This document contains 3 case studies about companies that implemented the Universal Softphone Solution: 1) American Express implemented the solution across its Travel and Credit Card call centers to allow seamless routing between units using Genesys and Cisco platforms. An IVR adapter was created to pass data between the platforms. A new .NET softphone was also developed. 2) Intel was using the Genesys softphone with issues. A new two-tier then n-tier solution was proposed and tested to improve performance across multiple global call centers. 3) Caremark was using Cisco CTI with issues including lost and delayed data. A new comprehensive softphone solution was developed to replace the existing one.

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AMERICAN EXPRESS CASE STUDY
This case study describes the adoption of the Universal Softphone Solution by two business
units of American Express: American Express Travel and American Express Credit Card.
The Phoenix, Arizona call center of American Express Travel moved from Cisco CTI to Genesys.
Initially, the company used the built-in Genesys ActiveX control softphone provided with the
routing platform. The softphone had limited CRM capabilities, was not customizable and did
not perform many functions that were required. Our team created the first Genesys .NET
Softphone solution for Genesys routing system. It was a two-tier solution where the Agent
Desktop application had individual connections to the routing system for each agent and
performed heavy processing on the client side. The Call Center management was still seeking
to improve the efficiency of the Softphone solution primarily in the following two areas:
passing IVR data to Agent Desktop and integration with CRM.
At the same time, the AMEX Credit Card unit continued using Cisco CTI. The challenge was to
ensure that the Travel business unit using Genesys CTI was compatible with the Credit Card
unit using Cisco CTI. The ultimate goal was to provide unified operations for both business units
where customer calls should be routed seamlessly to the appropriate call center. In addition,
the call centers for both business units required universal management and reporting
approach. Moreover, both units had multiple call centers located in different cities and
different countries.
First, the compatibility challenge was resolved by creating and deploying the IVR Adapter using
Cisco Gateway Host. The adapter was designed to pass all IVR information from Cisco IVR to
Genesys IVR and back. Upon completion of this stage of the project we found out that one-and-
a-half years prior to our involvement, AMEX approached Genesys requesting them to create a
similar adapter that would allow Genesys CTI to talk to Cisco CTI, but this task was never
accomplished. It took our team only several weeks of development and deployment time to
provide a working solution.
Second, our team created a two-tier Softphone Solution. Both business units were using the
respective Genesys and Cisco out-of-the-box Agent Desktops. While Genesys and Cisco are
offering the most comprehensive and robust telephony routing systems in the world, in our
experience many companies were preferring third-party Agent Desktop applications. Our team
undertook the task of designing and creating the first Agent Desktop written in .NET that

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answered the specific business needs of the customer. We have gone through gathering
business requirements, monitoring and recording agent activity to understand the specifics of
call handling, and created a functional Agent Desktop design. As we designed the first
prototype, we went through several usability testing cycles collecting and analyzing the
feedback we were receiving from agents and supervisors participating in the study.
The new Agent Desktop was deployed in several stages allowing the management to monitor
results and compare the productivity of the new solution versus the existing solution. The
management saw substantial increases in productivity where agents were able to handle calls
more effectively, and also monitor their own activity by viewing how many calls they receive,
how much time they spend on ACW, on breaks, consult calls, etc.
AMEX technical personnel was trained to maintain the software and provide first-level
technical support. After one year of monitoring the performance of the call centers we were
pleased to realize that we were not receiving any second-level support requests from the
customer.

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INTEL CASE STUDY
This case study describes the adoption of the Universal Softphone Solution by Intel. Intel had
the call center offices and call center operations in Sacramento, California with additional call
centers located in Phoenix, Malaysia and Costa Rica. The company was using the Genesys
ActiveX control for Agent Desktop that was part of the Genesys platform. The call center
management was experiencing a number of issues related to heavy network traffic, instability
of the Agent Desktop software due to heaving data processing on the client side, usability
issues, problems with email and chat functions, as well as poor integration with CRM. The built-
in Agent Desktop provided little flexibility in adapting to customer’s business needs. The issues
were complicated by the necessity of operating several separate call centers with different
geographical locations.
The first step was to implement the two-Tier Softphone solution with more robust Agent
Desktop application built based on Genesys OLE provided within the Genesys platform. The
solution provided more flexibility and fixed the email/chat issues. However, the company still
faced problems related to effectively operating multiple call centers in different cities and
countries.
Our specialists created the following n-Tier architectural design that was proposed to address
the existing issues. n-Tier applications have become the norm for building enterprise software
today. To most people, an n-Tier application is anything that is divided into discrete logical
parts. The most common choice is a three-part breakdown: (1) presentation, (2) business logic,
and (3) data, although other possibilities exist. n-Tier applications first emerged as a way of
solving some of the problems associated with traditional client/server applications, but with
the arrival of the Web, this architecture has come to dominate new development.

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Our proposed design had the following logical parts:
1. Business logic (n-Tier):
a. Softphone Service
b. Microsoft IIS Web Services
2. Presentation: Web Softphone or Agent Desktop – a PC with a Windows operating
system and Microsoft .Net Framework.
3. Data: Genesys environment
When the management reviewed the Universal Softphone Solution architecture, it was noted
that the network traffic could be drastically reduced when T-Servers no longer have multiple
open asynchronous connections with individual clients, but instead have a single socket
connection with the middle logic tier which runs all processing of calls and routs them to
individual agents.

