Indepth Buyer's Guide For Contact Center Software And Technology

 There are a number of different software tools that the best call centers use to increase productivity, process service tickets, manage customer accounts, and support telecommunications infrastructure, all of which contribute to improved and successful call center operations.

To help prospective buyers come to a decision, an accurate call center software comparison is vital. This guide will provide an overview of four main categories — CRM, Help desk, VoIP, Gamification — as well as industry trends, common features, a case study covering a leading call center software solution, and a list of top call center software vendors.

Indepth Guide On Contact Center Software

Whether you're a big enterprise business or a small shop, the way you interact with your customers is vital to your business success and customer loyalty. Finding the right contact center technology solution for your organizations specific needs can be an exercise in total frustration. But it doesn’t have to be. Simply tell us what you need accomplished at the link below....and we’ll help help you source and design a custom contact center solution just for you. Plus.....our services are FREE.

Contact Center Technology

Business VoIP Solution .... What Does It Really Mean?

A business voip solution is an alternative to a traditional switched-voice service. Instead of using dedicated trunks between PBXs, you can share the bandwidth with your data services, making better use of the available capacity. With prioritization techniques, you can ensure that your voice traffic gets through the network in the appropriate time to maintain voice quality.

For a typical internet telephony application, assume that you have a number of offices that need to communicate with each other. The telephony traffic can be carried across the internet or across a third party network or VPN .... and be delivered to the distant end without using the PSTN or a leased line. It depends on what you want to achieve.

You can have an IP PBX for internal use only, with all your staff connected over the same LAN infrastructure as they use for data - separating voice and data traffic by using VLANs, with external access to the PSTN. If you have more than one office, you can link them using leased T1 or DS3 bandwidth lines, metro ethernet or xDSL in the same way as you would for a data service - VoIP is, after all, voice packets being transported in the same way as data packets.

As the VoIP traffic is handled just like any other data traffic, it doesn't really matter where your PBX is located, just as you can have a hosted server for your data, you can have a hosted server for your VoIP. You can have the IPPBX in your office or in a data centre, it makes no difference.

SIP trunking? Now there's a buzz phrase. SIP is a signaling protocol in the same way as H.323 or QSIG are protocols. SIP is a standard and lots of manufacturers intrepret the standard in their own way but, fortunately, lots of the SIP interpretations work together.

Session Initiation Protocol works over IP and should enable replacement of PSTN trunks by the internet. So, again, voice traffic can go over the internet instead of the PSTN with a resulting saving in cost.

Don't forget though, that the internet is unregulated and unmanaged. Voice traffic is sensitive to packet loss, delay and jitter (variation in delay). So at peak times ( just after school in the evenings and on weekends) your voice traffic may break up. Meaning it would be worthwhile looking at having a managed network service to guarantee the quality of your voice traffic for those critical calls.

VoIP works between products from the same manufacturer and sometimes it works between manufacturers. Some manufacturers have produced interfaces and some third parties will provide gateways to enable collaboration. My recommendation would be to check first.

Hardware? Go for something that lots of other people use.. Cisco, Avaya, Alcatel. Cisco started in data and moved into voice. Avaya and Alcatel started in voice and moved into IP data. They have their own ways of implementing VoIP. Cisco is only VoIP. Avaya and Alcatel can give you a migration from traditional voice, reusing handsets from their analog and digital services adding IP telephones as the transition continues. IP telephone handsets are expensive.

For more help in designing a business VoIP solution for your network .... I recommend taking advantage of the services available here:

Business VoIP Solution

Their assistance is free and and they often can find special deals from providers in your specific location.

VoIP Tests And PGI Collaboration Put Managing Your Business Network WAY Ahead Of The Curve

If your business knocks it out of the park with network monitoring and management .... AND conferencing and collaboration ... you’ll be so far ahead of your competition they’ll look silly.  Just think of the possibilities for your customer and employee satisfaction, as well as your bottom line.  There’ll be lots of happy faces all around.

