CTI Computer Telephony Integration

This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to Computer Telephony and Computer Telephony Integration software and products. Computer Telephony Integration CTI software is a rich set of phone software library routines that enable application programs to control your phone system. This comprehensive CTI software lets you increase employee productivity, enhance customer service and reduce costs by combining the capabilities of our PACER phone system with the custom functionality of your Windows, Unix or Web applications. Data collected by your phone ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) or IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems can be passed to your existing PC, Unix or Web applications through our phone software. The PACER predictive dialer can automatically call your customers and pass only connected calls to your agents. With our computer telephony software, your telephone and computer work together to provide cost-saving benefits.

What is Computer Telephony Integration?

Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) refers to the integrating of advancing technology, which allows computers access to the public telephone network. This integration utilizes a combination of software and hardware that provides a sophisticated automation of telephony interfacing to the PC level.

CTI provides platforms hosting the most powerful information systems a business can employ that makes providing information accessible to it's customers and/or the general public. The avenues in which CTI applications can be applied are phenomenal. Consider it an interface extension to the resources of business. All the consumer needs to interact with an automated system is to use any regular telephone, provide Touch-tone or Speech, which is then literally transformed into defined commands that can be manipulated by the host system.

It all sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? When properly designed and implemented, it can be. The area that is usually overlooked during a smooth sales job on a CTI solution is the design and implementation of the solution. There are many types of applications that can be applied through CTI, many that can be developed in what's called "Canned Software", i.e. a solution in a box. "Turn-Key" solutions provide all hardware and software wrapped in a tidy package that can be customized to a company's requirements.

The following is a brief description of just two of the most common application features of a CTI solution. Note that either of these features can be integrated into single solution applications. You have an average doctor's office. When patients call in they are greeted by an Automated Attendant where their call can be routed to a Voice Mail system, for leaving a message to their physician. All of this and more on multiple lines operating simultaneously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Automated Attendant

An automated attendant system will answer incoming calls and route them to the destination that the caller desires. Callers can be routed to special features or allow the caller to enter an extension to party they desire or will ask the caller to select the party from a list. Combined with Voice Mail, the caller can leave a message in the extension-dedicated mailbox in case the extension was busy or there was no answer. The main advantage of an automated attendant, as opposed with manual handling of a call, is that the automated attendant can work on multiple lines simultaneously giving the caller faster access to the desired resource without the restrictions of higher overhead.

Voice Mail

Voice Mail is used to collect and distribute telephone messages for a person or a group of persons. You could say that it is a really smart multi-line, multi-user answering machine. Each user is assigned audio storage space or a "vocal mailbox" from which they can retrieve messages in a remote fashion using any regular telephone. Most Voice Mail systems provide many options to allow customization for message notification on a phone, pager, cellular, user custom features like: message playing/recording control, volume control, message storing, message forwarding, etc. Voice mail can also be used on an internal basis to distribute messages to company employees either one at a time or as an entire group or departments.