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Cisco® Unified Contact Center Express (CCX) helps businesses and organizations deliver a connected digital experience, enabling contextual, continuous, and capability-rich journeys for your customers, across time and channels. This easy-to-deploy and easy-to-use solution supports up to 400 agents and is designed for midmarket companies or enterprise branch offices. Secure and highly available, it supports powerful agent- based services and fully integrated self-service applications, including Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), and digital channels, including email and chat and customer experience management tools.
Cisco Unified CCX helps deliver each of your contacts to the right agent the first time. It enables this accuracy with sophisticated business rules for inbound and outbound voice, email, web chat, and customer interaction management. Cisco Unified CCX also offers numerous agent and desktop services and can scale to larger, more demanding environments.
You can choose from two Cisco Unified CCX packages to better match solution functions with your customer contact interaction management requirements. The Cisco Unified CCX solution is tightly integrated with Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM), Cisco UCM Cloud, Webex Calling-Dedicated Instance, Cisco Business Edition 6000 (BE6000), and Cisco Business Edition 7000 (BE7000).
Table 1. Features and benefits of Cisco Unified CCX 12.5 SU2
| Feature |
Benefits |
| Agent capabilities and benefits |
|
| Cisco Finesse® desktop |
● Cisco Finesse is a next-generation agent and supervisor desktop embedded with Cisco Contact Center Express. It includes an intuitive, easy-to-use design to help improve the performance of customer care representatives for high-quality customer service.
● With an easily customizable desktop, admins can provide easy access to the applications and information required by your customer service organization, including CRM pop-ups.
● Cisco Finesse supports inbound and outbound contact center functions. Core features include:
◦ Customizable agent and supervisor desktop layout – users can resize and drag and drop gadgets ◦ Customizable logo and heading ◦ Blended agents: inbound and outbound capability ◦ Call control gadget provides screen-pop information with complete customer information ◦ Phonebook ◦ Multisession web chat ◦ Live data reporting gadgets ◦ E.164 support ◦ Pop-over to view selective call-relevant information prior to answering a call ◦ Agent call history and state history gadgets ◦ Selection of multiple wrap-up reasons for voice, email, and chat channels ◦ Users can resize and drag and drop gadgets ◦ Shortcut keys for agents and supervisors ◦ Users can update call variable values during an active call ◦ Multi-tab gadget: Access multiple gadgets via tabs within a Multi-tab Gadget ◦ 64 alpha-numeric characters agent IDs ◦ Support for case insensitive login for the Finesse agent desktop |
| Customer surveys |
● Webex
® Experience Management enables businesses to conduct a post-call survey via IVR, email, and SMS channels, and agents can view prior surveys submitted by the
customer.
● The context and history that the survey gadget provides helps customer care agents better understand and respond to customer
needs.
● Agents can view their own performance reports (ex: CSAT, NPS, customer effort) and how they compare with their
team.
● Supervisors can view team surveys.
|
| Home and |
● The VPN-less Remote Access feature provides the flexibility for agents and supervisors to access the Finesse desktop from remote locations through the Internet without requiring VPN connectivity to the Enterprise data center. To enable this feature, a reverse-proxy pair must be deployed in the DMZ. To connect to the media, agents and supervisors can use Cisco Jabber over MRA or the Extend and Connect capability of Contact Center Express with a PSTN or mobile endpoint.
● Home agents can use the Cisco Unified Communications Manager infrastructure with extend and connect functions along with a Cisco Jabber
®
client in extend mode to set their own remote
device. This feature provides flexibility for agents to use their public switched telephone network (PSTN) phone devices to accept, transfer, conference, and disconnect calls, while Cisco Unified CCX manages the agent interactions.
● The shared line feature allows the same extension to be shared across multiple devices. Agent Device Selection enables agents to select a device of choice while logging into the Finesse desktop and make it the active device for the session.
|
| Interactive voice response (IVR) and self- service |
● This feature provides an integrated, ready-to-use IVR solution, including an IVR queue point, custom call treatment, arbitrarily deep voice menus, custom voice prompts, and the ability to process customer phone- keypad presses through Dual-Tone Multifrequency (DTMF) processing to make routing decisions or to present a screen pop to the agent. Advanced IVR ports, available with Unified CCX Premium licenses, enable database integration.
