Data Sheet
Cisco Outbound Option
Today’s contact center is about more than
just handling inbound telephone calls—it
is about fully integrated, multi-channel
customer interaction. The Cisco Intelligent
Contact Management (ICM) Enterprise
Edition and Cisco IP Contact Center (IPCC)
Enterprise Edition solutions enable your
business to implement a single solution
to transparently blend multiple
communication channels, including voice,
Web, and e-mail. This offers your
customers the choice of interacting with
your contact center via telephone, Web
callback, voice over IP (VoIP), text chat,
or e-mail. To provide these alternatives to
customers, Cisco ICM Enterprise and
Cisco IPCC Enterprise offer Cisco Web
Collaboration Option, Cisco E-Mail
Manager Option, Cisco Outbound Option,
and Cisco Computer Telephony Integration
(CTI) Option as tightly integrated
components.
The Cisco ICM Enterprise and Cisco IPCC
Enterprise Editions are strategic platforms
that enable customers to move into the next
phase of customer contact—beyond today’s
Contact Center to a Customer Interaction
Network. The Customer Interaction
Network is a distributed, IP-based customer
service infrastructure that comprises
a continuously evolving suite of innovative,
multi-channel services and customer
relationship management applications.
These services and applications provide
enhanced responsiveness and streamlined
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customer exchanges to help your
organization deliver superior customer
service. A Customer Interaction Network
extends customer service capabilities
across the entire organization, giving
your business a more integrated and
collaborative approach to customer
satisfaction.
Cisco Outbound Option
Overview
Cisco ICM Enterprise and Cisco IPCC
Enterprise Editions enable companies to
distribute inbound service volume to
a variety of termination points, including
automatic call distributors (ACDs),
interactive-voice-response systems (IVRs),
home agents, and network terminations.
The addition of Cisco Outbound Option
with its combination of outbound dialing
modes complements the powerful inbound
call-handling capabilities of the ICM and
IPCC platforms with a robust outbound
call management solution.
The ability for agents to handle both
inbound and outbound contacts offers
a way to optimize contact center resources.
The Cisco Outbound Option enables the
multi-functional contact center to take
advantage of the ICM enterprise
management—allowing contact center
managers in need of outbound campaign
solutions to take advantage of the
enterprise view that Cisco ICM Enterprise
and Cisco IPCC Enterprise maintain over
agent resources.
 Features and Benefits

Dialer—The Cisco Outbound Option dialer component is responsible for requesting campaign lists from the
Outbound Option Campaign Manager, placing outbound calls, reserving agents, and classifying calls. Each dialer
receives skill group information from the contact center solution. For IPCC, IP Dialer places outbound calls through
a Voice Gateway via the Cisco CallManager. For a traditional ACD (Avaya G3 and Avaya Multivantage),
Outbound Dialer places outbound calls using Dialogic cards via the ACD.

Dialing modes—Cisco Outbound Option offers three different dialing modes; predictive, preview, and progressive
“power dialing.”
• Predictive—This mode is a dedicated dialing mode that handles contacts by continually adjusting the number of
call originations needed per agent to achieve near 100-percent agent utilization.
• Preview—This mode enables the dialer to first reserve or “lock” an agent by placing a phantom call on the ACD.
When reserved, Outbound Option posts a screen pop to the agent’s CTI desktop, allowing the agent to dial, skip,
or cancel the request.
• Progressive power dialing—This mode enables campaign administrators to configure the dialing rate such that
Outbound Option does not attempt to predict the number of lines needed per agent and instead dials a set number
of lines per agent. This number can be configured and set to a single line per agent. This feature attempts
to guarantee that an agent is available when a customer answers his or her phone.

Blended modes—This feature enables Cisco ICM Enterprise and Cisco IPCC Enterprise to deliver both inbound and
outbound (preview) calls to the same group of agents dynamically. Differing from the dedicated modes, blending
enables an agent to switch between receipt of inbound and outbound calls on a call-by-call basis. This mode also
employs the CTI desktop to deliver contact information to the agent either prior to an outbound call or as an inbound
call is received.

Campaign management—This feature enables call center managers to effectively administer and manage dialing
campaigns by providing the ability to configure campaigns, create query rules, and import dialing lists. Campaigns
can be configured to provide callbacks, which can be initiated based on the request of a party to be called back,
or be automatically initiated by the system based on failure to contact a live party.

