About Us

Systems Engineering : IVR Architecture

Large contact centers rarely have the same level of IVR technology or automation expertise that CSI does. And this lack of knowledge causes them a lot of pain. Our whole business is based on designing, implementing, and monitoring enterprise IVR applications that are intended to help our clients save tens of millions of dollars. In order to achieve this, we have built an extensive data and telecom integration system to make our client IVR much more valuable. We have also built redundant data centers across the country to ensure 100 percent availability with much room for scalability. Our clients get energized when they truly understand the extent of our shared IVR service and how everything has been considered.

Maximizing contact automation is extremely challenging for a few reasons:

• The entry point is telecom, which is still troublesome; decades after the AT&T break up. This gets further complicated when considering telecom issues such as cellular, voice over IP (VOIP), and incongruence between international calling standards.
• Integrating data and telephony (CTI), the IVR to back end databases, and complementary systems is extremely difficult. Cost savings can also be achieved when a caller opts out to a live agent and the live agent is prepared to immediately help the caller out thus shortening the call.
• Script development must consider every possible angle and option the caller might require. What happens if people don't do something? Where do we want them to go?
• Business needs may be changing so the IVR must be flexible enough to be modified as quickly as possible.

The CSI IVR architecture was designed from scratch to consider everything that might impact contact automation. The Centralized Platform allows advanced contact center integration. The 7 x 24 monitoring of the IVR and voice/data network improves service levels. The CSI end-to-end perspective considers everything from when the caller dials using the public switched telephone network (PSTN) through when the caller achieves what he needs from the IVR or opts out to a live agent. This includes maximizing the IVR, routing through the telecom and data networks, and accessing critical data across the enterprise from CRM, ERP and other data systems. Through this process, our engineers have considered and engineered solutions to address critical protocols such as CORBA, IP, Tuxedo, Siebel/Oracle, 3270, XML and others.

We monitor the system to confirm what the expected experience should be and what it actually is. It's the underlying infrastructure that allows us to continually improve and provide tremendous value for our clients. The users' experience and results are statistically studied. We continuously tune the solutions, focusing on how real life customers are interacting with the IVR application.