To take advantage of either resource discussed below simply ask at Network Resources ...it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

INTRODUCING VXSUPPORTLINE

VXSupportLine is a platform enabling a Cloud Self-Service workflow that shows relevant information between the End User and the Service Providers data center. This starts in the pre-sales process by removing fear and risk, ensuring applications will function as intended in the user’s environment. As the ultimate end user, you want this because you can identify and resolve potential bottlenecks in the your environment before deployment, avoiding a negative experience.

Through VXSupportLine, you can test the voice quality from an end-user’s computer to a beacon installed in the data centers of specific hosted service providers by simply visiting a URL. Based on standard network requirements the test will reflect what the hosted user experience would be at that very moment, real-time and if the network performance can support a hosted environment.

All the suppliers you see above are currently participating in VXSupportLine. The goal is to have ALL hosted service providers in our portfolio participating.  To run the test, you will enter: vxsupportline.com/enter supplier name here.(Example: vxsupportline.com/vonage)

This is the data you will see when you visit this page:

• Find Server – can the application test even find the internet
• Check Firewall – Confirming the correct 5060 port is open
• Upload/download Speed – confirming there is sufficient throughput and traffic speed. This represents the speed of the test itself. How long does it take to reach the suppliers data center, and how long does it take to come back to the URL and the customer.
• Internet Speed to You is Latency or Delay
• Packet Errors to You is Packet loss if there is any
• Traceroute – How many hops the test goes through to reach the supplier’s data center.

When VXSupportLine reflects negative test results, suggested next steps will be listed here.

WHY VXSUPPORTLINE

With VXSupportLine you can do the following:

• You can test the voice quality BEFORE your customer commits to a service provider. Use this tool to begin hosted conversations with your customers.
• Establish user empowerment when there is an issue – VXSupportLine enables customers to identify if the call quality issues they are experiencing reside on their network, or if they should contact their hosted service provider. By identifying this, you give them back control of the situation.
• And VXSupportLine is an unbiased validation to the customer. Give them transparency, top the finger-pointing.

WHO IS PGI?

Established in 1991, PGi began with a simple goal: Empower people and businesses to connect and collaborate. Throughout our 25-year history, PGi has met the evolving challenges of collaboration head-on, developing new and innovative solutions to better serve their customers. PGi’s expansive portfolio of communication solutions enables digital workers to connect, communicate, and collaborate every time, everywhere. In fact, that’s what their flagship communications solution, PGi GlobalMeet is all about. PGi facilitates smarter communications for nearly 50,000 customers worldwide, including 75 percent of the Fortune™ 100. Over the time PGi has been around they’ve invested and built a large audio conferencing network. Their advanced Global IP Network includes the following:

Expansive Coverage

• IP audio network with 160+ local access points
• Integrated worldwide VoIP network for hybrid audio
• Localized user interface and voice prompts
• Regionally-delivered service and support

Reliability

• One interlinked global infrastructure
  • Consistent hardware and software configurations
  • Equipment redundancy within each node
  • Node redundancy within the global network.
• Solid partnerships and connections to 30+ telecom carriers

AUDIO & WEB BUNDLES

High-quality audio is a critical component of every meeting, which is why GlobalMeet 5.0 integrates audio seamlessly into your existing collaboration solutions, like Skype for Business and WebEx. The new GlobalMeet 5.0 is HTML 5 and WebRTC based.

GlobalMeet 5.0 also offers the following:

HD Quality Video

• Video delivers up to 1280×720 depending on users bandwidth and number of videos being displayed.

Bandwidth Management 

• Stream quality is determined by group’s bandwidth.
• SVC Layering: user’s bandwidth determines layers received.
• Bandwidth is monitored continuously for real-time optimization.

User Feedback 

• In the event of a very bandwidth the app will recommend the user disable video.

Encryption 

• All video is encrypted using DTLS over 443.
• Security patches come from browser providers.

