Phone Systems

Richard Wilson On Hold – industry view on automated phone systems- Part 1 Holding

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Last nights “Richard Wilson On Hold”

Though we would just comment as an industry insider on automated telephone systems.

The program covered two distinct areas of the phone system industry,

1) Being put on hold before you get to speak to an operator. In phone system terms call centre software is called ACD – or automatic call distribution. This enables a larger number of calls to be handled by a fewer number of people, so put basically if you have 100 calls coming into a call centre at a particular time, with ACD software you can que 75 of the calls when the 25 operators deal with enquiries.

As a phone system solution provider we provide the tools to enable a business to achieve this, what tends to happen is these tools are ‘abused’ or cranked up to unfair wait times on clients, typically when a new manager in a call centre is brought in, or a new operations manager has to cut costs, usually by cutting staff. In real terms the 25 could be cut to 20, then 15 then 10 people over time and rounds of cuts.

We recommend hold times of less than 2 minutes. If consumers could see it form the other side, if you are a call center of 25 operatives that gets 5,000 calls a day (circa 625 an hour, 25 calls each op per hour), but many call centres dealing with consumers get many more calls between 12:30 and 2pm – when most consumers are free to make personal calls at lunch – so 25 operative may need to handle 1500-2000 calls in the lunch hour – and this is how ACD software should be used to smooth the curve, as most would concede its hard to find people who only want to work for an hour at lunchtime, let alone the space needed to seat them!

A more cynical point was the use of 0870 and 0871 numbers where the operators purposely hold customers (certain football clubs will not be mentioned), as the called company ears revenue on the call. Thankfully this has been tackled by the regulator, reducing the cost of the calls to these numbers. These practices still however prevail and we hope to see regulation stamp them out further.

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Phone system for Islington (N1) Estate agents react to market conditions using Smart Telecom technology

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Smartinfo have an estate agent customer in Islington, London.

The estate agent was started by two partners and had grown to 2 offices, the main in Islington and the second in Hampstead.

Their traditional incumbent provider had failed to keep abreast with the latest developments in telecoms technology, both in relation to telcom services and phone system features that can enable their business model.

Initially we consolidated their ISDN and analogue lines, and converted them into SIP trunks – this enabled more efficient line usage, ie they could cut down from 8 lines to 4 Sip trunks (Sip trunks can also be increased and decreased instantly at busy times, on a monthly basis).

All new Sip trunks are now delivered into the main Islington office. Calls to Hampstead are delivered into Islington lines, but ring in Hampstead on IP (Voip) phone extensions, unless unanswered in which case it can overflow identified to Islington N1 HQ.

As the market over the last couple of years has fluctuated the partners have used the phone system to react, where bigger players could not and as a consequence folded. The Hampstead branch office was closed as a physical office, but calls were not taken by its staff in Islington, with no noticeable change to the public clients.

As an entrepreneurial pair, one decided to emigrate to South Africa, to replicate the same business model there. He took an IP phone and was able to continue his administrative role (Accounts and legals) as if still in the UK. (With the use of some cloud based access to London PCs).
As he embraced his new SA lifestyle he also had a requirement for his SA mobile to be attached to the sytem, to take calls at un synchronised hours and on the school run – this was achieved with Mobex so he had full call control, so the ability to transfer the call from his SA mobile back to a London Extension seamlessly.

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Accountancy Profession clamouring aboard.

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Smartinfo Ltd, a City of London based leading supplier of Alcatel, Mitel and Samsung telephone systems along with electronic surveillance and mobile phone solutions are considered the Telecoms equivalent of Sage to the accountancy profession.

This is reflected in the number of firms signing up to use the cost-saving telecoms solutions Smartinfo are offering them. Accountants are considered very cautious in recommending the services of providers to their clients. Smartinfo have found that their Accountancy Practice Customers have no reservations about introducing them to their clients. This is because they see which client would benefit from the cost savings and productivity gains Smartinfo offer. Their advice is based on their own positive experiences of reducing costs and working smarter.

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Phone System for Logistics Company, using VOIP phones, SIP trunks and Softphones

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We thought we would outline a customer case study to show the power of a modern day Telephone system, in this case we outline how a Samsung telephone system enabled a modest logistics company punch above its weight and compete on a global stage, with true global scale.

The HQ of A Logistics is based in Essex and contains a small staff of 4 back office, operations and MD, the Samsung phone sytem is located here with a dedicated ADSL2+ connection for the voice to run SIP trunks over.

The encumbent analogue line number was ported over to the SIP trunks at the time of install. 4 VOIP extension phones were sent to Delhi, India – this is where the customer service calls are taken, so calls are made to the essex number and ring on the Delhi phones, if all the operators in Delhi are busy, the call can be grabbed by the Essex HQ.

The client also have a small office in Rotterdam and two further shipping agents (ie one man offices) in Vancouver and Toronto. Each of these three satalite offcies have an IP phone in place. This means any office can call another simply as an extension call, this means calls are not only free, but every user has access to teh features of the HQ Phone system, such as voicemail, comapny director, and of course can tell if a user in another country is busy or free.