● Adding advanced self-service technologies such as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Text To Speech (TTS), and VoiceXML is
supported.
● Cisco Unified CCX supports conversational IVR via an integration with Solutions Plus partners. The feature allows developers to create open- ended, dialog-driven applications that allow end-users to have unconstrained and unrestricted conversational interactions
|
| Desktop Chat |
● The Desktop Chat feature, available via a gadget within Finesse, enables agents to chat with other agents and supervisors, as well as experts outside the contact center.
|
| Management capabilities and benefits |
|
| Supervisor features |
● Advanced supervisor capabilities allow supervisors to manage queues, business hours, prompts, and outbound campaigns, enabling them to optimize contact center efficiency.
● The ability to monitor critical performance metrics allows managers to coach, train, and encourage agent behavior so that agents can consistently perform their job functions and process calls efficiently.
● The ability to chat with individual members or the entire team using Desktop Chat allows supervisors to coach agents, resolve problems, and instantly communicate business changes.
● Supervisors can send broadcast messages to their teams using the Team Message feature.
● Supervisors can view active call details of an agent call in progress.
● Supervisors can silently monitor inbound and outbound calls to listen for coaching opportunities.
● Supervisors can interrupt an agent's call using Barge In to interact with both the caller and the agent to help resolve a concern.
● Supervisors can remove an agent from a call using the Intercept feature, so the supervisor and caller can complete the call on their own while the agent handles another customer request.
● Supervisors can change an agent's status from their desktops in a situation where agents may forget to make themselves available to take calls after a break, or neglect to log out when they are away from their workstations for an extended period.
● Supervisors can log out missing agents or make unintentionally idle agents ready to take calls. They can change an agent's skill profile in real time, so they can manage their agent teams and support contact center management objectives.
● Calls can be recorded using Workforce Optimization recording solutions, and supervisors can play back conversations using gadgets available on their desktop.
● Supervisors can quickly search and retrieve an agent in the Team Performance gadget
|
| Workflows |
● Cisco Finesse desktop web administration allows easy configuration of complex screen-pop actions using the Cisco Finesse HTTP and REST APIs.
● Administrators can easily set up workflows for voice and digital channels in Cisco Finesse using a logic- based, intuitive interface to provide improved service and reduce handle times. Cisco Finesse workflows can trigger two actions: REST API calls and browser-based screen pops.
● Any system that supports REST APIs or has applications that work in a standard web browser will work with the Cisco Finesse desktop.
|
| Administration |
● Web-based administration provides a run-anywhere, enterprise-wide point of control for single or multisite contact centers.
● Cisco Unified CCX transparently integrates information from Cisco Unified Communications Manager and integrates with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager web-based administration to provide cross- access and a common interface.
● Administration for the Cisco Finesse desktop is also integrated into the Cisco Unified CCX administration.
● Administration allows a wide range of real-time reporting statistics across all activity within the contact center, regardless of agent or supervisor location and for all calls in process.
● Support for case insensitive login to appadmin
|
| Integrated service-creation environments |
● Cisco Unified CCX offers a service-creation and scripting environment for mapping business rules to call- flow behavior and call treatments.
● A visual editor environment provides a simple, drag-and-drop, easy-to-understand interface for building powerful, custom, business-communication applications.
|
| Webex Workforce Optimization: Quality Management |
● Manage personnel efficiently to deliver consistent customer service that matches your business goals with workforce management.
● Align compliance and quality goals with 100 percent call recording and quality management.
● Measure agent efficiency and performance through tailored evaluation forms
● Boost morale via gamification and agent self-assessment
● Available as an option with Cisco Unified CCX Flex Standard and Premium
|
| Webex Workforce Optimization: Workforce Management |
● This feature provides planning enhancements to allow supervisors to create hiring plans based on staffing needs, time to hire, and attrition.
● Capacity plans produce reports to identify resource needs over an established timeframe.
● Budgetary plans establish basic budgetary estimates over a defined timeframe.
● Dynamic scheduling aligns the agent’s scheduling desires with the staffing needs of the business.
