IP telephony: Opportunities for business in the new economy

In today`s digital economy, customer service and operational efficiency are two of the most critical aspects of business. For many companies, the quality of service delivered by their telephony systems is often critical to their ability to meet customer satisfaction targets.

In this article, Chris van Niekerk, country manager of 3Com SA, looks at developments in the field of networked IP (Internet Protocol) telephony and suggests ways for computer resellers to propose this new technology to their customers to enhance their sales, service and customer support.

Today, advanced networked IP telephony communication systems offer businesses of all sizes the high-powered, function-rich capabilities once available only to the largest, most sophisticated corporations.

All market indicators point to an increasing migration away from traditional private branch exchange PBX systems towards more open-architectured, voice-over-data - or IP-based - solutions.

This is because of their ability to help users to manage their operations more efficiently, economise on costs and enhance overall productivity.

IP telephony is creating new features and services, not simply replacing everything achieved by the PBX and doing it over IP.

IP telephony`s underlying benefits are that, as a technology, it can enhance or better fit in with the work lifestyles of today and the expectations users have with the advances in technology.

For example, networked IP telephony solutions offer sophisticated call routing options such as "find me, follow me" where a telephone system tries to reach its target in different places, and the possibility for users to customise the way the system interacts with them based on availability, time of day, who is calling and more.

These are some of the many features available from this new-generation technology. Networked IP telephony systems also feature built-in computer/ telephony integration (CTI) functionality that enables sales or service departments to respond rapidly to customers and business opportunities by allowing their phones and computers to communicate with each other.

Employees even can dial customers and vendors directly from their software applications.

These and other facilities are of great attraction to companies within the MMICC - Multimedia Customer Interaction Centre market - one of the fastest growing segments in the digital economy.

When selecting a networked IP telephony solution, it is important that users opt for a complete voice system, with all features standard and not optional.

In this way a premium-quality telephone services such as voice-mail, automated call routing, call conferencing, caller ID support, call forwarding and dial plans are included.

Moreover, a fully featured system is able to unify voice-mail and e-mail into a single IMAP4-compliant e-mail application, ensuring employees have convenient access to their messages.

A key question is, should a networked telephony system be set up to operate independently of the corporate network operating system?

In many instances the answer is "yes". Such a system can be very robust. Even though these systems share the same cabling infrastructure, the networked telephony solution will be unaffected if the data network crashes. Should every server and desktop fail, the company telephone systems will still be operational so that support assistance can be summoned.

Today, a networked IP Telephony system is as affordable - as well as simpler - to operate than traditional telephone solutions. Its chassis and phones plug directly into your computer network, eliminating the expense of separate cabling. Networked telephony systems truly level the playing field for businesses.

Networked telephony handsets operate like other business phones, but can be moved, added and changed easily within minutes, eliminating the costs of scheduling on-site service technicians. No phone system is easier to expand.

To add employees, new handsets are simply plugged into standard Ethernet connections on the network.

Advanced networked IP telephony solutions allow the use of software-based phonesets to deploy their computers as their telephones, allowing users such as call centre agents to have an "all in one" phone and PC interaction.

These systems, which are fully administered via Web-based utilities, permit users to easily manage and optimise their telephone systems, even from remote locations.

For smaller and medium-sized businesses, particularly those operating in transaction-intensive, customer-driven markets, an optimised networked telephony system offers features and cost-savings that directly impact the bottom line.

As mentioned, call centres can greatly enhance sales, customer service and technical support.

Up to now call centres have been seen as complex and expensive because they required the integration of telephone services with a data network - which demands a significant amount of additional hardware and proprietary equipment.

Networked IP telephony now makes the power of call centres affordable and practical. A robust call centre that offers the features, flexibility and sophistication of expensive, high-end systems can now be deployed at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems.

An IP telephony call centre will deliver flexible, intelligent call distribution and extensive graphical monitoring, reporting and alarming features facilitating the management of call flow in real-time. Changes to the configuration and set-up can also be made dynamically.

It will feature real-time monitoring of agents, ports, queues, call status and queue assignments. These and other features enable users to increase both customer satisfaction and customer retention.

Due to regulatory constraints, IP telephony is not permitted to be employed as a long-distance solution in SA as yet. However, as Mark Boundy, a vice president (product marketing) at US-based AG Communications Systems says, the real value of IP telephony is not to be found in savings on toll bypass on long-distance calls.

It is in enabling workers to communicate better. He says that if a company can improve productivity by 2%, the value is far greater than any savings on telephone calls.

* According to research figures (Synergy Research) the global IP PBX market is expected to grow to over $3 billion in 2005. 3Com has currently secured around 50% of the US IP-PBX systems market.