Extending Corporate Voice Services To Remote Users Allows You To Enable Virtual Workforces and Compliment Telecommuting

Jan 28th, 2010
by Pat Kelly.
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Looming concerns over emergency occurances are causing many organizations to evaluate their business continuity plans. Using H1N1 as an example, as the threat approached, the CDC was warning companies to prepare for closures and heavy absenteeism, and asked employers to draw up work-from-home plans to reduce the spread of disease.

Advances in technology make it easier than ever for today’s information workers to work remotely. With a broadband Internet connection and a notebook computer, today’s workers can access their IT services and business applications as efficiently from the road as from the office. To be fully productive though, remote workers must also be able to maintain seamless communications with customers, partners and co-workers. They must appear office-bound to the outside world and have full and convenient access to all their corporate voice features.

Delivering corporate voice services to home workers and mobile users can be a challenge. Most office phone systems were created for another era with stationary office workers and static desk phones. They weren’t designed with cell phones, mobile workers or the Internet in mind and they offer only rudimentary capabilities for remote users. Worse still, most corporate phone networks are engineered to support only occasional remote use (see image below) and would have to be completely overhauled to enable full communications business continuity.

virtual workforce

New cloud-based Business Communications Services (BCS) like OnState allow companies to easily implement simple, cost-effective business continuity plans and add support for remote workers and virtual offices without enduring expensive PBX retrofits or costly network upgrades.  Instead, this on-demand service allows businesses to exploit Internet reach and economics to extend corporate voice services to remote users, thus enabling a virtual workforce and aiding in telecommuting. Different than a hosted phone system or a managed voice service, OnState is a SaaS application that initiates and controls sessions (voice, video, and text chat) across diverse networks (PSTN, VoIP/SIP, Internet, Mobile).  With a BCS companies leverage mobile phones and Internet telephony services such as Skype or Google to deliver corporate voice services to home workers and mobile users for business continuity, telecommuting, teleworking, virtual workforce enabling, and other applications.  Unlike conventional CPE solutions or traditional hosted voice services, which are actively involved in the media path, OnState delivers ultimate scale and economics by employing a signaling only solution that intelligently directs traffic over commodity transport (see image below).

virtual workforce telecommuting

A BCS uses business logic to steer callers to the users who can serve them best based on administratively-defined business rules and real-time user presence information – independent of user location, network or device.  Using a BCS, businesses can deliver “big company” call center features to everyday business functions and ordinary employees who aren’t typically associated with the call center.

BCS Applications

With a BCS employees can maintain normal business communications from any location, at any time – fulfilling a variety of applications.

Business continuity – preserve normal business operations during weather emergencies, pandemics, natural disasters, and security events. When a business closes down or operates in a limited capacity for an extended period of time revenue is impacted and the company’s reputation suffers.  To successfully compete in today’s global marketplace, businesses must have sound strategies to minimize service disruptions during unusual circumstances.

Telecommuting – enable employees to work from home on an occasional basis.  Telecommuting is on the rise.  Skyrocketing fuel prices, increased environmental awareness, and overcrowded highways are leading more and more companies to institute work-from-home polices.  According to the Dieringer Research Group1 the number of Americans who worked remotely at least one day per month rose to 17.2 million in 2008 – representing a two-year increase of 39 percent, and an increase of 74 percent since 2005.

Teleworking – employ home-based workers.  Innovative businesses are leveraging home-based staff to improve business agility and cut costs.  Employers hire workers based on their skills and wage requirements – not their place of residence.  They reduce expenses by supplementing or replacing brick and mortar facilities with virtual offices, and by hiring part-time employees and workers with lower salary demands.  Using teleworkers companies can easily scale the workforce to meet seasonal demand or unexpected business fluctuations.

Nomadic workers – maintain regular communications with consultants, field-based workers and project-based employees who work from customer or partner sites or field locations.  The virtual workforce includes not only home-based workers but employees who travel regularly and work from external sites.  With a BCS businesses can extend corporate voice services to nomadic users so they can maintain normal communications with customers and co-workers.

Offshoring – relocate business functions to other countries.  Many businesses move customer service or other functions to offshore locations to reduce expenses and deliver round-the-clock services.  With a BCS companies can leverage rich presence-based call routing along with SIP trunking or Internet telephony to implement cost-effective offshore call centers.

A BCS can help just about any business improve customer satisfaction and operate more efficiently by connecting customers to the right employee at the right time – independent of device, location or network.  With a BCS companies of any size can implement comprehensive business contingency plans without installing additional equipment, network facilities, or a backup phone system; and they can readily extend corporate voice services to nomadic users and home workers to improve efficiency and lower expenses.  Forward-looking businesses are turning to Business Communications Services like OnState to minimize service disruptions, reduce environmental impact, improve customer service, slash costs, and boost worker productivity and quality-of-life.

