Let’s talk

Life

1 April 2005

Despite the rise of e-mail, the World Wide Web and the Internet in general, the telephone is still the killer application for many businesses. Yes, e-mail allows you to communicate efficiently with people in different time zones and the Web allows you to have a 24-hour global presence. But there is nothing to beat the immediacy of talking one-to-one by telephone.

The problem is that many small businesses do not exploit the full potential of the telephone. Yet there are many services and products available that even the smallest company can use to increase customer exposure and improve internal processes.

Call management services

Eircom, for instance, offers a wide range of call management services to customers who do not have a PABX or switchboard. These include call answering (voicemail), call waiting, and, a newly added-service called call tracking.

Formerly only available to companies that had an advanced PABX or telephone switch on their premises, Call Tracking permits companies to have calls grouped on their phone bill according to user, department, project, client or however the customer decides to allocate codes.

Eight individual codes are available – from 01 to 08 and these are very useful in themselves. For instance, an advertising agency could allocate the codes to key clients. An account executive making calls on behalf of that client would first dial 1740 and then the client code followed by the telephone number. At the end of the month, the executive can see how much was spent on behalf of each client and can bill out accordingly. Calls can still be made without the code and these will show up on the phone bill as ‘untracked.’

Customers calling you

Other key services, of interest perhaps to firms at the higher end of the small business food chain, are Freefone, Callsave and LoCall. The national 1800 Freefone service has an excellent track record as a sales generation tool as potential customers don’t pay a thing to contact you.

The 1850 Callsave and 1890 LoCall are shared toll numbers. Customers, or potential customers calling an 1850 number pay no more than 6.35c per call from any phone in Ireland, with a few exceptions like mobiles, payphones and call cards, irrespective of duration. Callers dialling 1890 numbers, on the other hand, pay the equivalent of a local call so while distance is not a factor, the call is metered.

Voice and data in one

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) or Hi-speed as it is marketed by eircom has been around for sometime but it is only in the last few years that it has matured enough to come within the reach of smaller businesses.

ISDN offers several advantages, not least of which is that one cable can carry more than one channel or conversation. Basic Rate Access, for instance, provides two channels, while the more expensive Fractional and Primary Rate Access provide 16 and 30 channels per cable respectively. These can be used for voice, data or a combination of both. Each channel provides 64kbit/s when used for data and channels can be combined to boost speeds.

According to John Corcoran, connectivity solutions channel manager at Esat Business, ISDN offers savings by reducing a company’s cabling requirement. “It allows you to take one cable into a building and have multiple channels,” he says. “You only have one cost associated with that so it costs less in terms of hardware than having multiple lines.”

ISDN is also particularly suitable for companies that have employees working from home. “Basic Rate ISDN in the home allows people to work as if they are in the office,” says Barry Moylan, sales & marketing director, Cable & Wireless Systems Integration. “Given the transport and road networks in Ireland at the moment and the cost of property, companies are looking at other options. Call centres, for instance that can’t get people to work in a city centre can hook up their people at home this way.”

For those who require data connectivity that’s faster than ISDN, Broadband Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is now available to small businesses in Ireland. Eircom’s I-Stream service offers three packages: iStream Solo, which costs €89 (excl VAT) and offers 512Kbit/s for download and 128Kbit/s upload; iStream Multi, €139, which is a multi-user product and transfers data at 1Mbit/s for download and 256kit/s for uploads; and Enhanced, similar to the Multi-user product but with a fixed IP address, costs €169. An installation charge of €165 also applies. The service is a high-speed, always-on Internet connection.

I-Stream is an ADSL service – Asymmetric DSL, which means it downloads information faster than it uploads it. However, the service is capped-Solo users can download 3Gbytes worth of data per month and Multi is capped at 6Gbytes per month. A charge of three cent per Mbyte will be imposed if users exceed the limit. Users of I-Stream Enhanced are not subject to a cap.

Make the switch now

Getting a PABX (Private Auxiliary Branch Exchange) or telephone switch for your office need no longer be the traumatic experience it once was. Switches are now getting easier to install and maintain.

One of the latest user-friendly switches is the Omni PCX from Alcatel, distributed in this country by Nextiraone (which bought Alcatel’s e-business distribution network some months back). The Omni PCX combines voice and data in one unit and offers even small companies a full range of services normally only available through a large switch such as individualised voice mail. It can also act as a mail server managing a company’s e-mail.

“Essentially you are getting the power of a large switch at a low cost,” explains Derek Fitzpatrick, product and pre-sales manager, Nextiraone. “The PCX comes in one unit and is aimed at the non-technical user. You just plug in phones, plug in the local area network and plug-in Internet access. It can even do domain hosting although you still have to go through an ISP for your domain.”

According to Fitzpatrick, the PCX is very easy to use. Tasks such as re-assigning extensions can be done remotely without the need for an engineer to make a site visit. The Omni PCX is also enabled for IP telephony.

Convergence comes forward

IP Telephony is being branded as the next big thing. Essentially, it means that a company’s voice and data networks share the same infrastructure. “The phone becomes an IP or network device,” explains Esat’s Corcoran. “It can interact with Microsoft Exchange Server, so users can get schedules on their phones, or use them to browse the Web.”

