I spent my last few hours as a free agent inadvertently playing receptionist for a company which until last week, was unknown to me. It`s a domain registration company providing a number of additional managed services out of a town in South Wales - and from the look of things, business is booming.
The company has outsourced part of its inbound call management to Totem Communications, making use of that service provider`s Special Rate Access Numbers product, by which the company enjoys a revenue share of the costs levied on its customers.
All good and well - but someone, somewhere keyed in the destination number inaccurately, with the result that numerous customers reached a rather bemused journalist instead of a willing and helpful domain registration and management company.
But on second thought, it also sounds like a beautifully gift-wrapped present for which the birthday girl ends up paying, only to find out she already has something just like it.
Basheera Khan, Editor, ITWales.com
Puzzling for them, disruptive for me, and frustrating for us both, as I could not find a single BT employee willing to resolve the problem for me, once I`d reported the fault to its nuisance calls division. The source point of the problem wasn`t with a BT line y`see, so the various engineers and customer service reps who handled my complaint simply felt incapable of being able to find a solution. It was left to me to follow up.
The error was eventually tracked down and addressed, and I`m still pondering which of the companies in the equation to invoice for the impromptu use of my services. In the meantime, the episode has enlightened me of the other services and products touted by Totem Communications.
One that caught my eye is the 'call record` service, which Totem is punting to legal and financial service providers, to businesses which need to record a percentage of calls for purposes of training or quality control, and in the case of its 'record on demand` functionality, to newsrooms in particular.
Now, as someone who has on occasion caused herself heaps of often unwarranted anxiety over the logistics of recording an interview, this struck me as a particularly beneficial service. With this service, recording telephonic interviews happens as easily as striking a # key. All recording is done in real-time, and once the recording is complete, Totem e-mails it to the user in audio file format.
Totem punts it as the end to fussing around with fiddly telephone recording equipment, and it does sound like an exceedingly attractive alternative.
But on second thought, it also sounds like a beautifully gift-wrapped present for which the birthday girl ends up paying, only to find out she already has something just like it.
It`s entirely possible for someone with a modicum of specialised knowledge and just a basic piece of telephone recording equipment to do the very same thing on their own. It`s simple, flexible and best of all, once you`ve paid for the equipment, the rest is free.
Most journalists, regardless of their field, rely heart and soul on analogue recorders for the simple fact that tapes are cheap and archiving happens almost without thinking; some do already record directly to their PCs, and those who work for the type of media operation that requires digital quality sound bytes already have hi-tech systems in place that take care of those needs.
So it seems to me that while the media world is increasingly being catered for in specialist communications and broadcast technology, a product like this will have better luck taking hold in markets other than that of mass communication. While it will be interesting to watch the ebb and flow of this and similar products, I doubt that applications of this ilk will make much of an impact in media circles for the time being.
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