Computer Telephony Integration Definition

As implied by the title, computer telephony integration is merging the power of computers with the world of voice communications (telephone systems). When you bring these two worlds together, a whole new realm of applications and improvements become available.

On an individual level, computer telephony integration saves time, improves efficiency, and even minimizes interruption. For businesses, computer telephony integration can dramatically lower costs and increase revenues simultaneously resulting in much higher profits.

The world of telephony (i.e., the telephone system) has already been augmented or integrated with computers behind the scenes for decades. You can see this with the public availability of Caller ID, call forwarding, reduced need for human operators, speed dialing, “online” voicemail, etc. These are all services offered by the phone company.

However, computer telephony integration puts even more power and flexibility on the “User side” of the telephony interface. Of course, you can hire computer telephony integration providers (CTI providers) to provide massive scale services for your business, but you can also implement and operate your own CTI services yourself. These services can be as simple as a software application you load on your computer for call routing, voicemail, or interactive response (“push 1 for this”, “push 4 for that”, etc.), or as complicated as a comprehensive predictive dialer system installed on your own Private Branch eXchange (PBX) maintained by your in-house staff of experts.

In summary, computer telephony integration (CTI) provides various technologies where the concept of telephones (voice communications) is augmented, improved, and expanded by the speed, convenience, storage capacity, and flexibility of the computer.

Computer Telephony Integration Applications

There are literally hundreds of applications for computer telephony integration available today, and new ones are coming out all the time. Here are just a handful of popular applications:

• Predictive dialers for telemarketing and customer support call centers pre-dial prospects while call center agents are still on the phone with other prospects. By monitoring call statistics including how often an actual person answers the phone (versus voicemail, busy, or no answer calls) and how long a call center agent typically spends on the phone with a prospect, predictive dialers attempt to match prospects “just in time” with call center agents as they become available.
• Use electronic phone lists and automatic dialing by pressing a single button and/or constructing the call list on the fly from potential customers who call your company.
• Caller ID based caller recognition combined with automatic retrieval of the caller’s prior history (purchases, inquiries, complaints, contact information, etc.) with the company.
• Automated transfer of customer information to other applications for account updates, ordering, etc.
• Automated call logging with time and date to maintain a record of calls and activity from each customer or potential customer.
• Computer-based fax management (receiving, distributing to appropriate employee, receipt logging, outbound faxing, etc.).
• Inbound call recognition and routing (e.g., routes a voice call to a person or an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system or routes an inbound fax to a fax machine or computer-based fax software).
• Corporate voicemail including managing voicemail for all employees, call screening, call recording, etc.
• Text-to-speech applications to automatically provide messages and account records to customers, and Speech-to-text transcription to create hard-copy transcripts and records of voice communications and presentations.
• Standard PBX applications including call routing, conferencing, etc.

What Do You Need To Use The Power Of CTI?

To reap the power of computer telephony integration, you first need to assess what the applications will be for you or your company. Then you can find the services and systems available. You may need the services of dedicated to computer telephony integration providers, or you may need nothing more than a personal computer, a phone line, and some software. It all depends on the applications and the scale of operations you intend to use.

If your application needs can be met with a personal computer and a CTI software program, you will need a computer with a sound card, and you may need a plug-in board dedicated to computer telephony applications.

Some applications on a large scale are better solved by adding software or hardware boards to your company’s PBX. A PBX is essentially a small Central Office switch (the telephone switch at the telephone company’s facility) which handles connecting and breaking down all the phone connections within your company or building. If you don’t have a PBX, you may only need a bigger computer system (e.g., server class machines and RAID disk arrays), or you may need to go with a virtual service provider. A virtual service provider will provide, maintain, and upgrade the hardware and software, but you provide all the labor (e.g., call center agents) and maintain all interaction with your customers and prospective customers.

And as already mentioned, if your business is primarily centered on large-scale calling (e.g., telemarketing), it may be worth it for you to get your own system and all the personnel required to maintain it, or you may be better served by computer telephony integration providers.