Interactive Intelligence enhances network-based routing system for contact centres

Interactive Intelligence Inc, a global developer of business communications software, has enhanced Interaction Director, the company's intelligent, network-based, pre- and post-call routing system for contact centres.

Designed to help distributed organisations create a "virtual" contact centre by more effectively routing interactions across sites, these latest enhancements add the session initiation protocol - the new standard for voice over IP - which eliminates the need for carriers in a pre-call routing configuration, thus reducing costs associated with complex set-up, ongoing third-party service, and per-call charges.

It also provides interoperability with SIP-compliant third-party products, such as PBXs, automatic call distributors and gateways, for maximum cost-effectiveness and investment protection.

"Given its reputation for being first-to-market with all things SIP, I'm not surprised that Interactive Intelligence has done it again, this time applying the VOIP open standard to its intelligent routing software, which we've used since 2003," said Michael White, senior vice-president of information technology infrastructure for InfoCision, the world's eighth largest outbound contact centre.

"Interaction Director has helped us increase operational efficiencies by automating routing rules to process between 40 000 and 50 000 inbound calls daily, which are distributed across our 28 contact centres. In addition, because of Interaction Director's built-in fault-tolerance, we were able to re-allocate existing fail-over servers, which further increased operational efficiencies, while maximising reliability."

Interaction Director works in conjunction with the Interactive Intelligence contact centre automation software, Customer Interaction Centre (CIC), which is part of the company's standards-based unified communications software suite. Interaction Director results in more effective network-based interaction routing by monitoring queue, user, workgroup, skill, and other relevant data captured by CIC servers across sites, storing this information in its real-time cache, then automatically sending back instructions used to route the interactions to the most appropriate destination. Routing rules can be flexibly pre-configured using ANI, DNIS, as well as real-time statistics, such as average hold time, occupancy, etc.

Using Interaction Director's new SIP-based pre-call routing, a gateway replaces expensive carrier-based routing by passing instructions directly to the gateway at a customer's site. In addition, Interaction Director's built-in server switchover provides full redundancy across sites for maximum disaster protection.

Also included in this latest version of Interaction Director are new supervisory enhancements, such as new interfaces for viewing workgroup summaries, agent detail, and other critical data, all designed to make analysing and improving upon existing routing configurations faster and easier.

"We built Interaction Director to offer contact centres reduced cost and complexity with a unified communications approach that simplifies multi-site routing, while providing truly intelligent load balancing to create efficient, virtual contact centres," said Dave Paulding, Regional Sales Manager, UK and Africa for Interactive Intelligence.

"Over the years we've extended these benefits with more comprehensive features, including 'workflow' routing, and now we've gone a step further by adding SIP support and improved supervisory views. Together, these advancements provide even greater operational efficiencies and improved customer satisfaction by helping companies better meet service level goals."

Interaction Director is ideal for multi-site, outsourced contact centres and teleservices firms, as well as enterprises with internal, distributed contact centres, including multinational companies.

Interaction Director was first released in 1999. The latest enhancements to Interaction Director are available immediately.

Interaction Director can be purchased through the Interactive Intelligence global channel composed of approximately 250 value-added resellers, and through the company's direct sales force.