web site for a listing of partners authorized
to see these solutions. One important point to note is that these kinds of
solutions should only be deployed with some type of professional services that
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make sure the installation is not only done correctly, but supported by Cisco.
These partners can be located at www.cisco.com/public/crs/locator/, which provides
you with a comprehensive listing of all available partners in your area.
The ICM Script Editor, as the name implies, is where the scripts for ICM lie.
ICM uses these scripts (which are usually defined by business processes within an
organization) to make decisions on where a call should be sent.Within these
scripts it is possible for us to define different groupings of agents based on criteria
such as the dialed number or the digits entered on an IVR.These scripts understand
that if, for example, the number 555-1212 is dialed, it will take you through
to XYZ Corporation’s Sales Department, but if 555-9191 is dialed, it will pass
the call through to the Service Department. Once the department is defined, we
can then decide which set of agents a call can be sent to, and how to send these
calls in an even manner.A simple example of this can be seen in the terms
Longest Available Agent (LAA) and Minimum Expected Delay (MED).With
LAA, a call will be passed to the agent who has been available the longest;
whereas MED will pass a call through to an agent that has been calculated to
have the minimum expected delay.These types of decisions, as mentioned earlier,
should mimic the business processes already in place, as well as be an extension of
them. Figure 7.2 shows the ICM Script Editor Interface.