Posted in: Branch Office Communications, Business Continuity, Virtual Call Center, Workforce Virtualization.
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Cloud-based Business Communications Services are Inherently Resilient

Jun 4th, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
1 comment
Natural disasters, epidemics and other emergency situations can quickly shut down or disrupt an unprepared business. When a company closes down or operates in a limited capacity for an extended period of time, business is impacted, the company’s reputation suffers, and customer confidence erodes. How well can your business withstand security events, weather emergencies or other extraordinary situations? Can you conduct business as usual during a blizzard? What would happen if you had to shut your office for a week because of swine flu? What would you do if your building was closed indefinitely due to a fire? How long would it take for you to get an interim office facility up and running? Could your employees work productively from home in the meantime? Would your customers and business partners be able to reach your employees in a transparent manner – using your published company phone numbers?
Advances in technology make it easier than ever for employees to work remotely. With a broadband Internet connection and a notebook computer, today’s information workers can work as efficiently from the road as from the office. Employees can send and receive email, access business applications, and carry out most day-to-day activities. To be fully productive though, remote workers must also be able to maintain normal business communications with co-workers, customers and business partners.
OnState lets companies leverage mobile phones, VoIP, Skype, Google and Internet telephony to extend business communications services to teleworkers, mobile users, and nomadic workers. Unlike a conventional phone system, OnState manages people and business functions – not just telephones. It automatically tracks your workforce and monitors the availability and activity of employees wherever they are – in the office, working from home, or on the road. OnState works with traditional phones and office phone systems, as well as mobile phones and Internet services like Skype and GoogleTalk, allowing employees to stay engaged with customers and business partners from any location, at any time. Delivered as a cloud-based on-demand service, OnState is inherently resilient to building closures, power outages, and office phone system failures.
Until now, disaster recovery and business continuity solutions have been beyond the reach of most businesses. Some larger organizations have addressed survivability for customer-facing applications by implementing redundant call centers in different geographic regions. But designing a survivable network is a complex task, and operating multiple call centers is an expensive proposition. For most businesses the task is too daunting. Most companies simply cannot afford to implement and operate redundant call centers – especially in today’s difficult economic climate.
And what about companies that don’t operate call centers or workers who aren’t part of a call center? How do they maintain normal communications if the office is closed or the company phone system is unavailable? Because of the expense, most businesses don’t provide backup phone services for everyday job functions. Take outside sales for example. Can a customer reach one of your outside sales reps if the office is closed? Can the sales rep access her corporate voicemail during an extended power outage?
OnState enables workers to communicate with customers and business partners from any location, at any time, using any device. A cloud-based service, OnState is not impacted by site catastrophes, office closings, office phone system failures or other traditional service-affecting events.
OnState Extends Business Communications to Any Employee, at Any Location, At Any Time
communications business continuity
Say your Boston R&D office is closed due to a snowstorm or the PBX in your Birmingham sales office is knocked off-line by a tornado. With a conventional premises-based phone system you’re out of luck – calls simply go unanswered.   With OnState callers are automatically connected to the employee who can serve them best – even if that employee is working from home, from another office, or from a coffee shop. OnState lets you maintain normal business communications during office closings or emergency situations – in a seamless and transparent manner – using your published company phone numbers.
Whether you have ten employees or hundreds of employees OnState can help you improve customer satisfaction and run your business more efficiently by connecting customers to the right employee at the right time. And since OnState is delivered as a cloud-based service it is inherently resilient. With OnState, companies of any size can institute rich business contingency plans without the complexity or expense of a backup phone system. And companies that already operate redundant call centers can implement business continuity programs for the rest of the employee base. OnState’s on-demand service offers a practical alternative to expensive premise-based business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. For more information, visit OnState’s communications business continuity page.

Posted in: All, Business Continuity, Business Presence.
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Leveraging Skype for Business Communications

Jun 11th, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
1 comment

In just six short years Skype has grown from an Internet novelty into what is arguably the largest “phone system” in the world. Today Skype boasts over 440 million user accounts worldwide, and continues to sign up new subscribers at a rate of about 30 million per quarter. At any moment in time over 15 million users are logged on to Skype. And according to the market research firm TeleGeography, Skype carried around 33 billion international minutes in 2008 – making it the largest international voice carrier in the world, with 8% market share.

Skype began life as a consumer application. Early adopters were willing to sacrifice a little convenience and call quality for the prospect of making free international calls over the Internet.  Initially Skype caught on with international students and expats as an inexpensive way to keep in touch with friends and relatives back home. It spread like wildfire – especially in parts of the world where international calling is prohibitively expensive.

But even as Skype enjoyed widespread adoption in the consumer market, it was largely ignored by the business community. Many IT and telecom managers scoffed at Skype, and some even blocked the use of it over security concerns.

Over time Skype has evolved significantly – to the point where its features, call quality, and security capabilities now rival traditional telephony solutions. Skype is now available in just about every conceivable form-factor including desktop software; WiFi, USB and Ethernet handsets; and mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, iPhone, Blackberry). It delivers rich voice, video and text chat capabilities, and offers presence, conferencing, file sharing and other useful collaboration features.

In recent years Skype has crept into businesses at the grassroots level as employees who use Skype in their personal life started using it at work. Now more and more businesses – especially SMBs – are embracing Skype as way to reduce long distance and international calling costs. Employees use Skype to reach international customers, colleagues, and business partners, and to call back home while travelling abroad.  Many companies even publish their SkypeIDs alongside their company phone numbers on Web sites and business cards.

