Attached is the May 2003
edition of the Dial Interactive Newsletter.
Every month we will cover a topic that will help make a difference
within your call centers. This month’s edition covers topics related
to an upcoming call center seminar and Voice over IP for call
centers. For a PDF version of this
newsletter, go to www.dialinteractive.com/newsletters/may2003.pdf
Thank you.
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NEWSLETTER |
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May, 2003 |
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n IP Telephony --- Finally Ready For Customer Service |
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To register for this seminar
please go to http://www.dci.com/events/cchd
IP
Telephony --- Finally Ready For Customer Service
By
The telephone is still the
major form of remote communication between businesses and their customers. It is sometimes easy for us to forget the
importance of the telephone because of the sizzle provided by other newer
technologies such as Web Collaboration, Email, Wireless Data, and Instant
Messaging. The list just goes on from
there. However, IP Telephony is our
chance to take advantage of the latest in technology advances while meeting the
needs of the most demanding telephone users --- the customer service
center. We must be careful because the
telephone is used by everyone and expectations are high regarding
reliability. But we should expect no
less from a technology that has been working for more than a century. This article explores the key items to
examine to achieve the same great service provided by regular telephone service
but utilizing IP and all the benefits that come with it.
The core technology of IP
based telecommunications has been in use for years. Local and long distance phone companies have
been carrying phone calls for years across packet based networks…Large
companies have as well to save costs and bandwidth between sites. So why all the recent hype? Because up until this point in time very few
critical customer calls were using Voice over IP. The barriers were many including feature
sets, reliability, cost, and especially interoperability between vendors. THAT HAS CHANGED!!!
Today’s IP telephone
solutions offer a great many advantages over traditional phone systems such as:
§
Location
o Locate agents and workers anywhere
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Maintain
one network for voice and data
o One set of standards for interoperability --
IP
§
Integration
between the data applications and the telephone is easier in an IP arrangement
o Application deployment is quicker
§
Multiple
contact channels are seamless
o Voice, E-mail, Web, Fax, Video
§
Flexible
administration
§
Flexible
contact treatment and queuing
o Centralized, distributed, or both
Standards exist today that
allow multiple vendors IP implementations to co-exist. Operating systems and data networks are more
reliable. Data networking equipment has
had a chance to evolve so that it now has critical voice features built
in. AND sadly enough the traditional voice
technology has stalled and in some cases taken a step backwards especially in
the area of maintainability.
Even with the advances in IP
based communications platforms there are still an enormous amount of issues
that must be addressed. Several false
starts have made customer service executives very leary
about letting any new technology into their centers. We must overcome memories of wireless
networks that do not complete 100% of calls, alternative carriers with
substandard service levels, attempts at Internet phone calls, and other poor
attempts at implementing change within the core telephone world.
An implementation of IP
telephony within a customer service center will go smoothly if a few simple
steps are taken.
- Establish a clear
roadmap to migrate traditional switched calls to IP calls.
- Assess the data
network and determine if it has the bandwidth and quality to handle voice
traffic. Make sure to educate the
call center business owners that this is not Internet Telephony but rather
IP Telephony. This will help
convince them that the expected customer satisfaction will be maintained.
- Determine all the
places within your environment that will require conversion from
traditional to IP based connections.
The amount of applications for gateways can be a surprisingly high
number. For example, a remote
branch must have emergency backup capability for such items as 911 calls.
- Make sure that your 3rd
party call center applications will work in an IP environment. For example, you will want to assess the
impact of different compression algorithms on such things as recording and
speech recognition. G.729 may save
bandwidth between sites but will it support the 3rd party
applications or will you have to go to G.711 which may take more bandwidth
than traditional telephone lines.
Also, determine the signaling protocols that are supported by these
various 3rd party applications.
- Determine the true
ROI of moving to IP within the call center. Include all potential benefits. Also, make sure everyone has an accurate
understanding of the true cost including adequate redundancy.
- Make sure that
security is well understood. Phone
calls need to remain private and that requires good security within a
company and between the company and the outside.
- Perform an interoperability
test between vendors. Individual
implementations of the “standards” can vary greatly between vendors all
the way to the point of not working.
For additional
information about Voice over IP or other call center consulting - contact Dial
Interactive at the addresses shown below.
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May, 2003 Newsletter