实施CTI的十个步骤

（CTI论坛编译）

现在，有很多企业正准备使用CTI，特别是那些依靠呼叫中心获取利润或为用户提供服务的企业。然而，这些企业通常并没有意识到建立CTI系统的复杂性。特别是那些没有为CTI作好准备的企业。CTI的实施将会经历一个长期和痛苦的过程。

建立CTI最重要的过程是规划阶段（CTI为可行性研究赋予了新的含义）。在规划阶段，公司经常发现要对企业进行一些基础改变和预先改进以便引入CTI。这些变化一般包括业务流程的变更，新技术的应用和改变长期建立的部门文化等方面。

但是，在过去几年中，基于CTI的技术能力有了很大进步，使得实施CTI的时间和费用都降低了。例如： 中间件产品可以为用户提供快速有效的开发方式，满足用户的定制要求；API（应用程序编程接口）允许第三方开发者设计软件产品，他们提供了多种解决方案，目前基于CTI应用的开发"模板"数量正在不断增加。

多家供应商共同工作解决系统间互操作问题，如共同成立了ECTF(企业计算机电话论坛）并在近期发布了S.100规范。

同时，不要为各种各样的信息而忽视了基础的问题。CTI不可能神奇地解决呼叫中心操作流程的缺陷，也不会在工作量大、人员少的条件下，迅速提高生产效率。

最后，不管采用何种设备，这些设备一定要能够协同工作。例如：如果你使用了两种不同的，独立开发的应用软件，它们都具有控制你的桌面电话的能力，桌面电话本身并不能判断应该选择谁。

在本文中将重点介绍设计和实施基于CTI技术解决方案的一些要点，这些要点是我们与其他公司合作过程中得到的。

以下的10个步骤可以帮助你了解你的呼叫中心或公司是否已经为实施CTI做好了准备。

1. 学习准备

对于CTI，不同的人有不同的解释，即使是CTI从业者对它的理解也各不相同。所以首先要找一些书籍和文章来看看，并且多参加一些相关的研讨和交流会。有了一定的了解后，就可以向设备提供商索取有关CTI的典型案例、技术白皮书等相关资料，并就你所要了解的问题与他们进行交流。

2. 分析企业及各部门的业务需求

从为用户提供何种级别的服务到对雇员的工作安排，一旦确定了这些需求，就应该写出文档，它可作为呼叫中心技术选型的依据。选择技术、实施和使用这些技术都必须和业务的需求紧密相联。

3.充分论证

在有了业务需求后，就要和呼叫中心的管理员和电话服务代表进一步探讨，看看哪些地方还需要改进或理顺工作流程，以便确定采用哪种CTI应用。这其间大家要畅所欲言，充分发表自己的意见，因为你还没有得到所有问题的答案。

不能简单的在现有业务流程上增加一个技术层，成功的CTI应用应该将技术改造和业务流程的重新设计紧密结合。你的部分工作就是指出如何改造业务流程或创造新的方法改进操作，以满足业务需求。同时还要考虑人员、开销、班组和合作者的合理改变，这样才能从CTI中得到好处。

如果在这个阶段，你不能确定处理流程和潜在的需要，最好还是先停下来！因为CTI不能自动更改或解决现有处理流程的问题。

4. 为你的企业创建一个CTI模型

根据长期的发展目标，来分析基于CTI的应用应如何转变现有商业模式,以及这种转变对公司的影响。模型应体现你对CTI能力的了解、设备供应商的能力和你公司的商业需求及应用。主管经理根据模型可以决定进入购买程序，与此相关的人员还包括：使用者、电信部门和管理信息系统(MIS)成员。一但开始购买设备，就可以关注特定的一些具体问题，以逐步实现构想的模型。

5.确定资源

在企业的范围内确定你的项目组所需要的资源（如电信技术人员、信息人员，呼叫中心管理人员等）。CTI项目成功实施的关键一点是：让相关人员尽早介入其中并负起责任。另一关键因素是项目管理。你的企业内部是否有管理CTI实施的专家？(这应是一个全职的工作)或系统集成负责人，你要确定能从何处得到需要的条件，或着是否需要从外部聘请专家。

