Vertical's integrated CRM solutions for the small/office business

Call Center CRM Solutions, Nov 2000

As you have either read in these pages or experienced firsthand, the physically complex, hardware-heavy technology that required significant investment of capital and resources put many elements of customer resource management beyond the reach of most small- to medium-size businesses. Vertical Networks makes and sells the InstantOffice Integrated Communications Platform (ICP), a standards-based platform that combines voice and data functionality along with support for third-party applications. The InstantOffice system interoperates with a range of legacy devices and systems and, since it is geared for smaller businesses and branch offices, it is designed to deliver integrated voice/data networking that is easier to manage and has a lower cost of ownership than traditional communications infrastructures. Working in partnership with Interactive Intelligence, Inc., Vertical's InstantOffice ICP was integrated with contact center applications from Interactive Intelligence to provide a comprehensive customer contact solution called InstantOffice Contact Center (IOCC). The intent is to provide smaller businesses with broad functionality, such as ACD, skills-based routing, multimedia queuing, IVR, Web capabilities, digital phone support and reporting features. IOCC includes a multimedia solution for automating strategic call center operations, leveraging the voice, data and application capabilities of the ICP The product also integrates with back-office applications using standard APIs such as ODBC.

Vertical also offers InstantOffice Call Routing and Queuing (CRQ), which the company said is designed for smaller offices that require intelligent internal call routing but do not need the full IOCC solution. InstantOffice CRQ is designed for rapid deployment on the InstantOffice ICP and is intended to handle the rising call loads of smaller inbound call centers. Even with limited IT experience, smaller businesses can customize, monitor and manage this solution for optimizing service levels and staff productivity. Since the InstantOffice platform is modular in concept, customers can choose to tailor a solution to their existing infrastructure (selecting specific modules to complement their existing investment in legacy equipment) and migrate to other InstantOffice functionality as the need arises.

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