Johannesburg, 26 Sep 2016
In today's modern corporate environment, unified communications has blurred the lines between your traditional fixed and mobile communications and your network-based IP communications, says TelesaComms. Both of these environments need to be managed to ensure an optimal service is provided to users of these services. Either way, companies require proper planning and should align their telecoms planning with business needs to provide the appropriate level of telecoms services.
Right service providers
Selecting the right service provider to provide your telecoms connectivity can have a big impact on your monthly telephony costs. Getting a lowest "per second" billing rate does require further analysis and unpacking. In the last ten years the supplier landscape in South Africa has become very competitive.
There are an increasing number of suppliers to choose from, and this requires a good understanding of their offerings as they have become complex. Many VOIP providers offer very low "per second" rates that require additional equipment on either end of the connection.
Pricing models have also become complex. Many companies select multiple service providers with a primary supplier and a fail-over secondary service provider. Typically the primary service provider has the best rates available, but this requires that a minimum volume of traffic needs to travel over their network. Invoice surprises happen when the invoice is received and the amount is much larger than budgeted, because the bulk of the traffic has been split over both service providers and the necessary volumes have not been reached to achieve the discount rates. What has happened is that for some reason the configuration in that company's telecoms and network switches are not correct. Because IT and finance are interacting, it takes months to identify the error most often due to a complex technical setup.
Right infrastructure
Telecoms and communication technologies have changed dramatically over the past ten years. It is therefore important that the correct vendor is selected to ensure that your solutions are aligned to your business needs. For example, if VOIP is being selected, it is prudent to conduct tests to ensure that the quality is of sufficient grade that it will support the number of concurrent users as required by business, especially when it comes to call centres. Does the equipment support Quality of Service (QOS) to ensure that voice data is prioritised over the network. Be careful not to become a guinea pig to a provider who has just ventured into VOIP, with the perceived benefit of low costs. It is also vital to understand the infrastructure and equipment requirements, as these most often cost a pretty penny.
Don't be afraid to approach industry experts to get an unbiased opinion, you wouldn't invest in a house or new car in your personal life without finding out relevant information, so why skip the research on this integral part of your business?
Having the capability of tracking inbound calls for sales, marketing and customer support can provide some valuable insights as to the drive the necessary behaviour required.
Benefits aligned to business goals
Telecoms should always be seen as delivering value to businesses. The exact value will change as the business changes. Value can be defined in different ways:
* Measuring productivity of sales calls to deals won;
* Measuring productivity of service calls to maintain or improve customer satisfaction; and
* Reducing telecoms costs to finance other telecoms projects.
Measuring the value is important, and requires the necessary telecoms management tools to be in place.
Telesa value proposition
Telesacomms has been assisting companies for many years to assist them with managing their telecoms environment and providing insights to delivering value. Having experienced telecoms specialists and industry knowledge has helped companies achieve their changing telecoms goals.
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