LARGE AND HIGH-PROFILE EVENTS

iMeetLive’s cloud-based webcasting software empowers users to easily create professional-quality webinars or webcasts for more than 10,000 people. Leverage features like screen share and live-polling to engage audiences and host more effective webcasts and webinars.

Targets: 

• This is a mid-size to enterprise solution
• Large, high-profile, or important events
• Common LOB’s:
  • Marketing
  • Corporate Comm (CEO townhall & IR calls)
  • HR
  • Sales
• Traditionally users of a lot of operator assisted calls

Differences include: 

• HTML 5 based – no download, device agnostic
• Unlimited usage license (DIY) or Fully Managed
• Scale – can go up to 10,000 (have gone up to 40k)
• Amazing branding capabilities – logo’s, colors, sponsorship logos, speaker pics, email confirmations and reminders, etc.
• Tracking and analytics – Create leads, not just participants.
• Integration with other marketing automation tools.
• Enhanced security.
• Extend the life of your content.
• Hive enabled – high quality streaming with minimal network impact.

 SKYPE FOR BUSINESS PRACTICE

As a Microsoft Communications Partner of the year recipient, PGi offers unique and high-quality solutions to optimize the O365/Skype investment. Key integrations for Skype Online and Skype Server include:

• PSTN Audio Conferencing
• Video Room System Integrations
• ‘One-Click’ Mobile App
• CustomInvite (Outlook Toolbar plugin)
• Skype Server Audio Integration
• Skype help for end user support
• Skype IM Broadcast
• Professional Services offerings – Planning, architecture, diagnostics, integration, and adoption programs

So, how can you as a partner position the solutions?

A Glimpse At The Future Of VOIP Telephony

Easily manageable, hassle-free deployment, minimal downtime, and savings seem like a symphony to the ears of any business owner when it comes to installation of a communication solution. However, VOIP technology offers all these perks to any modern enterprise. The fact that many businesses are leveraging the above-mentioned benefits and VOIP is based on the latest protocols makes the technology a wide playground for technologists with respect to research and development.

Before peeping into the future of VOIP telephony, it becomes imperative to understand the deliverables of the best VOIP systems for small businesses. The technology offers a plethora of benefits such as:

Convenience: With an intuitive user interface, maintenance and management of VOIP telephony systems become an easy feat. The small and medium businesses don't have to shed a huge chunk of their budgets in recruiting IT and admin staff for constant monitoring of the communication solution. Furthermore, communication over IP protocols offers a bouquet of features and takes communication convenience a notch higher.

Scalability: VOIP phone systems with IP at core offer flexibility to add or remove the number of users as per the requirement of businesses. The facility to register the number of users on the same system allows entrepreneurs to save on investment costs, training time, and more.

Efficiency: Unified Communication servers merge different work applications such as Instant Messaging (IM), Calling, Presence Sharing, and Mailing on to one screen and eliminate professionals' struggle of juggling between multiple screens and hence boost their efficiency.

Cost-effectiveness: Multi-location connectivity enables the authorities to bring employees working at different offices under the same communication network. By bringing all professionals on the same network, VOIP slashes down the telephony costs to a certain extent.

The brief description of VOIP attributes gives a clear picture as to what benefits small and medium businesses can reap from the communication technology. But VOIP being the most experimented technology the question lingers on whether these advancements will continue benefiting the businesses or there would be some repercussions of the same.

To know all the potential experiments and developments in the field of VOIP communication technology, read on:

IoT - a Core Component of Every Enterprise Mobility Strategy 

In the very near future, VOIP telephony will graduate to Internet of Things. As per a study by a leading research firm, by 2020 almost 26 billion objects will be connected with the common thread of internet. The definition of IoT goes as the VOIP connection between two devices. IP telephony will become the principle chunk of IoT as VOIP enabled phones will then be designed for home automation purposes as well. Mobile employees will use their desk extensions to reserve their desk space, switch on their monitor screens and conclude miscellaneous tasks before they reach office. The employees who are on leave or on official tour can transfer their desk extensions to a particular desk number or to their mobility extensions.

