An Intelligent-T (T1/DS1) is a dedicated service that can be used to deliver NICE CXone calls directly to agents, bypassing the PSTN. Customers use Intelligent-T’s because of their ability to reduce costs, improve performance and provide unique functionality.
Reducing Costs:
An Intelligent-T is a flat rated service. The portion of the call that uses the Intelligent-T is rated at $0. This reduces the cost of these calls, provided there are enough minutes to pay for the cost of the T1 circuit(s). Cost justification becomes a matter of simple math. If your T1 costs $500/month, and you will have 100,000 minutes using that T1, then those minutes are only costing you $.005/min. Compare this to what the cost of a switched call that uses the PSTN to determine at what point the T1 becomes more cost effective that switched calls. Other cost benefits may exist because the Intelligent-T may reduce the calling burden placed on a company’s local phone services, and the need to augment local lines in an effort support call center calls.
Performance:
While saving money makes the accountants happy, the ability for an Intelligent-T to improve the performance of calls in the call center is an even more powerful incentive to incorporate the Intelligent-T in to a call center’s NICE CXone services.
1. Faster call set up on new calls
2. The ability to have an agent permanently nailed up to NICE CXone improves speed and overall agent performance.
An Intelligent-T can yield considerable improvements to the time it takes to connect callers to agents.
Functionality:
When a customer’s network is directly connected to the NICE CXone network, it creates opportunities for customized dial plans and unique interactions between the customers IVR/Phone system and NICE CXone. This functionality can be vital to the operation of that call center.
How many T1’s are needed?
This depends on the number of agents and any custom dialing schemes. As a note, it is worth considering whether or not to order extra T1’s. I have seen instances where a customer had just enough T1 capacity to service the agents they had. This worked well until they lost one T1. Then they found that because there was no excess T1 capacity, there were a number of agents that were available, but could not take calls because there was no way to get the call to them. So callers sat in queue. When looking at adding T1’s to your NICE CXone services, disaster recovery also needs to be considered. Please read my edition on Erlangs for more information about capacity planning.
The Intelligent-T is a useful and powerful tool. If you have more than 20 agents or a need for customized calling plans, please talk to your CSM or one of our Sales Engineers to see if adding an Intelligent-T to your products makes sense for your business.
