Computer Telephony Integration

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) is one of the most exciting technologies to have matured in the last decade. Long past is the time that Computer Telephony Systems and the associated infrastructure were only tailored for big corporation’s call centers. Whether its the embedded Video chat capability in your Instant Messenger at home or the ability to join in a multiple-person teleconference on a web-enabled mobile phone, computer telephony integration applications are now tailored across the spectrum of home and business uses. As mobile, high-speed bandwidth becomes more accessible to consumers, computer telephony integration applications will continue to expand their reach into all facets of society.

Genesis of Computer Telephony Integration – The Call Center

The Computer Telephony Integration technology that is deployed to industry today has its origins in the the 1960′s era call centers. When call centers became popular for being the primary conduit for marketing and sales outlets, there was an identified loss of efficiency in the dead time experienced by a majority of the center’s operators. Then, “Screen Pop” technology entered the picture and operator efficiency increased. “Screen Pop” integrates a company’s phone and computing systems so that operators have pertinent customer information displayed on their workstation for an in-coming phone call to include name, phone number, customer identification, past sales history, and other useful information. As “Screen Pop” has matured, it has also become embedded with automated phone dialing systems to further optimize an operator’s work time at the call center and is still in use today.

Why Use Computer Telephony Integration Technology?

With the advance of technology over the past several decades, human operators have found it challenging to be able to properly manage all of the information flow received at call centers and other places of business. As a result, choosing a computer telephony package that fits the scale of the business has been proven to significantly increase overall efficiency of sales, marketing, and in some cases- research operations. Computer Telephony technology provides several benefits for an organization to include: 1 – Efficiency improvements, 2 – Improved work-place ergonomics, 3 – Reduced errors at staff turnover periods, 4 – Flexibility and Growth, and 5 – Monetary Savings. Industry has found, however, that for all of the good that a quality Computer Telephony Integration system can do for a company, simply buying a new system to have the latest technology does not instantly equate to a larger bottom-line. Conducting a needs analysis prior to a major telephony system acquisition has become standard in the marketplace, and as a result most of the major providers also provide this type of service in order to scale the telephony package appropriately.

Telephony Applications in the Home – Voice Over IP

One of the sub-components of computer telephony applications that just wasn’t quite mature enough during the Dot-Com bust of the early 2000′s was Voice Over IP (VOIP) technology. Those days are gone now with the quality of service of VOIP being “good enough” to use in-place of a permanent home or business telephone system. The cost savings range from $40-100 USD per family to the thousands of dollars range for corporate accounts. Vonnage and Skype are two of the well-known International carriers of VOIP phone accounts with numerous other regional competitors available. Coupled with the exponential deployment and use of wireless 3G Internet services, the days of land-line telephone systems may be numbered. Another recent advancement in VOIP technology that has made it more attractive as an option when choosing a telephony system has been the capability to include voicemail as a .wav or other file attachment of a user’s account further integrating the telephone with the computer.

The Future of Computer Telephony Integration

The future of computer telephony integration lies based in the continued evolution of the VOIP standard and associated reduction of costs to industry as well as consumers. By building on an open-standards based architecture that has been maturing since the early 1990′s, computer telephony integration providers are able to provide scalable systems architectures that permit tomorrow’s technologies to be plugged in to legacy systems without dramatically increasing costs for company’s to upgrade. Telephony applications will continue to be developed for the consumer as well as business and likely see further integration with the standard modes of transportation (automobiles, aircraft, and public transit) to the point that the only way one won’t be connected to a telephony system in some fashion will be if they just don’t choose to be.