Integration of Multiple Work Tools

VOIP technology is already offering amalgamation of gazillion work applications. The same trend will continue in future to enable employees complete their tasks efficiently by accessing multiple tools from the same screen. Integration with cloud-based programs and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) will continue to rule the professional applications development world. The IP technology will integrate marketing and social media tools helping marketing professionals to achieve the goal of omnipresence.

Increasing Proliferation of 5G Technology

With the dramatic increase in the use of smartphones for work, the enterprises and employees are counting internet connectivity as forces to determine the precision and speed of completing work tasks. In the near future, with the rollout of 5G technology, the speed of internet would be 10 times higher than the current 4G speed. Increased internet speed will improve the quality of VOIP packets, reduce the jitter in IP telephony and make call drops a fading reality. 5G technology will take Unified Communications to a whole new level by allowing 4k and 8k video conferencing. Improved speed will also make the exchange of video data a cakewalk with minimal glitches.

There are various companies that offer systems tailored to the latest technology, which offers a basket of features and withstands the test of time. To get an overview of ultramodern communication solutions, call on +91 99987555555 or visit http://www.MatrixTeleSol.com

By James Luke

An IP PBX Phone - The Heart Of An Eco-Friendly Business Enterprise

Transitioning to PBX phone system may not be the ideal strategy to foster an environment-friendly business ecosystem but office phone systems as well as that of the residence, which install a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephone system would save on expenditure and more.

The following points are an elucidation on ways that an IP PBX Phone system that can be environment-friendly:

1. Ability to hold video conferences over the internet reduces air pollution

An IP PBX system enables organizations to save on vehicular operating costs by enabling video conferencing. Therefore, let alone road trips, long distant flights could be avoided too.

2. IP PBX system equals less utilization of copper:

In case of traditional phone systems, more wires a required if the distance between the caller and receiver is considerably huge. This undeniably would require a lot of copper wire. The requirement is further increased due to the inevitable wear and tear of copper wire lines. Both home and office become eco-friendly by the transition to VoIP phone system. Since the broadband internet is used to connect calls it is implied that an office phone system of this sort can work without depending on the PSTN (Public Switch Telephone Network), which requires telephone wires to be installed all over the countries stretching over to continents.

3. Less e-waste

Traditional phone lines would invariably require hardware to function. However, An IP PBX system would only require computers and the only other pieces of hardware are the phones and the PBX system. The latter too becomes unnecessary if the VoIP office phone system provider hosts the entire PBX system on the behalf of the entity availing the services. Therefore, less amount of hardware amounts to less wear and tear and less obsolescence. This way an IP PBX Phone creates comparatively less amount of e-waste.

4. Less number of phone lines would require fewer number phone poles

Even though transnational lines are sometimes installed under the ocean, at the end user point they are made accessible to homes and offices via phone poles. Poles are normally made out of wood. Transition to an IP PBX phone system consumption of wood will be reduced. Thus reducing the number of trees, which are cut down.

5. No Fax only Email - Saving paper and ink

An office phone system that uses the broadband internet will invariably make use of emails instead of FAX machines. Even though fax over IP services are available for organizations, which requires a large volume of printed data, organizations that do not require such voluminous paper-based information exchange can settle for emails instead and not only end up saving trees but also would save on operating cost.

6. Telecommuting: A new way to do business without affecting the environment
When employees work from home or telecommute, the power consumption of a business is considerably reduced. Further, office resources are not required to be used for monitoring the inefficient use of appliances and other devices such as computers, light fixtures and so on. Working from home also limits the utilization of paper and stationaries as the expenditure is borne by the employee himself. An office phone system which utilizes broadband internet allows telecommuting via video conferences and use of emails for deliverables.

