This book is about a brand new industry. "Computer telephony" means the computer adds intelligence to your telephone calls. "Client/server" is jargon for running that intelligence on a local area network (LAN). Joining your office phone system to a server on your LAN, you get six benefits:
1. Synchronized data screen pop and phone call ring. Your phone rings, and the screen on your PC pops the name of the person calling, and notes on what you talked about last time. A big time saver. A big customer pleaser.
2. Integrated/unified messaging (voice, fax, e-mail, image, video). Morning, you arrive, turn on your PC. It logs you onto your LAN. In seconds, you get a screen listing all your messages - voice mail, electronic mail, fax mail, reports, compound documents. Click on one. Hear it. See it.
3. Database transactions. Also called "giving data a voice." Bank balances, catalog requests, store locations, movie times, shipping info, inventory status, etc. All sorts of stuff people want we can read them or fax them over the phone.
4. Telephony work groups. Salespeople need phones that grab the caller's phone number, look up what he last bought and send the call to the right seller. Bill collectors need phones to dial debtors quickly. Help desks need voice response that ask for a serial number, the problem and solves it with a fax or canned spoken words.
5. Desktop telephony. An on-screen Rolodex. Dial by name. Automatically reply to faxes. Play your voice mail like a cassette recorder. Record each call. Automatically transcribe it.
6. The compound document. The media we work in - voice, fax, video, paper, spreadsheets - are today all separate. With client server computer telephony we can combine them. (Why else would do we write this stuff?) Here's the spreadsheet. Click on the lousy fourth quarter numbers and hear my voice with a feeble explanation of why the results are so awful. Join fax to voice mail. Throw in a video clip of a tour around our new plant. Or a demo of our new product.
Author Biography: Edwin Margulies is a veteran of the voice processing industry and a prolific author on related topics. He is a champion of open architecture.

Margulies, Edwin K

Telecom Books

C M P Books

United States, United States of America

2nd ed, New York, ©1997

Volume 2, 1997

obscured text

Client Server Computer Telephony describes an approach to modern solutions for superior customer service.

1 volume (various pagings) : 23 cm
Cover title
Includes bibliographical references and index

2023-06-28