Another advantage of IP Telephony is that it is possible for a company to have a single PABX serving multiple locations. “If a company has three or four sites,” says Corcoran, “and they are networked, they can put in a PABX in head office and simply plug the phones into the network at the other locations. So it’s a way of cutting down on costs.”

IP Telephony should not be confused with a similar technology Voice Over IP (VOIP). IP Telephony refers to the convergence of voice and data networks within an organisation while VOIP refers to the use of the Internet to carry external voice traffic.

Mobile options

No examination of telephony would be complete without a look at the optimum use of mobile phones. Both Vodafone and O2 (formerly Digifone) offer a range of services tailored for the small business sector. Both offer discount schemes such as Vodafone’s Eurocall and O2’s World Plus which give substantial discounts on international calls and on roaming in Northern Ireland and Britain.

O2 also offers Smart Numbers. Users designate up to four landlines and then pay only 10c per minute for calls to those numbers as well as to all 086 numbers.

O2 is also shortly launching a small business version of its Blackberry product. Originally aimed at corporate customers with enterprise servers, the small business version will be a standalone product that can be interfaced with a single PC. E-mail arriving on the PC is then redirected to the Blackberry handheld device.

Both O2 and Vodafone are encouraging the use of text messaging among small businesses. Both offer a group text service where a single message can be sent to multiple users at once. In both cases, users can manage group lists via the relevant Websites www.vodafone.ie, www.dol.ie. Vodafone allows up to 5,000 numbers to be designated while O2 allows up to 50.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS IN ACTION

A1 Rosary Florists

An excellent example of a company making good use of the freefone service is A1 Rosary Florists. Located on Harts Corner, Prospect Avenue, Glasnevin, in Dublin,

A1 Rosary has earned a reputation as a leading florist in Dublin. The company’s successful embrace of communications technology has led to increased sales and created a growing customer base. Such an approach was necessary for the company to develop its business beyond the local community.

A1 Rosary currently provides a 24-hour telephone service with the aid of 12 lines. The company also has a fax number, an e-mail address and a Website , so it is open to customers through all channels. “The decision to provide customers with a free phone number has given us a strong advantage over competitors. Not only does it add to the status of the company, it also gives customers that added incentive to call”, says Terry Hewitt of A1 Rosary.

Windsor Motors (Airport) Ltd

Dermot Newe, Parts Manager at Windsor Airport, a Swords Co. Dublin-based Nissan dealership and part of the Windsor Group, knows just how effective the Eircom Freefone service is. “It’s an opportunity we took when we started here,” he says. “We only opened here in January 2000 as a nationwide parts distribution service. I took it on board not just as a service but as advertising as well.” At the time he sent a mailshot to all the trade customers in Ireland with the Freefone number and in just over a year, business has grown substantially. “I know it’s working because we are getting a lot of business from outside Dublin.”

“Well, everyone likes to get something for nothing,” says Newe. “Plus my customers know they will get straight through to the right department without having to dial the switchboard and then wait.”

File Store

For Jonathan Purvis, office manager at File Store, the biggest difference between the Alcatel Omni PCX and the company’s previous PABX telephone system is that it is so easy to use. “It comes with software that works on a single, standalone PC or over the network,” he says. “That software allows us to manage the system, assigning direct dial inward numbers, setting up extensions and privileges and so on ourselves. With the old system all of those things were hardware-based and we had to get an engineer out even to do something as simple as program in a speed dial number.”

A key factor in the decision to purchase the new switch was the fact that it is ready for IP telephony. “We have another office and we could have a third branch soon so this could be a handy feature. We will be able to put phones in the other offices without having to install another PABX.”

 

AT A GLANCE

  • Contact eircom to learn more about value-added call management services and the costs involved.
  • Carry out an internal audit of company administration and workflow and then decide which call management services could make your company more efficient.
  • Look into the value of investing in Freephone and LoCall numbers to give customers access to your products and services. Ask yourself, will the investment result in sales?
  • Have an ISDN or Hi-speed line installed if you need to send large data files (e.g. graphics) to clients and customers over the Internet.
  • Get a plug and play switch like Alcatel’s Omni PCX box and make significant savings on IT and communications support.
  • Send text messages rather than making voice calls on company mobiles and save money in the process.
  • Use your mobile service provider’s Website to organise and send group text messages.

 

Business benefits of improving your communications

  • Use the latest telephony equipment and services to increase customer exposure and improve internal processes.
  • Compensate for not having a PABX or switchboard and save money in the process by using voicemail, call waiting and call tracking services.
  • Get a PABX and take the pressure off your company receptionist.
  • Call tracking can help you to calculate telephone spend for individual employees and clients.
  • Use a freephone number to encourage sales enquiries.
  • Replace multiple telephone and Internet lines with one ISDN line and reduce your communication costs in the process.
  • Use ISDN to reduce office rental costs by allowing employees to work at home.
  • Plug in an all-in-one PABX system and get voice services, e-mail and Web server in one self-contained unit.
  • Use group text messaging on your mobile to reach more that one colleague or client with the same information simultaneously.

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