Unified Intelligent Contact Management provides enterprise-wide distribution of multichannel contacts
(inbound/outbound telephone calls, web collaboration requests, e-mail messages,
chat requests) across geographically separated contact centers.
Unified ICM is an open standards–based solution whose capabilities include
routing, queuing, monitoring, and fault tolerance.
Unified ICM forms the basis for the Cisco Unified Communications family of products.
The system software functions across environments as well as across
channels.
The system software functions in the older environment of telephone
calls delivered over Time-division multiplexing (TDM) lines, of hardware automatic call distributions (ACD)s and interactive voice responses (IVR)s, and of call centers
centralized around the hardware. The system software can route calls for a
single 800 number or for several different numbers. The system software reads
information about each incoming call from the public network, determines the
best destination for that call, and returns information to the public network
instructing it where to route the call. This orocess is known as
call-by-call routing.
The system software makes routing decisions by executing scripts that
can easily be modified. These scripts can use real-time information about
activity at the contact centers to find the destination best able to handle the
call. You can monitor how the system is handling calls and make changes to
the scripts when needed.
The system software functions in the newer environment of multi-channel
contacts delivered through IP connections, of software ACDs and IVRs, and of
contact centers that can be as decentralized as the Internet or as centralized
as business practices — not hardware necessities — require them to be.
The system software functions in the mixed transition environment that
involves all of the above.
For detailed information about Unified ICM, refer to the Pre-installation Planning Guide for Cisco Unified ICM Enterprise & Hosted , and the Administration Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise & Hosted.