The first call center management information system supporting the common service level definitions and metrics defined by the European Computer Telephony Forum’s (ECTF) R.100 has been released by Callscan Ltd of the UK. The new call center MIS product will make its debut on Siemens’ DX series and Hicom PBX-based systems, but will be compatible with systems from most leading PBX and call center platform vendors, the majority of whom are ECTF members, and have ratified the R.100 standard.
Peter Russell-Jones, Siemens computer telephony integration (CTI) product architect, said the R.100 standard promises to benefit CTI application developers, platform vendors and users alike. As developers adopt the common metric and service type definitions, platform vendors will no longer have to write proprietary links to each call center management system offered with their systems, and application vendors will be able to build extensions to existing call center MIS systems, integrating them more seamlessly with corporate customer relationship management (CRM) and other workflow based systems.
From the user perspective, said Roger Huffadine, Callscan’s technical director and ECTF committee chair, prospective buyers will now be able to make more accurate comparisons between the performance claims of competing suppliers. Concepts like call length, which have generally been measured against different parameters by different vendors must now conform to the common R.100 standard, he said.