6. 设计好现有的或规划需要的通信系统

这应包括ACD,PBX,IVR，语音信箱等系统，要分清哪些是现在需要的，哪些是以后要更新换代的。设计好所有数据系统（包括硬件和软件），节省成本的设计方案应能适应各种环境：从主机终端方式，到客户服务器方式，到桌面系统。现在的趋势是客户服务器和桌面系统的产品正受到更多厂商和产品的支持。除此而外，还要规划好现有的网络结构和总体架构。

7.着眼将来

要考虑企业现在和将来在电信、MIS和网络构架方面的需求变化的影响等因素。你的网络结构是否考虑到公司将来的远程呼叫中心的需求?如果将来要用ANI做数据处理，你设计的数据库能支持多电话号码吗？能够成为数据库的主键吗？当需要IVR访问时，是否能得到相应的数据处理系统的支持。

8. 与设备商共商大计

与电话，数据和网络供应商谈谈你的计划，请他们提出解决方案。如果现有供应商不能满足你的CTI需要，你的计划中就要增加购买新的软件或硬件。如果可能，应尽量将你的供应商也纳入到项目组中去，并且使他们明白这种合作关系的重要性，以便能共同实施CTI计划。

9.制定商业方案

如果你完成了前面八个步骤，接下来就应围绕你的CTI规划，制定一个切实可行的商业方案。它应包括详细的量化的商业目标、操作目标和预期的收益及花费。这个方案可以提供给你的上级做阶段检查。

10. 起草实施计划

现在你已完成了需求分析，选择好了应用和技术方案，明确了潜在的问题，应该可以着手起草一份实施计划了。计划不应只有时间表，还要列明在实施每一步时需要的资源。你的CTI项目计划会不断改进，所以不应认为最初的草案就是最终方案，有些企业常常因为追求尽善尽美而拖延了进度，应该了解到，在计划实施过程中是需要具有灵活性的。记住，你不必追求一步就能实现所有系统功能，我们发现阶段性的CTI实施是最好的办法。

对于很多公司来说，呼叫中心正迅速地成为主要的客户接触手段，高层管理人士正逐步认识到呼叫中心的重要性。基于CTI的应用改变了企业的传统商业模式，提供了以客户为中心的解决方案。

赶快行动吧！因为你的竞争对手已经开始了。

作者简介：Don Van Doren是Vanguard通信公司总裁。Vanguard通信公司是具有8年历史独立咨询公司，隶属Morris Plains, NJ，主要帮助企业设计和实施客户关系管理解决方案。

原文：

Ten Steps Are You CTI Ready

By Don Van Doren, Vanguard Communications Corporation

Many companies, particularly those that rely heavily on call centers for revenues or customer service, are getting ready to jump on the CTI bandwagon. What they often don't realize is that CTI doesn't happen overnight - and especially in companies that are not CTI ready, implementation can be an extremely long and painful process.

Most of the battle of implementing CTI is in the planning (CTI gives new meaning to the term "feasibility study"). During planning, companies frequently find that substantial changes and advances must be made before CTI can be introduced. These changes can range from process changes to technology replacement to shifts in long-established department cultures.

However, in the last few years, there have been many advances in CTI-enabling capabilities, which have eased the long timeframes and costs of implementation. For example:

• middleware can provide effective shortcuts to eliminate custom code development for some applications,
• APIs (application programming interfaces) allow third party developers to design and bring to market software products that can provide solutions or at least "templates" for a growing number of common CTI-enabled applications,
• suppliers are working together to solve interoperability issues, such as the work being conducted under ECTF (Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum) and their recently announced S.100 specification

Finally, despite all the positioning of many emerging products, gaps in how these new capabilities work together need to be plugged. For example, there is no built-in mechanism to arbitrate between different, independently-developed applications attempting to control the same telephone on your desktop.

But, for this column, the focus is on some tips we've learned from working with companies to design and implement effective CTI-enabled solutions. The following 10 steps are a start to determining if your call center or your company is CTI ready.

1. Get Educated. CTI means different things to different people. Chances are if you ask five people walking around a CTI show floor for a definition of CTI, you'll get at least four different answers (seven different answers if you talk to five consultants). Read articles and books, attend seminars and conferences, and ask your vendors for materials that they may have, such as case studies or white papers on CTI. While you're at it, ask suppliers for the names of references you can speak with about their experiences.