2008 user surveys conducted by Skype confirm more and more people are using Skype for business purposes:

  • 35% of surveyed users say they use Skype for business purposes
  • 20% say they make Skype video calls for business purposes
  • 62% say they communicate better with customers using Skype
  • 70% say they are using it while traveling on business

Until now, most businesses have treated Skype as an adjunct application – beyond the realm of the corporate phone system. An employee might use his PBX desk phone to speak to a coworker across the hall and his Skype client to speak with a colleague in China. Few companies have tried to integrate Skype with their incumbent voice equipment.

OnState is the first and only service that lets businesses leverage Skype – and all its collaborative and multimodal features – as an integral component of the corporate phone system. A cloud-based service, OnState works with various voice systems and phone networks to deliver a ubiquitous communications solution with rich network-based features.It operates with diverse PBXs and phone networks to optimize interactive communications amongst employees, customers and partners – independent of device (desk phones, softphones, mobile phones), network (PSTN, Skype, VoIP/SIP), or medium (voice, data, video). OnState lets organizations leverage Skype to extend business communications to customers, teleworkers, mobile users, and nomadic workers. Beyond just low-cost calling, OnState helps companies derive true business value from Skype.

Unlike a conventional phone system, OnState manages people and conversations – not just telephones. It uses business presence to track the availability and activity of employees wherever they are – in the office, working from home, or on the road. OnState leverages business presence to automatically connect callers to employees based on worker availability, capability, competency, spoken language or any other attributes or business rules that are germane to the organization. OnState improves customer satisfaction and enhances business efficiency by connecting customers to the person who can best serve them– on the first attempt.

With OnState you can:

  • Add Internet-facing services to your incumbent PBX – without expensive hardware or software upgrades – so your employees can use Skype as an extension of the corporate phone system when working from home or the road.
  • Leverage the communications and collaboration applications that best meet your specific business requirements.
  • Use your published phone numbers – calls to your established phone numbers can be routed to employees who are using Skype.
  • Reach 400+ million Skype users – add Skype “call me” buttons to Web pages or emails.  Deliver Skype-originated calls to your incumbent corporate phone complex.
  • Use Skype as an alternative to a traditional PBX when rolling out new offices, as a platform to deliver collaboration capabilities and multimodal communications to incumbent PBX users, or as a way to eliminate costly maintenance fees by decommissioning older phone systems.
  • Enhance customer communications with Skype text chat or video.
  • Improve customer satisfaction and worker productivity – leverage business presence to reduce voicemail, telephone tag and call transfers, by delivering calls to the right employee on the first attempt
  • Keep track of your employees wherever they are – office, home, road – whether they are reachable by Skype, a PBX or mobile phones.
  • Improve outbound reach and customer engagement by tracking customer status and activity – call out to customers proactively, based on presence information.

With OnState you can use Skype to do so much more than simply reduce your phone bills. By treating Skype as an integral component of your company phone system, you can derive true business value from Skype so you can boost sales, bolster customer satisfaction and improve productivity.

Related: Skype for Business Solutions

Posted in: All, Business Presence, Skype for Business, Virtual Call Center.
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Extending Cloud-Based Communication Solutions to Branch Offices

Jun 17th, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
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Just about any business can benefit from a company-wide, customer-facing communications system. But for many, the costs of incorporating branch office PBXs into the company phone system simply outweigh the advantages.

Conventional branch office PBXs are designed to operate as stand-alone systems supporting stationary office workers. Tying together autonomous branch office PBXs or adding support for nomadic users can be an arduous, costly proposition. And for companies who have deployed multiple PBX vendors, constructing a unified customer-facing system may not even be feasible.  As a result, many businesses are stuck with independent branch office phone systems with distinct phone numbers and separate management and reporting capabilities.  Until recently, a unified customer-facing phone system has been beyond the reach of many organizations.

Now, cloud-based services allow distributed organizations of all sizes to enjoy the benefits and convenience of customer-facing, company-wide communications systems at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.  New services allow enterprises to leverage mobile phones, VoIP, Skype, Google and Internet telephony, and other forms of communication, to economically extend business communications to branch offices, teleworkers, and mobile users, as well as customers and business partners. These cloud-based services can be used to supplement an incumbent branch office PBX, injecting more features and doing so prior to hitting the premise, or they can be deployed as an alternative to a traditional branch office phone system.

Using new cloud-based communication services, companies can deliver rich call-center features to ordinary employees and everyday business functions at a fraction of the price of a full-fledged call center solution.

virtual call center diagram

Traditional office phone systems were designed to support static telephones.  They aren’t well suited for distributed, nomadic workforces.  Cloud-based communication solutions, in contrast, manage people and business functions – not just telephones.  They automatically track the workforce and monitor the availability and activity of employees wherever they are – in the office, working from home, or on the road. And they support various devices (PBX desk phones, soft phones, mobile phones), networks (PSTN, Skype, VoIP/SIP), and mediums (voice,  chat, video) – enabling employees to stay engaged with customers, coworkers and business partners from any location, at any time.