Personal callback—This feature provides an agent the ability to insert a record into the Dialing List table to be called
at a later time. The agent can then enter, directly into the desktop application, the time and date information most
convenient for the customer to be contacted. The contact record is modified in the Dialing List table, indicating
a telephone number to call and a time to place the call, thereby allowing Cisco Outbound Option to offer the call
to the specified agent at the designated time.

Enhanced Call Progress Analysis—The Outbound Option Dialer has the ability to automatically detect an answering
machine, fax machine or modem for IPCC Enterprise Edition. Outbound Option achieves a 99.99% active voice
detection with answering machine detection enabled and call results are recorded in Outbound reports, which tally
the customer premise device detected during a campaign. In addition, a special mode in the dialer allows for beep
detection in the welcome message.

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 Transfer to IVR—This feature enables pre-recorded IVR campaigns to be accomplished by providing the ability
to play an automated message to a live caller from an IVR or leave pre-recorded messages on an answering machine.
With answering machine detection enabled, live callers reached by the dialer can be connected to an agent and
answering machines directed to an IVR. This eliminates agents from connecting to answering machines — providing
higher utilization of agent resources in the contact center.
Do Not Call list—This feature provides the capability to add entries into a Do Not Call table. By eliminating calls
that are in the Do Not Call list, companies using the Cisco Outbound Option achieve a higher call completion success
rate, while eliminating nuisance calls.

Import Mechanism—Cisco Outbound Option employs a file import mechanism whereby text-file imports can be
kicked off on a ad-hoc basis (file polling). A third party application or batch process can create or copy an import
text file as soon as it has contact information available. Imports can also be scheduled based on customer preference.

Integration with the Cisco CTI Option—The Cisco CTI Option supports agents in blended mode by gathering call
variables (for example, dialing list ID, time zone, account number, phone number, campaign ID and name, Customer
Name and query rule ID) necessary to correctly handle the call, sending it to the appropriate agent or skill group and
delivering customer information to the agent either prior to an outbound call or as an inbound call is received.

Reporting—The sophisticated data storage design of the Cisco ICM Enterprise and Cisco IPCC Enterprise allow
management of inbound and outbound calls within the same environment, enabling comprehensive reporting across
the enterprise.

Cisco Contact Center Services and Support

Cisco Contact Center services and support reduce the cost, time, and complexity of implementing a contact center.
Cisco and its partners have designed and deployed some of today’s largest and most complex contact
centers—meaning that they understand how to integrate a contact center solution into your network infrastructure,
a solution that will help you more quickly realize business results and gain a competitive advantage.

Based on this extensive experience, Cisco has set industry standards with a services blueprint that defines critical
service requirements to accelerate your success with Cisco Contact Center solutions. Cisco and partner service
programs map to this services blueprint, providing you a flexible suite of collaborative offerings that help you plan,
design, implement, operate, and grow a contact center solution.

Through these services, your organization benefits from the experience gained by Cisco and its partners. Taking
advantage of this valuable experience, you can create and maintain a resilient solution that will meet your business
needs today—and in the future.

Summary

Outbound dialing and call blending are vital to companies that desire outbound capabilities and demand maximum
utilization of contact center resources. Combining the power of Cisco ICM Enterprise Edition, Cisco IPCC Enterprise
Edition and CTI, the Cisco Outbound Option provides the ability to design complex outbound campaigns, maximize
the use of skilled agents, utilize individual dialing modes, and deliver rich call contact information to a best-in-class
CTI desktop. This combination enables businesses to achieve higher levels of productivity and customer
satisfaction—continuing the evolution towards a true Customer Interaction Network.

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 Figure 1
Outbound Option for Cisco IP Contact Center

PSTN
Caller Phone
CTI Server IP
Voice Gateway
V
Outbound Agents
Cisco Desktop and IP Phones
CallManager

IP
Cisco CallManager PG
ICM Central Controller
Logger DB
ICM
Outbound Database
IP_Dialer

IP_Dialer

Campaign Manager
Webview Client

Figure 2
Outbound Option for Traditional ACD (Avaya G3 and Multivantage)

PSTN
Caller Phone

CTI Server IP
Traditional ACD
Outbound Agents
Desktop and IP Phones

ACD PG
IP
ICM Central Controller
Logger DB
ICM Outbound Database
Dialer

Dialer

Campaign Manager

Webview Client

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