Before Your Business Moves
How carefully have you done your homework?
Reviewing Your Telecom Needs
When companies move it can be a very taxing process since there is a multitude of critical activities that need timely attention. One of the most important undertakings is reviewing the communications technology plan.
The reasons are many: As companies depend on communications technology to increase their productivity and to establish competitive advantages, understanding the ever-changing options and opportunities becomes that much more imperative. Thus, a timely review of your communications technology and associated infrastructure can offer a host of new revenue opportunities.
“Before talking about technology and applications, we spend the time to comprehensively understand the business of our customers,” says Bruce Kamin, senior account executive at General Communications. “There are many questions we need to review in order to make the proper recommendations. These questions include: What are the specific communication needs of various clients, employees or vendors? Are there any legal requirements they must follow when they interact with their customers? What are their privacy concerns?”
During a review with a financial institution, we learned that they received and sent a multitude of legal
documents over a shared fax machine. Too often, important documents would get misplaced. As a result, we proposed they implement a unified messaging solution, which would allow faxes to come right to a designated computer where the faxes could then be printed from a printer. Plus, faxes can also be sent directly from the desktop. Not only does this solution insure accuracy and privacy, but it also allows for documents to be electronically filed, making organization and retrieval extremely
efficient.
With the popularity of high speed internet access, older telephone systems might not be able to support an ISDN or T1 connection. A review will also show the breakeven point of moving from analog lines to a modern, more cost effective telco circuit. For example, the price of an ISDN/T1 or IP circuit has dropped substantially from where it was a few years ago. Thus, by getting a new telephone system that can support an ISDN/T1 or interface, you can easily justify the purchase of a new telephone system.
Call Center technology, once enjoyed only by larger organizations, is now being embraced by smaller businesses. Instead of having a host of phones ring at once, with Automated Call Distribution Systems callers are intelligently routed to the representatives best able to handle their needs. Plus if callers are waiting, messages on hold allow for cross selling opportunities. To insure proper staffing levels, reporting packages can monitor call center traffic. Operation costs could be reduced even further, while customer experience is enhanced through Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
Using this technology, callers promptly get information without even talking to a customer agent.
A review should also be considered if you are a multi-site
location, because an IP solution might be advisable. Using
this technology you can eliminate toll calls between offices,
and still dial three-digit extension numbers to colleagues in
other offices. In addition, its important to examine how you currently and in the future would like to communicate
between multiple offices. For instance, if you foresee the
need to collaborate between offices using multi-media
conferencing, are your bandwidth capabilities sufficient?
General Communications works closest with companies to insure a flexible, long term solution is put into place. For example, if additional hiring is planned, we will typically recommend cabling is done when the initial phone system is installed. From a system standpoint, we will make sure that future requirements such as a call center are provisioned as part of the base solution. We make it our job to be concerned with all the details.
By conducting a review of your communications technology before you move, companies can
proactively employ communications technology for measureable and maximum success.
