new business environment: CTI in ECM architecture, The

CTI (Computer-telephony integration) implementations are changing in revolutionary ways. Today's strategic call centers are evolving beyond such traditional components as ACDs, PBXs and VRUs to include expanded delivery channels and customer access methods such as e-mail, the Internet, kiosks and mobile sales. This expansion of architecture and implementation is becoming known as the customer contact center. The customer contact center requires a much broader approach and vision than ever before.

Traditional Organization

If you are a traditional organization, you most likely have numerous legacy systems that grew up around products or company divisions. As customer contact channels expanded beyond white mail to call centers, VRUs and now Web and e-mail, each new channel was connected to the legacy systems as a separate project. Projects were completed in an uncoordinated fashion by various divisions, product managers and IS groups. The result is a "spaghetti" architecture in which each channel is connected to legacy systems in a "siloed" manner (see Figure I on page 123). Architectures of this type cost 30 percent more to build and maintain.

Even more critical is that within a "spaghetti" architecture it takes as much as 30 percent longer to execute business changes across channels and systems. In today's competitive marketplace, this creates a major time and cost disadvantage that cannot be tolerated.

Expansion Of Customer Contacts

Further complicating this picture are two factors. First is the projected explosion over the next two to four years of customer contacts through the Web and e-mail channels. Some industry pundits are predicting triple-digit annual increases in these channels over the same time frame.

Second is customer expectations concerning multichannel exchanges. It is becoming more common for customers to utilize multiple channels for a single request. A typical scenario has the customer initially requesting information via e-mail to which the company responds with a fax. The customer may then have questions or require further action, so he or she calls the company's 800 number. "I have a question about the fax you sent me," says the customer. "What fax?" asks the agent. "The one in response to my e-mail," says the customer. "What e-mail?" asks the agent.

No Silver Bullet

Systems that are architected and built today need to accommodate these increasingly common and complex scenarios. They need to integrate and track customer contact across all channels and systems for every interaction. This approach preserves your company's investment in technology, saving substantial rework and potential delays in accommodating business change.

Unfortunately, many companies are searching for the "silver bullet" software package that claims to bring it all together. Implementing CTI middleware or a commercial CRM (customer relationship management) system as a "siloed" project without a blueprint of future multichannel architecture is a recipe for disaster.

ECM Architecture

Today's customer relationship architectures require a broad approach and vision that encompasses strategy, process, operations and technical architecture. Several companies have been successful with a phased approach to implementing cross-channel architectures that support enterprise customer management (ECM). An ECM strategy is grounded in vision, architecture, integration and business benefits.

The approach is to interview corporate business leaders about your customer interaction strategy and work with them to establish a vision. The vision goes beyond how to interact with and service customers to how a.company can create relationships with customers. Such a strategy might include one-to-one customization of call routing, VRU scripts, Web pages and emaid, CTI-based call routing and prescribed action responses are customized in real-time based on a customer's interaction history, recent events and perceived present and longterm value to the company.

Such a broad vision then guides the ECM architecture to support the future business strategy. ECM architects create a blueprint of multichannel architecture. This supports the business requirements of collecting customer interaction events, business rules, responding to customer requests, preferences and customized cross-sell and defection situations.

The ECM architecture is then compared to the current architecture. A gap analysis is conducted and a business case established to create a series of self-funding projects of six months or less. Each project moves the company closer to the desired architecture with the confidence that the technology investment will meet the company's future ECM vision. Companies are free to set their own pace based on resources and urgency - most take from 18 to 48 months to reach their objectives.

Figure 2 shows an example of a cross-channel ECM architecture that incorporates a "middle tier" to link customer access channels with existing legacy systems and data warehouses. This middle tier becomes the common element between channels and systems, allowing component services to be integrated across all channels and systems.

Major components of ECM middle tier systems include:

* CTI middleware for resource tracking and integrating messaging between access channels (VRU, ACID, etc.). CTI can also be used as the universal allocation mechanism to blend media and contact channel based on volume and service level.

* An operational customer data repository to store customer contact events, contact history, preferences, value and current situation across all channels, products and divisions. This provides a single operational view of the customer. Note: this is not a data warehouse or the corporate customer master database, but rather a real-time operational data store used to route calls and allocate contacts based on a customer's preferences, value, situation, and historical inaction activity.

