Specifications

64 CTI
TM
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flash or switch hook, then dial the
appropriate extension number. That’s
it. We were particularly impressed that
such a powerful PBX feature could fit
within such a small box!
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
We’d like to see screen pops appear
with caller ID information. Currently,
the Switchboard just passes the caller
ID to all the extensions.
Also, we’d like this product to be
able to automatically detect that a user
has picked up the handset during a call
being conducted via the computer
speakers and microphone. This would
automatically cause the system to
switch from speakerphone to handset
mode without requiring the user to
manually click an onscreen button.
CONCLUSION
The Switchboard is one of those
products that has every feature you ever
wanted, but never thought you could
afford (or didn’t even know existed).
Designed for the SOHO market, the
Switchboard gives you a sophisticated
phone system at a reasonable price
($495).
With this product, you can handle all of
your communications — including voice,
data, fax, transferring of phone calls, call
control, call conferencing, etc. — from
one compact box. The Switchboard is
bound to make some waves in both the
CTI industry and the lucrative SOHO
market. In fact it already has.
W
elcome to the help desk of the
future. Unlike the traditional
help desk, the new help desk is
fully interactive. It is, moreover, online.
Thus, the new help desk is accessible
from anywhere on the Internet/Intranet.
One product that is ushering in the
new help desk is EveNTs Software’s
Customer EveNTs System, or CENTS.
This product is particularly interesting
since it is based on Microsoft Windows
NT, one of the most advanced and pop-
ular platforms available today.
Although it breaks new ground by
taking customer service online, the
CENTS system observes the same rules
and protocols governing the traditional
customer service center. These rules and
protocols are built around a familiar
customer call model: The customer
calls the customer service center; the
customer service center gathers infor-
mation about the customer; the cus-
tomer service center uses the informa-
tion it gathers about the customer to
determine the call’s destination, perhaps
a specially qualified group of customer
service representatives (CSRs); the cus-
tomer service center, if it is unable to
make the appropriate connection imme-
diately (perhaps because all the CSRs in
a particular group are busy), diverts the
call to a queue until it is finally handled
by the next available CSR.
In a traditional call center, an auto-
matic call distributor (ACD) is normal-
ly employed to intelligently route the
call to the appropriate department. In
the new call center, products like
CENTS are employed to handle cus-
tomer calls the same way over the
Internet/Intranet. Extending the tradi-
tional call center model to the
Internet/Intranet realizes several key
benefits:
• You acquire a leading-edge image.
• You open a new channel for cus-
tomer contact.
• You provide fully interactive cus-
tomer support, which may include
audio and video capabilities.
• You avoid telephone charges.
If all these advantages don’t con-
vince you of the wisdom of taking your
business online, you may want to take a
close look at CENTS. Given its rich
feature set, intelligent design, and
reliance on powerful tools such as
ODBC, CENTS represents yet another
compelling reason go online.
INSTALLATION
With a product such as CENTS, instal-
lation should be conceived in broad
terms. Which is to say, correct deploy-
ment of CENTS goes far beyond the
installation and configuration of soft-
ware. Granted, in the case of CENTS,
these tasks demand considerable com-
puter and networking expertise. In fact,
they demand a group effort. But, as chal-
lenging as the technicalities may be, the
installer(s) would remiss if they limited
their efforts to these technicalities.
The installer(s) need to prepare a
detailed plan in advance identifying all
possible topics that callers might raise.
In addition, the installer(s) need to
assign CSRs who will handle calls on
these topics. If a customer service
department already exists, most of the
call handling procedures can be mod-
eled after the current ones.
Since installation is contingent on
procedural and personnel decisions,
system managers and network man-
agers need to cooperate with customer
service managers to get the system up
and running. (We did point out that
installation was a group effort!)
Maintaining the system can be assigned
to customer service managers.
DOCUMENTATION
At the time of our review, CENTS
was still an unfinished product, so we
were not surprised when CENTS
arrived without printed manuals.
Instead, the product arrived with five
volumes of documentation in Microsoft
Word format on a CD ROM. The vol-
umes covered the basics of CENTS and
the system’s modules.
The Word documents were well
organized and well illustrated with
screen shots. However, it was clear that
these documents were not quite com-
plete. The same could be said for the
text files provided with each module.
These files, which covered the installa-
tion of the modules, were detailed and
easy to follow, but were, nonetheless,
in need of some polishing.
FEATURES
CENTS consists of four components:
Customer CENTS, CSR CENTS,
Server CENTS, and Workbench
CENTS. These components work
C T I LABS
CENTS 1.0
EveNTs Software
Products, Inc.
14950 F.A.A. Boulevard
Ft. Worth, TX 76155
Ph: 800-472-3532; Fx: 817-685-5699
Web Site: www.eventssoftware.com
Price: Customer CENTS: Free; CSR
CENTS: $149; Server and Workbench
CENTS: $1,490; Merchant Server
Add-On: $149.
RATINGS (1-5)
Installation: 4.0
Documentation: 3.75
Features: 4.5
GUI: 4.5