As the MD is on the move and travelling alot mobile bills had become an acute problem. To solve this software was added to both the MD’s Lpatop and his mobile phone. A Samsung softphone was added to the MDs laptop, this gave him the full fucntionallity of a desk phone with programable keys for other users and fuctions such as conferencing – he can use the Laptop softphone in Airport lounges and Hotels as if he is in HQ, or indeed any of the 4 satalite offices. As an additial layer of communication a SIP phone licence was also added to his smartphone (firstly a windows mobile, later an android) this enabled him to take adhoc calls on the move on his mobile on the sip phone app (where wifi or 3g are available).

As a footnote if you are not roaming, domestic mobiles can be connected to the system as extensions with full PBX functionallity such as transfer, hold or conference.

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Mawi designer jewellery uses Global comms solution

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Mawi has been a long term customer of Smartinfo, there retail operations are connected to HQ and Studio, as there operation has grown due to the phenominal success of their unique and funky jewellery design, the Smartinfo communications solution has helped enable their growth.

As the chief designers need to travel all around the world for fashion shows, to visit suppliers and travels for creative inspiration, softphones were also set up on laptops so calls back to the office, logistics and Shops are free.

Some people see retail as a low tech – foot fall only marketing operation, but a case study such a Mawi shows a modest but smart and sophisticated operation can integrate multiple fluid sites using technology such as a phone sytem to operate on the global scale expected by their piers.

Contact us to find out why some of the UKs biggest retail brands and multisite operations use our solutions.

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Telephone Systems for Schools and Colleges

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Smartinfo have installed many new phone systems for schools and colleges. Many companies just remove old switchboards like for like, misssing an opportunity to add greater functionallity to a schools facility management.

Some of the features we like to install specifically for schools are:-

1) An Operator console – to enable the receptionist to handle a large number of calls at the busiest times

2) Texting from the desktop to allow student or parent realtime updating of urgent opening times info

3) Mobex – to allow mobile phones to replace DECT systems

4) Paging through phones

5) Scalling of lines up and down at busyest times such as admissions for 6th form colleges

6) Mobile gateway to reduce mobile call costs by 60%

If your supplier has not recommended any, or all, of the above they are not looking after a schools functional needs!

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Phone System Maintenance

It is recommended all owners of telephone systems take out a maintneance contract on their phone system.

A maintenance agreement gives a number of benifits over a pay as you go call-out structure.

A specific telephone system maintenance agreement gives you 1. A contracted SLA (service level agreement) 2. HArdware and Labour cover

As an added benefit Smartinfo also throw in some free moves and changes into our maintenance contracts, that is we provide a number of free dial-ins over the term of the contract, often refered to as MOCs – or moves and changes, such as phone name changes or ring group tweeks.

What is often overlooked is the cheap cost of maintenance, on our survey of our customer base Telephon system maintenance if less than 10% of the price of IT support for the same company. If you consider a company still uses telephony for customer contact at least as much as email and web this offers great value. Also most IT contracts do not offer hardware cover, whereas a smartinfo phone maintenance contract covers all hardware failures and the labour to replace or fix, within an SLA of commonly 4 or 8 hours.

If you refer to our life of a phone system blog post it is interesting to note that maintenance or service contract also covers software upgrades.

Some people relate a service contract to consumer items such as washing machines or fridges, or even business products like photocopiers, but these items tend to have a single mechanical part, and a modernday phone system is software driven and a business critical component – in fact we would argue as important as the business premisis, or staff.

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Investment payback on a Phone System

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Most business owners are unaware of the potential life of a telephone system for their small business.

Many phone systems we are replacing are 10-15 years old and potentially new phone systems could have an even longer life.

A modern phone system (or PBX) has less moving parts and is software driven; so the main driver for future replacement would be new available business features.

As new systems are software driven 99% of features will be made available simply by upgrading to a newer software level (such a mobex, or CTI screen popping). (Please read our post on Phone System Maintenance)

An obvious phone system benefit to us vendors in the industry is the prodctivity a PBX can add to a business, they far outweigh the small investment cost. Please see our post on phone system productivity.

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Voip Telephone systems and inter-operabillity to 999 and other 3 digit short dials

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Smartinfo install voip telephone systems with PSTN access (even if it is just a single traditional BT Analogue line) This can be programmed to provide both inbound and outbound resilliance, and can also be utillised for 999 emergency calls and operator type calls too: –

here is an interesting aticle from the states relating to Vonnage VOIP call 911 (999 evivelent)

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705397000/Can-you-text-911.html

Remeber if you install a voip phone system the system does not know your true location (a London number could be ringining on a Manchester Phone System)

Call us or fill in our for for a free quote for a Telephone System

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Cloud-Based VoIP PBX to Small Businesses

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A low-cost, next-generation Internet Cloud-Based VoIP PBX to Small Businessestelephony software and service provider, today announced that it has launched a SIP based IP-PBX service to consumers and small businesses.The service enables subscribers to establish a virtual telephone system and communicate free through the web, including video conferencing up to 5 extensions at a time, while calls to landline and mobile phones are priced at highly competitive VoIP rates.

As a SIP based system, this Smart VoIP service can also be downloaded to PC’s, cameras, iPhones, iPads, Android and Blackberry phones and other mobile phones using Microsoft Windows operating system, and offers IP security.

Other benefits of Smart IP-PBX system include easier
integration with business applications (the system can be integrated with CRM software to automatically bring up the customer profile of the caller) and economical call forwarding to anywhere in the world using SIP protocols. Unlimited video conferencing for up to five participants from smart phones, tablets, video phones and PCs is available for a small monthly fee.

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