The reliability and resilience of a communications provider should be at the forefront of any decision before commitment is made to any communications provider. It is unfortunate that many contact centres make the mistake of taking services on the basis of price, which is a reckless move on the basis that any contact centre telecommunications provider needs to be rock solid to ensure that the operation of the call centre isn't compromised. The purpose of this article is to empower call centres with some of the questions that should be asked any supplier to ensure that they are reliable and resilient before any commitments are made. Read more
Otelo, Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsmen, was introduced on the 1st January 2003. The service that has been set up to investigate consumer complains about telecom services. Read more
Given that many business operations would grind to a halt if their telecommunications services developed a significant fault, or failed altogether, the importance of a reliable and high quality voice network cannot be understated. Given this fact, below are some fundamental requirements of a high quality voice network, which should be considered before contracting with any supplier of telecommunications service. Read more
In the modern era people have become accustomed to having their call answered by an automated IVR (Interactive Voice Response) Menu when they call any large organisation that uses a call centre to answer their inbound calls. The reason why such organisations implement and use this type technology, is to obtain significant improvements in their operational efficiency by having the caller provide information, such as the nature of their query, before their call is connected to a call centre agent. If a caller is able to navigate through a series of options in order to specify the reason for their call, it will save a considerable amount of time when compared to the amount of time it would take a call centre agent to do the same thing live on the call. More recently, this concept has been taken a step further through the introduction of speech recognition to further improve operational efficiency by increasing the amount of information that can be collected before a call is connected. Read more
A Codec is a technical term for the following variations, which essentially mean the same thing: compression - decompression / compressor - decompressor / Code Decode. In practice the compression and decompression is done by a computer program for the purpose of transmitting data over a data connection and allows them to be translated when they reach their destination. Within the telecommunications industry, the data transmitted through the Codec would be the packets of data that make up a call. Read more
A virtual call centre is a call centre that operates with all of the organisation's employees are geographically dispersed instead of working from one centralised location. This is typically done through employees working from home, or from many small locations. Below is a list of 10 things that should be considered when setting up a virtual call centre. Read more
The telecommunications industry has developed vastly since the introduction of the conventional telephone back in 1876. Among all of the infrastructure sectors, the most dramatic changes and developments are thought to have taken place in the telecommunication sector. Read more
With the vast number of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) providers that are promoting their services on the internet, it can be extremely difficult to make a decision on which service provider to select. This list of 10 questions will assist you in making the right choice for your business, and avoid you being contracted to a provider that is unable to meet your requirements for the next 12 to 24 months. Read more