By receiving business communications as a cloud-based service, companies can easily extend company-wide communications services to branch offices and mobile users.  This allows any distributed organization to enjoy all the features and benefits of a rich, customer-facing communications solution without wholesale PBX swap outs or costly system upgrades.

Posted in: All, Branch Office Communications, Business Presence, Virtual Call Center, Workforce Virtualization.
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Exploiting Google for Interactive Customer Communications

Jun 30th, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
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Google is transforming the ways in which many businesses purchase and consume office productivity software. With Google Apps, the company delivers a suite of practical communications and collaboration tools as an affordable cloud-based service. For just $50 per user per year, any organization can enjoy business-quality email, instant messaging, document and spreadsheet management and other useful office applications – without the hassles and expense of client/server software. Google Apps gained initial popularity with small businesses looking for an affordable alternative to Microsoft Office and with universities seeking more open and extensible office productivity packages. Today organizations of all size and type are using Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs, etc). According to the company’s web site over 1 million businesses and 10 million subscribers now use Google Apps, with over 1,500 new businesses joining the ranks every day.

In addition to reducing software deployment cost and complexity, Google Apps simplifies and improves communications, and boosts worker productivity. Rather than inefficiently exchanging files as email attachments, dispersed teams can collaborate on documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. A sales person in New York and a technical specialist in Chicago can edit a customer proposal simultaneously. A CEO and a CFO can prepare a board presentation together – from different hotel rooms, in different cities. And integrated voice, video, and text chat and presence make it easy for coworkers to stay in touch and exchange ideas in real-time.

Until now, most businesses have used Google Apps and the new Google Voice mainly for internal purposes. Now OnState, a cloud-based business communications service, is allowing companies to use Google Apps and Google Voice for customer-facing communications (sales, customer service, etc) as well. With OnState, employees can leverage a common set of cloud-based solutions for both internal and external communications. They can use Google Talk and Google Voice to chat or speak with customers in the same manner they communicate with colleagues. And they can use Google Docs to share customer conversations (say a recording of successful sales call) in the same way they might share a spreadsheet or a presentation.

Today GoogleTalk is used mostly for internal instant messaging. Few businesses chat directly with customers. And while some businesses may take advantage of GoogleTalk voice or video capabilities, not many companies have tried to tie Google into the office phone system or use GoogleTalk as an alternative to a traditional PBX.

OnState helps companies extract additional business value from Google by extending Google solutions and practices to the corporate phone system. OnState operates with diverse PBXs and services (such as Google Talk) and uses business presence to optimize interactive communications amongst employees and customers – independent of device (desk phones, soft phones, mobile phones), network (PSTN, Google, VoIP/SIP), or medium (voice, text chat, video). OnState lets office workers, telecommuters and mobile workers leverage Google Talk for customer conversations and utilize cloud-based services to share customer information and manage customer dialogues. OnState can even be used as an alternative to a traditional office phone system (green field deployments, legacy PBX retirement).

With OnState businesses can add Google voice, text chat or even video chat to customer-facing web sites or Web 2.0 applications and use business presence to direct Web visitors to the employee who can serve them best based on worker availability and business rules – independent of employee location (office, home, road) or client (PBX phone, Google Talk, mobile phone).

Google Talk was designed to facilitate communications between two or more individuals. It is not well suited for customer-facing applications where a company may wish to conceal employee information (screen name, phone number) or establish conversations based on business logic and job functions – not user identities. Sure you can use Google Talk chatback badges to add a click-to-chat link to a Web site, but a badge is associated with a specific Google user account (an individual) – not a general business function (sales, support).

OnState adds a business abstraction layer to Google. It tracks the availability and activity of workers wherever they are – in the office, working from home or travelling – and uses business presence to intelligently connect customers to employees based on worker availability, capability or any other company-defined criteria.

google-call-center1

OnState improves customer satisfaction and enhances worker productivity by connecting customers to the person who can best serve them – on the first attempt. With OnState companies can deliver rich call-center features to ordinary employees and everyday business functions at a fraction of the price of a conventional premises-based call center solution. And OnState is easily integrated with other cloud-based services such as Salesforce.com which can be used to further influence call routing decisions or enhance customer interactions.

google-call-center2

With OnState, employees can share customer data and conversations in the same way they might share a word document or a spreadsheet. Customer records, chat transcripts, voicemail messages, emails and call recordings can all be tagged and stored in a common, well-indexed, cloud-based repository. A sales manager can share a successful telesales call with her entire team by simply publishing the link to the call recording. A service technician can leverage Google’s rich search capabilities to find chat transcripts related to a specific product defect – regardless of customer or region. An inside sales rep can append a call recording to a Salesforce.com record for the benefit of the outside sales team.

OnState lets companies exploit Google tools and services to optimize interactive customer communications. With OnState, businesses can use Google chat, voice and video for customer engagements, and leverage rich business presence to intelligently connect customers to the right employee at the right time. Sales and service organizations can use familiar Google applications and services to share customer conversations and collaborate on customer interactions. By delivering business communications as a cloud-based service, and by treating Google as an integral component of the corporate phone system, OnState helps businesses improve productivity, enhance customer satisfaction, and boost sales and service.