● These strategic planning tools are easy to use and administer, and they allow schedulers to remain in control and ensure optimal staffing levels.
|
| Webex Workforce Optimization: Analytics |
● Integrates speech, desktop, and text analytics in a single, unified offering. Analytics helps organizations improve and grow their business through access to vital metrics and voice-of-the-customer insights.
|
| Multichannel options |
|
| |
● Email enables contact centers to queue and route email messages to skilled agents, helping balance email and call-handling activities. Agent email is available with Exchange, Office 365, and Gmail.
● Integrated into the agent desktop, the email feature requires integration with Cisco Customer Collaboration Platform.
|
| Web chat |
● Web chat provides multisession chat capabilities for managing customer interactions through company websites.
● Integrated into the agent desktop, web chat requires integration with Cisco Customer Collaboration Platform.
● Blend voice and chat operations with the ability to allocate or not allocate chat contacts while an agent is on a voice call, and conversely for improved resource usage.
● Group chat enables an agent to bring an expert from another queue into the chat and optionally transfer the chat.
● A new chat bubble that can be used from desktops and mobile devices enables better experiences and easier administration to push changes to the business website.
● Customers can originate chats with the business using Facebook Messenger, which can be handled by the agent on their familiar Cisco Finesse Chat and Email gadget.
● Post-chat surveys and reporting are included, and you can download chat transcripts in an HTML format.
|
| Outbound dialing |
● This feature offers direct preview, progressive, and predictive outbound dialing with Cisco Finesse desktop, as well as outbound IVR capabilities.
● It can help you build campaigns to use preview dialing that is integrated with inbound calls to provide a blended inbound/outbound solution.
● Outbound dialing enables agents to serve both inbound calls and outbound campaign tasks when the inbound queue is empty, allowing for the most efficient use of agent resources for both inbound calls and outbound campaigns.
|
| Product functions and system capabilities |
|
| Routing capabilities |
● These capabilities offer call-routing behaviors based on conditional events, such as time of day, day of week, or holiday routing, as well as the ability to specify service levels, move contacts between agent groups, and reprioritize contacts in a queue based on your business rules.
● These capabilities facilitate categorization and prioritization of customer contacts in a way that best meets your business requirements.
● A wide range of routing logic is supported that can accurately target and selectively route different classes of contacts, or even single out individual contacts for customized, prioritized routing treatment.
● These capabilities help ensure that each contact is routed to the right agent at the right location the first time to maximize resolution on the first call.
|
| Next-generation reporting |
● Next-generation reporting provides historical, Live Data, and dashboards with flexible presentation options using Cisco Unified Intelligence Center.
● Existing out-of-the-box reports allow you to view historical and Live Data reports, or view custom reports based on the information you want to track.
● In addition, the ability to report on service levels, thresholds, alerts, and short- and long-term views allows supervisors to create even more comprehensive reports.
● Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Premium, which is now embedded in CCX, can connect to multiple data sources and allows for creation of custom reports, providing greater flexibility.
|
| Open systems |
● This feature allows you to take full advantage of industry-standard hardware platforms to enable the benefits of many software functions at a modest hardware cost.
● The open architecture of the system, which includes an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)-compliant database as well as Java interfaces for CTI applications, can integrate with existing contact center solutions, preserving investments in traditional systems and providing a platform for future applications.
|
| Redundant high availability |
● High-availability redundancy is supported for dual-server cluster deployments, including support for automatic failover of inbound voice ACD, IVR, and desktop
services.
● Database replication and failover are supported, as well as load-balanced redundancy for historical reporting and on-demand
recording.
● High Availability over the WAN (HAoWAN) is
supported.
|
| Single Sign-On |
● Single Sign-On (SSO) permits the Cisco administrator, reporting user, supervisors, or agents to sign on only once with a username and password to gain access to all of their Cisco browser-based applications and services within a single browser instance. Cisco administrators can manage all users from a common directory and enforce password policies for all users consistently.
|
| Smart Licensing |
● Smart Licensing is a simpler and more agile method for managing licenses across the organization.
● Customers can pool licenses across multiple sites and redeploy as required.
● Customers can increase usage at times when there are burst requirements.
● Reserve licenses (Specific License Reservation) for a specific device and avoid communicating licenses usage to CSSM. Note: The SLR feature is targeted for CCX systems operating in highly secure networks.
