The Call Center Enterprise 23
1. Overview
Although this management data is essential to call routing, it is also
important for monitoring and reporting on agent and agent group
performance. The ICR stores the management data in industry-standard
historical and real-time relational databases.
The Intelligent CallRouter provides many ways for you to analyze
trends and gauge service levels using real-time and historical
management data. The main ICR reporting tool, called Monitor ICR,
allows you to generate many types of reports on agent and call activity.
Monitor ICR is described in more detail later in this chapter.
1.1.8. Network ICR
GEOTEL•Network ICR is the carrier-class version of the Intelligent
CallRouter. It allows a network servic e provider to offer virtual call
center services to its customers. The Network ICR functions much like a
Service Control Point (SCP) by distributing incoming calls to individual
network service customers based on the number dialed, the call’s point
of origin, and caller-entered digits.
The Network ICR product uses a two-tiered architecture in which one
ICR passes route requests to a second ICR. The first ICR, called the
Network ICR or NICR, typically receives routing requests from a carrier
network. The NICR can either return a label itself or pass the route
request to a second ICR, called the Customer ICR or CICR.
Each CICR can processes all calls for one or more customers. The CICR
receives the route request, runs its own routing scripts to determine the
destination for the call, and returns a routing label to the NICR. The
NICR then returns the label to the original carrier network. This
architecture lets a service provider perform simple routing (within the
NICR) for some customers while providing full ICR functionality (in a
CICR) for other customers.
See also:
For more information about Network ICR, see the Network ICR Product
Description.
1.2. The Call Center EnterpriseAn Intelligent CallRouter treats a customer’s multiple distributed call
centers as a single enterprise. You can think of the call center enterprise
as an entire company or agency that spans many call centers. The
enterprise typically includes all call centers served by an ICR.
You can create different organizational entities within a call center
enterprise. For example, you might organize distributed groups of agents
into a shared resource pool that spans call centers. You might also create
entities that are tied to specific peripherals. The term peripheral refers to
the individual switch (ACD, PBX, or VRU) that distributes incoming
calls at each call center.