With OnState, employees can share customer data and conversations in the same way they might share a word document or a spreadsheet. Customer records, chat transcripts, voicemail messages, emails and call recordings can all be tagged and stored in a common, well-indexed, cloud-based repository. A sales manager can share a successful telesales call with her entire team by simply publishing the link to the call recording. A service technician can leverage Google’s rich search capabilities to find chat transcripts related to a specific product defect – regardless of customer or region. An inside sales rep can append a call recording to a Salesforce.com record for the benefit of the outside sales team.

OnState lets companies exploit Google tools and services to optimize interactive customer communications. With OnState, businesses can use Google chat, voice and video for customer engagements, and leverage rich business presence to intelligently connect customers to the right employee at the right time. Sales and service organizations can use familiar Google applications and services to share customer conversations and collaborate on customer interactions. By delivering business communications as a cloud-based service, and by treating Google as an integral component of the corporate phone system, OnState helps businesses improve productivity, enhance customer satisfaction, and boost sales and service.

Related: Virtual Call Center Company OnState Announces Support For Google Voice
Google Voice with Your Existing Number (Google Voice Blog)

Posted in: All, Business Presence, Google for Business, Virtual Call Center.
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Coupling Salesforce.com and OnState to Improve Interactive Customer Communications

Jul 21st, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
3 comments

Cloud-based services are transforming the ways in which software solutions are purchased, implemented and consumed. Salesforce.com is a shining example. In fact, Salesforce has become the poster child for the SaaS model. By delivering CRM software as a hosted service, Salesforce allows a business of any size to enjoy all the features and benefits of an enterprise-class CRM system without incurring the expense and burden of purchasing, deploying and maintaining traditional client/server software. The company has grown its installed base from just 1500 customers and 30,000 subscribers in 2000 to a remarkable 51,800 customers and 1.1 million subscribers in 2008. They’ve taken market share from traditional CRM vendors such as Oracle/Siebel and SAP, and forced those vendors to completely rethink their business models.

Many businesses are interested in tying Salesforce to the corporate phone system to improve user productivity and enhance customer interactions, but for most the cost and complexity of integrating Salesforce with conventional phone systems simply outweigh the benefits. Each and every corporate PBX has to be tied into Salesforce individually – a resource-intensive, time-consuming endeavor. And businesses that rely on multiple PBX vendors must purchase and deploy multiple gateway applications or undertake multiple development efforts – one for each vendor.

Worse still, most legacy phone systems offer limited APIs that enable only basic integration with Salesforce such as allowing a PBX user to click-to-dial from Salesforce contact records or autodial from Salesforce campaign lists. These capabilities may help enhance worker productivity but they won’t fundamentally improve the way a company interacts with its customers.

OnState is a cloud-based service that integrates fully with Salesforce to let businesses leverage mobile phones, VoIP, Skype, Google Apps and SIP to deliver customer-facing communications like click-to-chat, click to call back, and VoIP in the form of a virtual call center and virtual PBX to office workers, teleworkers, mobile users, and nomadic employees. The full Salesforce integration allows OnState’s solution to operate within Salesforce as an integrated Salesforce PBX and Salesforce call center, delivering seamless chat, voice, and mobile capabilities from inside Salesforce. And similar to Salesforce, OnState allows a business of any size to enjoy all the features and benefits of an enterprise-class business communications system without incurring the expense and burden of purchasing, deploying and maintaining on-site phone equipment.

Unlike a conventional phone system, OnState manages people and conversations – not just telephones. It uses business presence™ to track the availability and activity of employees wherever they are – in the office, working from home, or on the road.

OnState automatically connects callers to employees based on worker availability, capability, competency, spoken language or any other attributes or business rules that are important to an organization. It operates with diverse PBXs and phone networks to optimize interactive communications between employees and customers – independent of device (desk phones, soft phones, mobile phones), network (PSTN, Skype, VoIP/SIP), or medium (voice, chat, video). With OnState companies can deliver rich call-center features to ordinary employees and everyday business functions at a fraction of the price of a conventional call center solution.

OnState simplifies and improves Salesforce/phone system integration. Unlike premises-based phone systems with distinct points of integration, OnState delivers a universal, cloud-based interface. (figure 1) With OnState you integrate once, and you’re done. The entire workforce can enjoy Salesforce/OnState integration – independent of device, network, or location. And since OnState provides integral support for Salesforce.com, no custom software development is required.

salesforce-pbx-1

In addition to basic Salesforce integration features (click-to-dial, autodial, incoming call screen pops) OnState lets companies use Salesforce.com customer data and real-time employee business presence information to actively influence call handling decisions and direct customers to the workers who can serve them best at a particular moment in time based on availability and business rules.

