Set Up a Remote Call Center with Softphones and Cisco Contact Center Express

Advances in technology have made it possible for many businesses to have employees working anywhere.

remote call center with softphones and cisco contact center express

Making and receiving calls is an important aspect of many jobs, and employees need a way to stay connected when working from home.

Softphones allow your employees to make and receive business phone calls from anywhere without toting around and configuring a desk phone.

Instead, they can use their mobile phone or laptop to make calls from their business number.

This technology is also available for employees using Cisco Contact Center Express (CCX). However, to configure softphones for Contact Center Express users, there are few additional considerations you’ll need to make.

At The KR Group, when we help customers configure softphones to work with Contact Center Express, we review the following components:

  1. What mode to use in CCX for softphones
  2. How to remotely connect to CCX
  3. What’s needed to use softphones with CCX

If you have everything configured correctly, using softphones with Contact Center Express can add great flexibility to your customer service team.

 

What mode to use in Contact Center Express for softphones

When using Cisco Jabber, it assumes you’re using a desk phone and is set to desk phone mode.

If you wish to switch users to use CCX with softphones, you’ll need to switch from desk phone to softphone mode.

This is an additional feature of Cisco Jabber. As the name of the mode suggests, it allows you to use it as a softphone. Meaning, once you set a CCX user to softphone mode, your users can make and receive audio and video calls from a computer or mobile device.

 

How to remotely connect to Contact Center Express

Softphones with CCX can be used in your office if you wish to avoid purchasing desk phones. But as we mentioned, they’re generally used for remote customer service representatives.

If you choose to use softphones for a remote workforce, you’ll need a way for your CCX users to connect to the solution securely.

Cisco has a few options to make this connection work securely:

 

1.   VPN connection

Cisco’s top recommendation for customers using CCX remotely is to have your employees connect to Jabber (and Finesse) over a VPN connection.                                                        

By creating a private network, you protect your company’s data by assigning the user a protected IP address, encrypting their data, and masking their location.

This means your CCX solution, call system, and network as a whole are protected from any threats a user encounters on their home network.

Using CCX with a VPN is the most straightforward approach, but it does require sufficient bandwidth for Finesse and Jabber.

 

2.    Mobile agents

For users with reduced bandwidth, connecting to CCX over VPN may not work well enough to make reliable calls.

Another option Cisco gives CCX users is the flexibility to use the phone of their choice.

Users will specify their destination phone number during sign in. This gives users the ability to use their mobile phones or even their home phones without worrying about their customers learning their personal phone numbers.

As a business, this means your remote customer service representatives aren’t restricted to living in only areas with fiber internet.

However, users will still rely on an internet connection and a VPN connection for Finesse.

 

3.   Expressway

Another connection option is Cisco Expressway, this is a specific solution designed to provide a secure firewall connection for collaboration purposes.

Expressway provides a secure path for employees outside the physical office to make and receive audio and video calls, and this extends to CCX users.

Users can connect to provisioning, messaging, and presences services.

(You can read more about Expressway’s secure configuration in our article, “How to Configure Cisco Expressway for Remote Employees.”)

 

What’s needed to use softphones with Contact Center Express

Along with having a way to connect securely to the on-premises CCX and being in the right mode, you’ll need to have a few other things to successfully use CCX remotely.

 

1.   What’s needed to use softphones with CCX

Without a home internet connection, your users will not be able to use softphones on your desktop and connect to CCX remotely.

Mobile agents can help remove some of the reliance on an internet connection, but you’ll still need to connect to Finesse.

 

2.   The current version of Jabber

You’ll also need to make sure you’re using the latest version of Jabber 11, preferably version 12.

By using the latest version of Jabber, you’ll have all the features you need to effectively have a remote contact center.

You can also use additional features, such as separate extensions for CCX calls and linking remote devices outside of Unified Communications Manager.

Not all of these features are available on older versions of Jabber.

 

3.   Quality headsets

remote call center with softphones and cisco contact center express

If your employees are using CCX remotely, especially without a desk phone, you’ll need a quality headset.

This headset should have good audio for the caller, but more importantly, it should have a quality and focused microphone so any background noise is minimalized.

You should also consider the headset connection. To prevent audio delays, we encourage you to use either corded or high-quality Bluetooth headsets. 

 

 

Using softphones and CCX in your business

As more businesses look at remote workforce opportunities, softphones are becoming a necessary component of your IT environment.

When you configure softphones to work with your CCX system, your customer service representatives can also work remotely.

This can be done by having users switch to Jabber’s softphone mode and configuring a remote connection for them to use.

Your users will also need the latest version of Jabber 11 or 12 to enjoy all the features.

If you need more information about Contact Center Express and softphones, you can review our articles “Best Features of Cisco Contact Center Express” or “What Is a Softphone? [Definition & Benefits],” or download this free infographic on Contact Center Express.

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