● With Smart Licensing, an admin can disable/enable over-consumption of the licenses.
● License reservation enhancements to handle specific requirements from Federal customers
|
| Scalability |
● Scalability provides a multichannel contact center in a box for up to 400 agents.
● Dual-server clusters provide redundant high availability.
|
| Security |
● Cisco Unified CCX supports Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), an integrated Linux OS feature that provides access-control policies for a secure system.
● Security is improved with SRTP and Secure JTAPI.
● Cisco Unified CCX supports ECDSA certificate
● Support for RSA Certificate key size 4096
|
| IPv6 |
● Cisco Unified CCX supports IPv6 with a dual-stack capability.
|
| Simplified deployment and upgrades |
● Integration with Cisco Prime
® deployment includes fresh installation and upgrades, hostname change, and IP address change.
● The Health Check tool provides information on system health, service status, and adherence to system design guidelines.
|
| Appliance model |
● Appliance model supports deployment only in a virtualized system.
● Appliance model is a secure, resilient, and robust model that is less complex and provides for faster installations, easier upgrades, and less frequent patching.
● Remote deployment, operation, and support reduce the need for onsite support, potentially shortening maintenance cycles and reducing overall downtime.
|
| Virtualization |
● Virtualization requires deployment as an application on a virtual machine on the VMware platform running on the Cisco Unified Computing System
™ (Cisco UCS
®) or specification-based
hardware.
● Virtualization allows Cisco Unified CCX to be part of a virtualized deployment where multiple Cisco Unified Communications applications can be deployed on the same
server.
● Consolidating servers through virtualization results in significant cost savings and reduction in
TCO.
● For more details about the hardware requirements, VMware requirements, supported VMware features, virtual-machine sizing, and best practices for this deployment, visit:
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/uc_system/virtualization/cisco-
collaboration-virtualization.html
|
Cisco Unified CCX can be ordered as subscription licenses using the Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan. Ordering guides are available at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/partners/tools/collaboration-ordering-guides.html.
For Collaboration Flex Contact Center license packages and the capabilities included in each package, please refer to: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/unified-communications/cisco-collaboration-flex-plan/datasheet-c78-741220.html.
Upgrades from prior releases to Cisco Unified Contact Center Express 12.5 can be accomplished with a valid Cisco Unified Communications Software Support Service (SWSS) or Flex contract. Customers that do not have a valid SWSS contract should migrate to Flex licensing to upgrade.
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express 12.5 SU2 features and specifications
For complete details about the feature packaging and system capacities, refer to the design guide available at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/crs/express_12_5_1_su2/design/guide/uccx_b_1251su2_solution-design-guide.html.
For details regarding Release 12.5 SU2, refer to the release notes at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/crs/express_12_5_1_su2/release/guide/uccx_b_1251su2_solution-release-notes.html.
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express offers an integrated, full-featured solution for managing customer contacts involving voice, email, and chat while retaining all the benefits of fully converged Cisco Unified Communications deployment. It delivers sophisticated multichannel contact routing, management, and administration features for departmental, enterprise branch office, or small to medium-sized enterprise customer care needs.
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express offers ease of installation, configuration, and application hosting, as well as reduced business application integration complexity, ease of agent administration, increased agent flexibility, and network hosting efficiencies. With all these features, Cisco Unified Contact Center Express continues the evolution toward a true customer interaction network.
Cisco environmental sustainability
Information about Cisco’s environmental sustainability policies and initiatives for our products, solutions, operations, and extended operations or supply chain is provided in the “Environment Sustainability” section of Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report.
Reference links to information about key environmental sustainability topics (mentioned in the “Environment Sustainability” section of the CSR Report) are provided in the following table:
| Sustainability topic |
Reference |
| Information on product material content laws and regulations |
|
| Information on electronic waste laws and regulations, including products, batteries, and packaging |
Cisco makes the packaging data available for informational purposes only. It may not reflect the most current legal developments, and Cisco does not represent, warrant, or guarantee that it is complete, accurate, or up to date. This information is subject to change without notice.
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For more information about Cisco Unified Contact Center Services, visit: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/contact-center/service-listing.html.
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