OnState can reach out to Salesforce.com as part of call establishment and use Salesforce.com data to determine how the call should be directed. Say Mary from Acme calls with a question. (figure 2) OnState queries Mary’s Salesforce record and determines she is entitled to speak with a premium account specialist. OnState consults its real-time business presence database and determines that Sally, who happens to be working from home using Skype, is an available premium account specialist who supports Acme. OnState pops Mary’s account record to Sally, and sets up a call between Mary and Sally. At the end of the call OnState updates the Salesforce record with pertinent call information and a link to a recording of the conversation.

onstate-salesforce-pbx-inte

OnState's virtual call center and PBX leverages Salesforce data and business presence to efficiently connect customers to the employees who can best serve them at a particular moment in time

By coupling Salesforce.com with OnState businesses can significantly improve employee productivity, enhance customer service, and boost sales. A single OnState/Salesforce integration effort yields support for the entire workforce – regardless of PBX, location, device or network. Companies can extract greater business value from incumbent PBXs, plus extend customer-facing communications to remote users and branch offices that aren’t part of the corporate phone system. And since both Salesforce.com and OnState are delivered as cloud-based services, businesses can activate users on-demand, and easily address rapidly-changing business conditions – without sizing, purchasing or maintaining any equipment. With Salesforce and OnState any business can enjoy all the features and benefits of an enterprise-strength, customer-oriented communications system without the expense and hassle of traditional premises-based solutions. With Salesforce and OnState companies can improve customer satisfaction and optimize workforce productivity by intelligently connecting customers to the right employee at the right time.

Posted in: All, Virtual Call Center.
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OnState Eliminates Predictive Dialing Shortcomings – Enables More Effective Sales Campaigns

Sep 23rd, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
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Predictive dialers are a staple of many outbound call centers. Originally conceived to address limitations with basic auto-dialer solutions, predictive dialers maximize the amount of time agents spend on the phone by automatically connecting them to “live” contacts. While useful in certain high volume cold-calling applications, predictive dialers aren’t well-suited for many other sales and customer service campaigns. They optimize call volumes – making sure agents are always engaged – at the expense of call quality and customer experience.

Here’s how a predictive dialer works. A sales manager creates an outbound campaign and imports a contact list into the system. The dialer checks how many agents are available to take calls, and starts dialing. When calls are answered they are automatically directed to an agent. Because predictive dialers are designed to maximize agent uptime they call more contacts than there are available agents – sometimes as many as ten calls for each agent. They start dialing new prospects even while all agents are busy – often subjecting contacts to silent air or recorded announcements when they answer the phone.

Not surprisingly, increased telemarketing in general and the widespread use of predictive dialers in particular has led to consumer backlash and expanding government regulation. In recent years the FCC has introduced do-not-call lists, mandated caller ID for telemarketers, placed restrictions on auto dialing systems and pre-recorded messages, and has even gone as far as regulating call abandonment rates. By law, telemarketers must ensure predictive dialers abandon no more than three percent of all answered calls. (The FCC considers a call abandoned if it is not transferred to a live agent within two seconds after the recipient answers.)

The FCC is apt to introduce additional restrictions as consumer frustration continues to mount. To remain viable, call center operators must adapt to changes in how both consumers and lawmakers view telemarketers and they must rethink the ways in which they engage prospects and customers.

OnState’s Outbound Call Center solution lets call center operators stay ahead of the curve by complying with expanding government regulations and responding to evolving consumer attitudes. More importantly, OnState helps organizations run more effective campaigns by arming agents with the tools and data they need to make better informed and more successful calls, and by ensuring calls are delivered to the agent who is best qualified to serve a particular contact.

Here’s how OnState Outbound Calling works. A sales manager creates an outbound campaign and defines attributes that are used to influence call treatment. Attributes might include the contact’s territory information, company data, or individual demographics or interests. OnState uses administratively-defined business rules to automatically route outbound requests to the agent who is best suited to perform the call at any moment in time, matching the contact’s attributes with agent availability and skills. (In a blended environment outbound requests can be intermingled with inbound calls and click-to-chat and click-for-callback requests.) OnState sends the agent a contact request screen pop along with detailed contact information (customer data, transaction history, Salesforce.com records, etc) so the agent can adequately prepare for the call.

OnState increases conversion rates by eliminating blind calling – enabling agents to make better informed, more effective calls. And since the agent is always on the call in advance of the called party (no silent pauses) OnState can increase capture rates (no abandoned calls) and avoid the consumer frustration brought on by predictive dialers. With OnState you can reach out using multiple methods and contact numbers – conventional phones, mobile phones, Skype, GoogleTalk – to improve capture rates even further.

While others sell auto-dialers and predictive dialers as call center add-ons or independent applications, OnState includes Outbound Calling as integral capability of our on-demand service. With OnState you don’t have to purchase an expensive call center solution to execute “big company” sales campaigns. You can even use OnState and its Outbound Calling capabilities without a PBX or traditional phone system.

OnState Outbound Calling helps businesses run more effective sales campaigns, improve customer service, and make blind calling a thing of the past.

More Information: OnState’s Outbound Dialing Solution for Outbound Call Centers

Posted in: All, From the Corner Office, Outbound Call Center, Virtual Call Center.
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OnState Brings Advanced Customer Communications Capabilities to Cisco UC 500 Series

Nov 4th, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
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OnState helps you improve customer satisfaction and increase worker productivity by connecting your customers to the right employee at the right time.    Ideal for sales, service and customer support applications OnState is the perfect complement to your Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series system.

