What Questions Should a Service Provider
Ask a Network-Based Contact Center Vendor?

1. Does your system support true contact center on-demand, capabilities, including multi-tenancy with customer self-care?

CosmoCall Universe was designed as a network-based platform, specifically for Contact Center On-Demand™ applications.  CosmoCall Universe's Multi-Tenancy features such as Tenant Self-Administration make managing on-demand contact centers easier and more cost effective for both Service Providers and their tenants. Service Providers benefit by being able to offload the day-to-day activities of administering a call center to their tenants. This makes CosmoCall Universe even more profitable to Service Providers by enabling them to focus on their core network operations. Tenants benefit by gaining control and flexibility to manage their own call center operations. Service Providers may optionally decide to offer, as an added-value service, professional management of these day-to-day activities on behalf of the tenant.

2. Does your system support all channels into the call center in a unified fashion?

CosmoCall Universe provides a multimedia, multi-channel solution that includes telephone, voice and video over the Internet, web callback, keyboard chat, IVR, e-mail, voice mail, and fax. All calls, including messaging calls — all with unified queuing, unified reporting, and a single set of business rules. And no complex integration is required.

3. Is your on-demand call center platform compatible with both the circuit telephone network as well as the emerging IP-Based Next Generation Networks?

CosmoCom’s technology is equally at home in a circuit-based network or an IP-based Next Generation Network. Customers can choose from a large list of pre-certified gateways from industry-leading vendors such as Cisco, Lucent Technologies, Sonus Networks, and VocalTec in order to interface to the circuit networks. The gateways can be dedicated to the CosmoCall Universe service, or shared among many services. When migrating from using the system in a circuit network to using it in an IP telephone network, all equipment is re-used as is — nothing to discard.

4. Will your system lock me into non-commodity hardware?

CosmoCom’s pure-software architecture is totally hardware-neutral.

5. Does the solution have the simplicity to support small and medium enterprises, as well as the feature richness and open interfaces required by large enterprises?

CosmoCom’s browser based graphical user interfaces make it simple for end users to do initial set-up and day-to-day administration of their call center with minimal training. The solution also has a rich set of features, such as unified multi-channel queuing, unified multi-channel real-time and historical reports, multi-channel recording, best-in-class predictive dialing, simple and sophisticated IVR creation with graphical drag-and-drop interface, advanced supervisory monitoring features, etc.

6. Does the product offer a complete solution for all call center needs?

There is no need to buy multiple point solutions from different vendors and integrate them together via CTI middleware and a costly professional services project. CosmoCall Universe's unified architecture includes IVR, ACD routing and queuing of all contact types, web co-browsing, multi-channel recording, reporting, and even outbound predictive dialing support. And since agents can work from anywhere and still be part of a single ACD system, there is no additional systems needed for remote agents, home agents, or satellite offices. In addition, CosmoCom’s Computer-to-Computer Integration (CCI) replaces the need for any external CTI middleware.

7. How does the solution integrate with third-party business applications, such as CRMs?

CosmoCall Universe uses a Computer-to-Computer integration to make easy integrations with CRM and other business applications, using standards-based computing interfaces such as COM and XML. In addition, CosmoCom provides out-of-the-box integrations with the leading vendors in the CRM industry, ensuring quick, low-cost integrations. Most call centers still use Computer-Telephony Integration (CTI) to integrate computer systems and telephony systems, but CTI is complex and expensive when compared to CCI technology.

8. Can the system be easily integrated into my operations support system environment?

CosmoCom’s computing-standard APIs enable easy integration with provisioning systems, billing systems, and network management systems. Many CosmoCall Universe customers have successfully used these APIs to perform such integrations.

9. Can the system be easily customized and branded?

CosmoCom provides tools to do various levels of re-branding, from basic branding of the existing CosmoCall Universe user interfaces to a complete replacement of the user interfaces with customized versions, such as via a tight integration with a third party application. In addition, the Service Creation Environment can be extended by the system users to add new functionality, without having to wait for new features to roll out from CosmoCom.

10. Can your ACD solution also do intelligent routing to legacy circuit call centers?

CosmoCall Universe’s Next Generation Intelligent Network (NGIN) provides a complete IVR and pre-routing solution for routing calls across multiple legacy call centers. In addition, the platform provides the complete set of features needed to provide a comprehensive ACD solution to end-users.

11. How popular is the solution with service providers?

CosmoCall Universe has been selected as the platform of choice by nearly a dozen service providers, including many of the largest network operators in the world.

12. How scalable is the platform?

CosmoCall Universe was architected from the ground up to be scalable to support the needs of large network service provider deployments.

13. How reliable is the platform?

The architecture of CosmoCall Universe was designed with the availability needs of service providers in mind so that they will never experience downtime. All system components achieve redundancy either through N+1 load sharing (i.e., VCS, ICS, MCS, AIS) or via hot backup (i.e., ACD core servers). Our all-IP ACD is switchless in nature — switching is inherent in the IP. This means that even in the unlikely event of failure of one of the two active halves of the core ACD server, calls in progress (both agent and IVR calls) remain in progress. Queuing and routing data is also preserved in this situation. Multi-site disaster recovery is also supported and has been implemented by some of our carrier customers. Furthermore, CosmoCom benefits from the inherent resiliency of IP between agents and servers. For more on this topic, please refer to CosmoCom’s white paper Business Continuity in the Call Center: Why IP Can Be the Answer.

14. Is a single platform ready to operate in multiple countries, multiple languages, and multiple time zones simultaneously?

CosmoCall Universe has already been translated into 11 languages, including double-byte languages. New languages can be added by customers and partners without any program recompilation. The system even takes into account international dialing plans and time zone differences – automatically, with no custom configuration.

15. Has the platform been tested and proven by other Service Providers?

There are lots of claims in the marketplace, but few products really deliver. Service Providers don’t buy based on spec sheets and brochures. They buy based on extensive laboratory evaluation and testing and a track record of field proven performance. This is why, at the end of the day, CosmoCall Universe is the product of choice for high-reliability, high-scalability, feature-rich demands of the service provider market.