If you are looking for office phone systems or PBX system, visit Voippbxexpress.com online, they have the great collection.

By John Samual

PBX Vs VoIP...Making Sense Of Today's Business Phone Systems

For the past few years, VoIP has quickly become a part of people's vocabulary. It has been touted as a convenient and cost-effective way to stay in touch with your business network and is used to optimize internal call flow. Before VoIP, however, analog PBX systems were the go-to business phone systems of choice.

PBX relates more to the traditional analog phone system that relied on the presence of large equipment and complex cabling. It also wasn't as cost effective since expenses would accumulate due to maintenance and long distance fees, and expansion was time consuming. PBX is still being utilized for business communications today, but users are quickly realizing the downsides to this technology in comparison to VoIP.

Reliability

Some will say that a PBX system is more reliable than a VoIP system because of VoIP's dependability on an internet connection. That may have been true a few years ago but just as technology has quickly evolved in the last few years, VoIP has also evolved to bypass these emergency situations with simple call forwarding features.

VoIP indeed uses your internet connection to operate but implementing a fail over strategy that involves back up endpoints allows you to continue receiving calls to a mobile device with or without internet or electricity so your customers can reach you whenever they need to regardless of your connectivity status.

Cost

If you're running a business you'll want to take any chance to save on expenses, so investing on business phone systems that can reduce your monthly phone bill should be a no brainer. With traditional analog PBX business phone systems, the initial cost can be significant when you factor in equipment and installation costs, as well as the maintenance and long distance fees which can become significant over time.

Implementing a VoIP business phone system is known to alleviate the strain of monthly bills because there is virtually no cost in setting the system up. If your office already has IP business phones, all you need to do is have the provider implement their system, which usually won't take more than a few minutes once all the documentation and ports have been completed, and you'll be ready to make calls in no time.

Even if you don't have the proper phone hardware, you can find business phones for sale at great prices that meet most budgets. Other than hardware and service, there are no maintenance fees or pricey long distance fees.

Expansion

Like most business owners, you probably intend to expand your business. Even if you don't have any immediate plans to expand your business locations, internal expansion is on every business owner's mind. With a traditional PBX, expansion meant having to install more cables, purchase the hardware, and additional maintenance costs.

With VoIP business phone systems, adding extensions is easy and affordable. With some providers, all it takes is getting in touch with a preferred agent and notifying them of the changes you want to make to your system. Some hardware may be necessary if you're adding a physical phone but it still won't add up to the spend levels of a traditional PBX.

Improvements to the PBX Phone System Over Time

Before the technology we know today, businesses hired receptionists and secretaries to physically connect communication lines to their desired destinations using switchboards. By the 1990s, VoIP started to become more popular with its ability to exchange voice data on other devices such as PCs. Fast forward to today's communication methods and we're surrounded by endless ways to stay in touch with each other right at our fingertips. In an effort to modernize business communications, the traditional analog PBX phone system is becoming more cloud based, evolving into what is known as IP PBX and Hosted PBX. Now, there is no need for excess equipment since this communication technology is making its way to the cloud.

If you're not quite sure yet that VoIP is the best option for you and you want to continue using your traditional PBX phone system, it is possible to use VoIP with your traditional PBX phone system. This hybrid option can reduce your costs just as well and make the transition to a more modern communication system smoother.

Ready to Upgrade to a VoIP Phone System?

If you're looking for a modernized VoIP phone system, be aware that VoIP and IP PBX have become similar technologies and getting the most out of these communication methods depends on the quality of the provider. With the rapid development of multi-channel communication tools and devices, it's easy to get lost in the novelty and endless list of features but always remember your specific VoIP phone system needs and the value that your new communication strategy can bring to your business for longevity and growth.

By Alicia Sandino 

To take advantage of FREE real time quotes and support for voice and/or data networks...comparing 200+ providers...simply ask at the following link.  It's as easy as 1, 2, 3.

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