OnState’s unique business presence™ goes above and beyond the simple hunt group and basic ACD (B-ACD) capabilities included with the 500 Series and Cisco Unified Communications (UC) Manager Express.  A cloud-based, PBX-independent service, OnState tracks the availability and activity of employees wherever they are – in the office, working from home, or on the road – and automatically connects callers to the employee who can serve them best based on worker availability, skills, spoken language or any other attributes or business rules that are important to your company.  With OnState you can improve employee efficiency and reduce customer frustration by connecting customers to the right employee on the first attempt – reducing call transfers, voicemail, call abandonments, and telephone tag.

OnState brings rich call-center features to ordinary employees and everyday business functions at a fraction of the price of a big company call center solution. You can also use OnState for outbound sales campaigns, or to add click-to-chat or click-for-callback capabilities to your Web site. Whether you’ve deployed a single 500 Series system or a dozen of them OnState’s affordable, on-demand service can help you extend your 500 Series investment and enhance your sales and customer support efforts. And since OnState is a PBX-independent service, it is ideal for mixed-vendor environments or for smaller offices without phone systems.

OnState bring advanced customer communications to UC 500 Series
Create a Virtual Call Center that Encompasses Your Entire Workforce
 The Cisco UC 500 Series is a stand-alone system designed to meet the needs of an individual office and its employees. Each system – its users, phones and system parameters – is configured and administered independently. The 500 series offers limited ACD capabilities intended for small, co-located teams. Since hunt groups can’t span multiple systems or offices, you can’t extend sales or support teams across locations. With a silo approach you can’t pool resources or extend call coverage across sites. As a manager, you can’t observe the performance of your entire workforce at-a-glance or gauge customer service levels across your entire company.

OnState, by contrast, is a cloud-based service that tracks users across various phone systems and networks, and connects customers to the user who can serve them best regardless of user location (office, home, road), device (PBX phone, mobile phone, softphone) or phone network (PSTN, SIP/VoIP, Skype, Google). With OnState you can create virtual sales and support teams that span your entire operation so you can pool resources and make optimal use of your workforce. You can create virtual response teams that span offices and geographies, and incorporate nomadic users and home-based workers. You can enjoy company-wide call coverage – routing calls to the person who can best solve a business problem, based on capability and availability, independent of location.

OnState is easy to administer; all users, policies and business rules are configured globally – across the entire company. And OnState provides consolidated, enterprise-wide reporting so you can keep an eye on customer service levels as a whole and keep tabs on how well your entire organization is performing.

OnState transforms your workforce into a virtual call center

How it Works
 OnState is not a hosted phone system or a managed telephone service. OnState is a PBX-independent, cloud-based service that oversees and controls communications across various systems and networks.

OnState orchestrates communications across diverse systems and networks

Here’s how it works:

  • OnState uses business presence to track employee availability and activity – independent of PBX, device, network or location.
  • When a customer calls your company, the public telephone network signals OnState via SIP signalling.
  • OnState uses your administratively-defined business rules and business presence information to determine the employee who is best suited to serve the customer.
  • OnState signals the phone network to set up a call directly between the customer and the employee.
  • OnState maintains state information for the duration of the call, and provides detailed reporting and analytics.

SIP, Skype and Google Options for Remote Users and Small Offices
OnState works with popular Internet Telephony services including SIP (VoIP), Skype and Google so you can offer your users greater choice and convenience. Nomadic workers, teleworkers and telecommuters can use SIP, Skype or Google as alternatives to Cisco IP Communicator. Plus you can avoid the expense and complexity of deploying Cisco 870 series home routers for teleworkers. You can also use SIP, Skype or Google to deliver OnState services to small offices without phone systems. In many cases, these remote offices can utilize Cisco phones without requiring the purchase of the UC500.

Multi-vendor Support
Do you manage a multi-vendor environment? OnState works with any TDM or IP-based office phone system. You can use OnState to quickly and cost-effectively create a Virtual Call Center serving multiple offices with different PBX makes or models.

Automated Outbound Calling, Click-to-Chat, Click-for-Callback
OnState offers much more than inbound call management. OnState’s Automated Outbound Call Center option lets you run effective outbound sales or customer service campaigns and leverage business presence to deliver calls to the agent who is best qualified to assist a particular contact. Our unique approach to outbound calling eliminates the silent pauses that make traditional predictive dialers ineffective and unpopular with consumers.

You can also use OnState to add interactive communications to your Web site. You can add text chat and voice callback buttons to Web pages to improve customer service and reduce Web site abandonment, and provide a convenient way for customers to interact with your company.

CRM and SFA Integration
OnState integrates easily with CRM and SFA solutions such as Salesforce.com. OnState offers essential features including integrated click-to-dial and customer record screen pops plus advanced capabilities such as using Salesforce.com customer data to actively influence call handling decisions. While Cisco sells Unified CallConnectors for Salesforce separately, OnState includes Salesforce.com support as a standard product capability at no additional charge. And with OnState’s universal cloud-based interface, you integrate once and you’re done.

OnState simplified and extends CRM integration

Complementary Solution
OnState is designed to protect and extend your 500 Series investment and to minimize user impact. The service can be used in conjunction with built-in 500 Series features such as Unity voicemail and Business Productivity Applications such as Cisco Single Number Reach Smart (SNR).

