For example, in most cases insurance is confusing enough without the added worry of what is happening back in the classroom while you are on the telephone. With a tense customer online, the agent with an integrated SOA cockpit can start an ad hoc conference and resolve the issue in real-time with the right people involved. The agent can reach the subject matter experts whether they're a call center software user or not. The era of an agent saying apologetically "I'm sorry. I'll need to call around for that answer and call you back" will finally come to an end.

And if the expert isn't currently available, the agent can set a "tell-me-when" alert, which tracks the voice or IM availability status of that expert using a highly sophisticated presence engine. The moment the expert becomes available, the solution initiates a chat session or voice call to the expert's preferred device, depending on the desire of the agent.

Tillotson observed, "From the call center arena the view is that, finally, there's a SOA functionality that can truly make it easier for agents to quickly find and reach the right subject matter expert each time".

Second and perhaps more importantly, the virtualized contact center delivers valuable personnel benefits in recruiting and retention, as Tillotson explained:

"We have folks that we want to have as home-based agents. It's a retention advantage and a quality-of-life issue. People who have never considered working from home before are demanding this capability for greater balance in their lives between work and family. A subject matter expert or agent that's hard to recruit and retain can be made happier with the flexibility offered by this type of solution."

But how to satisfy the agents' need to see who is available to help them during a call? Tillotson continues:

"When I walk around a call center today, I notice the ‘gopher effect' - people popping up from their cubicles, up on their tip toes peering over the cube walls to see who's nearby and available to help them during a call. We also recognize the power of telecommuting and having remote offices in other parts of the city to reduce the length of employees' commutes.

What's always held us back from embracing telecommuting is the ‘gopher effect.' If people aren't physically in the center, then you can't pop up to see if they're available. That lack of visibility makes some people uncomfortable.

Many of our expert staff have also embraced the new PDAs and smart phones as they recognize the need to stay connected. And now with this type of SOA application, agents can connect with those available experts who will help them help their customers. People at home, in hearings, in training, traveling, or just away from their cube are still accessible by the agent. It's very, very exciting."

Finally, there are the very real benefits to the IT staff made possible by SOA's architectural advantages.

First, an IT strategy committed to the open standards of SOA will greatly simplify the process needed to embed communications into today's applications. A SOA approach simply slashes development time needed to create new applications. It also enables quick delivery of new capabilities, through reusable code, from one application into another, as demonstrated by Siemens Enterprise Communications to Tillotson. This is significant in that developers can now quickly and effectively align IT strategy to the strategic goals and vision of executive management.

Second, to have the availability status appear in the agent desktop, no additional licenses from the contact center application are required for those experts already using OpenScape UC Application outside the enterprise. The agent simply requests permission from the expert to display their availability on their screen (see Figure 2).

Last, displaying OpenScape UC Application users in the agent desktop does not put any additional traffic on the contact center server. It is not necessary to identify the OpenScape UC Application user on the contact center server for monitoring because the UC application is doing the monitoring. Therefore, this approach has no impact on the overall call-by-call traffic burdening the call center application server. This also means there are no additional reports generated by having users outside the contact center visible within the contact center software.

The link between a SOA approach and achieving a business goal of measurably improved FCR is now quite clear - agents can be equipped with new UC tools to resolve customer inquiries on the first attempt within the familiar environment of their contact center solution.

Equipped to Deliver Future High-Value Integrations
One more reason to consider a SOA approach: think about the value of SOA in a mobility scenario. Should the TASB organization decide to adopt a mobility component in the future, these reusable service components can be integrated into a mobile agent or supervisor desktop client, making these powerful customer service capabilities portable. See how FCR rates can immediately skyrocket? For TASB, any new link between the contact center and the necessary experts outside it means improved service levels that will satisfy their school board members like never before.