Call Centers

Call Centers are in the unique position of having telecommunications expenses as one of their largest operating expenses. Accordingly Call Centers are constantly seeking opportunities to decrease the cost of telecom services and/or increase their productivity and efficiency around that spending.

Call Centers, depending on their operation, primarily use three telecommunications services:

• SIP Trunks – what used to be called "lines" or "trunks" have been replaced by SIP Trunks which retain the name "trunks" more out of a sense of wanting to nostalgically connect them to their predecessors than due to their being anything “trunklike” about them. “Trunks” a mass of wires installed into a specific location and plugged into the phone system for a specific and limited purpose are last-century technology. SIP Trunks are carried over IP connections which, whether delivered over glass, copper, or air, are far more powerful and flexible than the trunks they replace:
  • Whereas trunks have a specific line capacity (23 lines in a PRI, 672 lines in a DS-3, etc.) and that capacity is rigid, SIP trunks are limited only by the capacity of the IP connection to your location and the codecs employed.
    
    
  • You pay for all the capacity of traditional trunks whether you use it or not and its capacity cannot be exceeded (which means you are nearly always paying for more than you need) – with SIP trunks you only pay for what you use.
    
    
  • Traditional trunks are "dumb", by design. That is they are designed to be used with "smart endpoints" – like advanced phone systems. SIP Trunks, on the other hand, are generally powered by advanced network-based platforms with sophisticated capabilities. With SIP Trunks it is commonly the endpoints that are dumb. This makes it possible for a Call Center to equip their staff with inexpensive phones – or even softphones – and avoid the tremendous expense of a phone system and phone sets.
• Toll-Free Inbound Service -- Call Centers typically are heavy users of toll-free numbers. They are free for their customers to use; they are nationwide; they can be quickly and easily redirected; and they deliver unblockable caller information. InPhonex Telecom can provide toll-free numbers in dozens of countries around the world and can affordably deliver callers to those numbers to call centers located anywhere.
  
  
• SIP Termination – for outbound call centers the cost of terminating calls can make the difference between a successful campaign and a failure. InPhonex Telecom maintains more than 50 routing options in our softswitch to ensure two things: calls made get connected and they get connected at the lowest possible price. InPhonex Telecom can work with Call Centers to develop Bulk Call Credit arrangements that meet their overall needs or address the requirements of a specific campaign.

Products, services, and pricing tend to get plenty of focus when call centers evaluate telecommunications suppliers. What tends to get less attention are the tools to manage the telecom service: online controls to forward calls, download and analyze call detail records, and tightly control spending. The InPhonex Telecom Multi-Service Platform delivers these capabilities and more. The result is that our Call Center clients get substantial additional value in the form of reduced administrative costs, elimination of cost overruns, and faster, more accurate reporting.