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The Softphone service in the middle business logic part acts as a T-Server/Interaction Server
client that reads the call data from the Genesys environment, executes business logic, and
handles the connections with all of the agent desktops. The business logic part is broken down
in two separate tiers as follows:
1. Softphone Service
a. Executes business logic.
b. Communicates with 5,000+ Agent Desktops
c. Communicates with Genesys T-Servers and Interaction Servers, and/or Cisco
PG;
d. Provides configuration tools
e. Operates Softphone Database as a repository for:
i. History statistics on all calls
ii. Agents’ personal settings
iii. Conflicts/errors related to login IDs, extensions, etc.
iv. Agents’ notes, IVR data, auxiliary data for CRM solutions.
2. IIS Web Services
a. Launches Agent Desktops on Agent’s stations over HTTP connection
b. Gets data from Genesys Configuration Database
c. Connects to Softphone Database for agent’s data & misc.
Web Management Tool is an optional tool for supervisors providing:
a. Broadcasting to all agents/ groups of agents
b. Handling conflicts/errors
c. Control agents’ desktop settings
Since all complex business logic services are performed in the middle tier, the Agent Desktop
application becomes a simple thin client that handles the user interface and performs on those
functions that are necessary for the agent to handle calls most effectively. Genesys created
Interaction Workspace that was supposed to work as a 2-tier and 3-tier solution. However,
subsequently Genesys stated that their 3-tier solution was not available.
Intel established a staging area for the initial deployment and testing. During the testing stages
the main focus was on testing the validity of the proposed architectural design within the Intel
call center environment as well as how well the Softphone service can handle large volume of
calls. The softphone service is designed to simultaneously provide connection to 5,000 clients.
The first implementation in the production environment was done in the Sacramento call
center. Once the results were validated, additional installations were performed in other call
centers. Most of the implementation efforts were performed remotely.

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CAREMARK CASE STUDY
The Phoenix, Arizona contact center at Caremark pharmaceutical company was using Cisco CTI
with IPCC Software PBX. The company was using Cisco standard out-of-the-box softphone and
was experiencing a number of issues. The functionality of the softphone was limited and it was
used only to pass customer data to CRM. There were also serious limitations with the type of
data that the application could handle. Agents used hard phones for all customer interaction.
As our team started reviewing the existing environment and assessing business requirements
we discovered problems with Cisco CTI OS Server. CTI OS Server was created by Cisco as a
middle server to receive data from Cisco PG. The call center management pointed that under
certain conditions the middle tier was losing up to 50% of data. Moreover, agents were
experiencing up to 30 seconds of delays in receiving customer data. The management was
looking for a comprehensive solution to resolve these problems. The main focus was to create
a fully functional Softphone solution and ensure accuracy and integrity of data.
Our team used the n-Tier Softphone Solution as the basis for creating our proposal. The
solution had to be modified to be fully integrated into the Cisco CTI using Protocol 12. The
Softphone service in the middle tier was designed to completely bypass the Cisco CTI OS Server
and communicate directly to the Cisco PG server. The Softphone service handled the business
logic operations and passed calls to individual Agent Desktops.
The Agent Desktop was written in the latest Microsoft technology using Visual Studio .Net
Framework 2.0. It offered all Hard Phone functionalities like Login, Logout, Ready, Not Ready,
Held, Transfer, and Conference etc., along with integration with any CRM Applications.
The middle-tier Softphone service and the Agent Desktop provided multiple benefits to the
client:
 Thin Agent Desktop client required no installation on agent’s machines using HTTP
request from IIS to launch the application.
 Minimal network traffic between Softphone Service and Agent Desktops.
 Any client upgrades, updates, error corrections could be done remotely without any
interruption using the Web Management Tool.
 Central control of all agents’ activities.

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 Full integration with existing CRM Solutions or 3d Party Applications or home-grown
made Applications done on the client level or the business logic level.
 Very user friendly GUI. Basic agent training usually takes no more than 30 minutes.
 Agent Desktop UI was placed on the top of the screen thereby giving agents a lot of
screen space to handle other applications.
 Splitting Agents in different Agent Groups in CME provided supervisors with direct
control of many agent’s functions and data displayed for agents.
 Agents were able to see any statistics related to their activities directly on their
desktop. The data displayed was defined by their supervisor.
 Agents could keep track and review any customer historical information.
The Call Center Management took a staging approach to the implementation of the solution.
Once the product passed all required testing and validation in the test environment, a series of
usability studies were performed with a limited number of agents. The solution was deployed
in parallel to the Hard Phone and Cisco IPCC PBX. The Agent Desktop was installed on five
stations and five agents were asked to start using the new solution by answering customer calls
in the normal business fashion. The agents’ activities were monitored by the call center
supervisors and the implementation team.
At the end of the one-week usability study the agents were asked to submit reports on the
functionality of the software. All agents reported that the learning curve was easy and within
one day they felt comfortable with using the new interface. They reported no need for using
the Hard Phone as all operations could be handled through the software. The application was
stable. All phone controls were conveniently placed at the top of the screen leaving ample
space for operations with other applications. The softphone controls changed dynamically
based on the current operating mode. In addition, the agents were able to conveniently view
their own statistics in the pre-defined format.
Upon successful completion of the first usability study, a wider deployment of the solution was
implemented covering a group of agents. This study involved testing the usability of supervisor
functionality and supervisor handling the monitoring of the agent activity.
In result, the company completed the deployment of the completely new Softphone into the
existing environment within five weeks. Staged implementation of the solution into production
took additional four weeks.