* A soft-data-based rules engine to route contacts across channels and prescribe actions to deploy. Actions might include the script to play, Web page to display, product to cross-sell or pricing plan to offer.

* Data-mining tools to examine the Customer data repository for customer segments and trends in buying patterns, script response and behavior after offers and interactions.

* A data-based workflow/CRM package for process execution, case management. follow up and fulfillment.

* Reporting tools to provide feedback on the success of targeted campaigns, customer segments and customized interaction strategies.

* Communications services to databases, legacy systems and the channels themselves.

The middle tier is the operational level whereby component services such as CTI, workflow, data capture, work allocation and business rules can be applied across all systems, contact channels and data stores. In addition, today's architectures and products provide soft business and routing rules, thus allowing business managers and analysts to meet the specific needs of customers by changing routing and prescribing actions based on the value and complexity of the situation. This ability to make real-time business rule changes across all channels without IS intervention will open a new era of competitive advantage in the way that companies do business with their customers.

Expanded Benefits

The exciting thing about this approach is that the cost of the ECM infrastructure itself can be justified on its own based on operational efficiencies - often paying back in less than one year. The real icing on the cake is the follow-on stage in which the business begins to strategize and try OUt targeted business rules, actions and scripts. Recent studies have shown that upselling targeted to a customer's needs can increase sales by 5 to 15 percent. Of even greater impact is a recent study indicating that just a 5 percent increase in the retention of high-value customers can generate revenue increases of 25 percent or higher. An ECM architecture serves as the foundation of an infrastructure that can dramatically improve profitability and transform the way your company does business with its customers.

How can the ECM infrastructure be used to achieve these benefits? The transformation often takes place in four stages. The first stage is the construction of the ECM architecture with its crosschannel data capture, customer data repository and soft rules engines. The next phase is using the customer profile and contact history data to segment customers, provide customized routing of contacts, customized scripts and specific actions to deploy based on customer profile, history and current situation.

In the third phase, the floodgates open as the business becomes familiar with ECM capabilities. Product managers and marketers begin to experiment with new customer target segments, new scripts, Web pages and e-mail responses. The ability to quickly change business actions and scripts to targeted customer segments coupled with a short reporting cycle create an unprecedented environment in which to respond to and interact with customers. ECM enables targeted cross-selling based on a customer's need - not the product or script "du jour." Once the power of the ECM architecture is realized by the business, customer interaction and, indeed, customer relationships become core strategies for management.

In the final stage, the focus turns to customer loyalty, as the business adopts customer relationships as a corporate strategy. The goal is to create unbreakable lifetime relationships with highvalue customers. As previously noted, this can increase total revenues by 25 percent or more based on retained and increased sales. Studies have shown it costs 5 to 10 times more to replace a high-value customer than to retain one.

The ECM architecture provides the data and tools to create strategies and actions that promote loyalty and retention. For example, data-mining tools can be used to identify the events that precipitate a customer's defection. The business can now create rules and take action to promote loyalty whenever such a defection event occurs. Detection and actions are now executed across all channels, allowing the business to fine-tune defection events, actions to take and offers to extend.

In summary, CTI today is an important component of a strategic ECM architecture. It provides the basis for the creation of relationships and fostering of customer loyalty. ECM architectures are a journey requiring a business vision and staged deployment over all customer access channels and legacy business systems. Once in place, the ECM architecture provides a component base in which to add services, data collection and rules engines that can be applied across the entire enterprise. Siloed deployment of packages or channels outside of the ECM blueprint will cost 30 percent more to maintain and will create a business disadvantage in the time required implementing business changes. Once deployed, the ECM architecture creates a new business environment in which companies can transform the way they conduct business with and retain their valuable customers.

Greg Stack is a senior vice president and co-founder of TSCs Enterprise Customer Management practice. His 20+ year career includes work as chief architect and project manager across numerous industries and large com

plex integration environments. His work has resulted in major "industry first" deployments in telecommunications, Web, CTI, client server and customer relationship management.

Technology Solutions Company (TSC) (www.techsol.com) delivers business and technology consulting services that help clients transform customer relationships and improve operations. TSC

partners with clients in a wide range of industries and has earned recognition as a leader in solutions for call center

and enterprise customer relationship management, supply chain management, electronic commerce, financial services and packaged software integration. The company has headquarters in Chicago with major offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Australia -and Europe.

Copyright Technology Marketing Corporation Jul 1999
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