 
2. Examine corporate and departmental business needs. These may range from providing customers with world class customer service to empowering employees. And once you've documented your business needs, never forget them! Successful implementation, use, and acceptance of any technology must be linked to business needs.

 
3. Keeping your business needs in mind, identify opportunities for CTI-enabled applications. Talk with call center managers and TSRs to find out where you might be able to improve or streamline processes. These should be open-ended discussions - remember , you won't have all the answers yet.

 

 

But avoid simply automating existing processes by adding a layer of technology on top. Successful CTI implementations frequently go hand-in-hand with either re-engineering or process redesign. Part of your job is to figure out how to improve processes or even create new methods for enhancing operations to meet business needs. In other cases, changes in approach to staffing, or compensation, or teamwork and collaboration may be required to achieve the benefits offered by CTI.

If, at this stage, you're not able to document processes and potential applications, STOP. CTI can't magically define and fix outdated and/or poorly defined processes.
 

4. Create a vision for CTI within your company. This should identify longer term objectives for how CTI-enabled applications will transform current business opportunities, and what that means for the organization. Include what you've learned about CTI's abilities, supplier capabilities, and about your company's business needs and applications. Get buy-in on the vision from senior management, as well as the user, telecom, and MIS staffs.

 

 

Once you get buy-in, you can begin tackling specific tasks that will enable you to achieve the vision.
 

5. Look at your entire organization to identify what resources you'll need to include on your project team (telecom, IS, call center management, etc.). We find that a key to successful CTI projects is early involvement and commitment by all groups that will touch the CTI implementation.

 

 

Another issue is project management: it's essential. Does your company have the expertise in-house to manage CTI implementation? Many companies don't have the luxury of a dedicated CTI project manager - and this is a full-time job - or an in-house systems integrator. Determine where you may need to bring in other resources or outside expertise as part of the project team.
 

6. Document all existing and planned telephony systems (ACDs, PBXs, IVR, voice messaging, etc.). Look at what's in place today and what your company plans for upgrades or replacements. Document all data systems, both hardware and software. Cost-effective solutions can often be designed for virtually any environment, from mainframe-terminal to client-server to desktop. Today's trend toward client-server and desktop solutions is increasingly supported by a variety of new products and suppliers. Document your current and planned network architecture(s) and infrastructure as well.

 
7. Consider the impact of emerging business requirements on your current and planned telecom, MIS, and network infrastructures. If you have a business requirement for remote call centers, is that supported by your architecture plans? If you plan to use ANI for data access, do your databases allow for multiple phone numbers, and can they be easily used as a key? Will the data processing systems be available during times that IVR access is needed?

 
8. Talk to your telephony, data, and network suppliers about your plans and see what types of solutions they can offer. Clearly, if a key supplier can't provide you with CTI capabilities, your CTI plan will need to include the acquisition of new hardware and/or software in order to support new capabilities.

 

 

Include your suppliers as part of your project team. And prepare them to understand the new relationships that you expect them to forge with each other to assist in your CTI implementation.
 

9. Once you've completed steps 1 to 8, develop a business case for implementing CTI that defines the specific, quantifiable business goals, the specific, quantifiable operational goals, and weighs the anticipated benefits and costs. This business case is a good checkpoint for your senior manager sponsors.

 
10. Now that you've examined your organization, documented applications and technology, identified issues and potential problems, you can draft an acquisition and implementation project plan. This draft should include not only timelines, but what resources you'll need during each step of the process. Your CTI project plan will be an evolving document, so don't assume your first draft will be the last. Some companies get hung up in striving for perfection; there will need to be some flexibility as the process evolves. Remember, you don't have to go to a fully automated system as a first step - we've found that phased CTI implementation is often the best approach.

Get ready. Your competitors are.

Don Van Doren is founder and president of Vanguard Communications Corporation. Vanguard is an eighteen-year-old independent consulting company, based in Morris Plains, NJ, which helps companies design and implement effective customer contact and employee collaboration solutions.

 
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