OnState works with familiar Cisco UC 500 series features such as voicemail and SNR

Business Presence Offers an Efficient Alternative to SNR
You can use OnState business presence as an alternative SNR to optimize call routing and reduce network and system overhead. The 500 Series is a PBX-centric, device-oriented system that manages phones, not users. Users who plan to be away from the office can redirect incoming phone calls to external devices such as mobile phones or home phones through manual configuration. The system forwards incoming calls to all configured external devices in a blind attempt to reach a user – squandering network and system resources in the process.

OnState maintains business presence information in the cloud and makes call routing decisions at the first point of customer contact in the network

In contrast, OnState uses business presence to track users independent of PBX, device or network. It makes call routing decisions in the network, at the first point of customer contact, and intelligently steers incoming calls directly to users without PBX involvement.

Figure 7. OnState complements and extends the Cisco UC 500 Series

Cisco UC 500 Series OnState
  • Office phone system (PBX) features
    		•
  • Virtual call center
    		•
  • Voicemail
    		•
  • Business presence
    		•
  • Conferencing
    		•
  • Call center reporting and analytics
    		•
  • Video telephony
    		•
  • Automated outbound calling (sales campaigns)
    		•
  • Integrated business productivity applications
    		•
  • Click-to-chat (text chat)
    		•
    • Single number reach
  • Click-for-callback
    		•
    • WebEx integration
  • Internet telephony support
    		•
    • Time card reporting
  • Integral CRM/SFA support (Salesforce.com)
    		•

    Posted in: All, Business Presence, Virtual Call Center.
    Tagged: · · ·

    Nothing But ‘Net — OnState and Bandwidth.com Offer True Virtual Call Center

    Dec 15th, 2009
    by Pat Kelly.
    1 comment

    Nothing But ‘Net — OnState and Bandwidth.com Offer True Virtual Call Centerpat kelly

    OnState is a cloud-based business communications service that delivers business presence™, virtual call center and virtual PBX capabilities. It optimizes real-time customer communications and improves worker productivity by injecting intelligence into the network that connects customers to the right employee at the right time. OnState is able to achieve high scale at low cost by implementing a true SaaS architecture that separates call control and transport functionality. Conventional hosted PBX and call center solutions rely on traditional telephone switches that both control and transport voice traffic. Each and every call in the conventional model passes through the operator’s switching infrastructure, forcing operators to add expensive switching equipment in order to increase capacity or deliver high availability. They pass their costs along to you, the customer, in the form of higher rates.

    OnState is not a hosted phone system, but rather a full cloud-based solution that initiates and controls sessions (voice, video, text chat). Unlike traditional hosted solutions, OnState is not actively involved in the media path. By employing a signaling-only architecture, we achieve higher scale at lower cost than typical hosted solutions. Further, because of our unique capabilities for network control, we are the solution of choice to add value to existing systems. We focus on delivering business value through improved customer service, increased efficiency, and greater customer satisfaction – letting you leverage the Bandwidth.com FlexNetwork for affordable, robust IP with end-to-end QoS. All of this is accomplished in a complete pay-as-you-go model without any CAPEX investment or contracts.

    True SaaS Call Center & PBX

    OnState offers a true SaaS call center and PBX. By true SaaS, we mean that everything operates in the network without any hardware. OnState facilitates the transition to a virtualized workforce by turning the network into a virtual call center. Because no premise or hosted equipment is required, no switches are needed, and any device (including existing IP or PSTN telephony equipment, Skype, Google, SIP phones, and mobile phones) can be used to take calls and chats, workers can set up and be productive handling customer and sales requests from virtually anywhere.

    There are many benefits to this, including a more green workforce, more flexible hours and greater round-the-clock coverage potential – and the ability to pool workers into virtual groups regardless of their location while managing them on one platform. But perhaps the greatest benefit is that of inherent business communications continuity. By allowing employees access to our solution from anywhere using any device, OnState preserves normal business operations during weather emergencies, pandemics, natural disasters, and security events. And OnState includes full reporting and analytics, so regardless of where employees are working from, you can tell for certain how they’ve interacting with your customers.

    IP voice quality is ready for business

    When IP telephony was first introduced, networks, devices, and protocols were not up to snuff. Today, however, it’s different. Just like the Internet today is light years ahead of the speed and content of service like AOL in 1995, everything in the IP voice technology realm has changed quickly – and for the better. Standard protocols like SIP now exist. Networks like Bandwidth.com’s FlexNetwork offer incredible reach and quality of service, and you can now choose from more devices than ever. Couple this with what’s happening in the SaaS arena with device independence, redundancy, and everywhere/anywhere connections without scale limits, and you have extremely resilient, high-quality communications that both compliment and replace existing infrastructures.

    Bandwidth’s FlexNetwork provides end-to-end, all-IP reliability

    Bandwidth.com’s FlexNetwork allows us to layer our solution onto the network and offer true network-based call center and PBX solutions. It then extends the offering nationwide and removes any concerns about quality of service both in terms of the voice and network quality. The FlexNetwork provides OnState and our clients with a true end-to-end, reliable, all IP managed network that is a one-stop shop for all networking needs.

    Thanks to reliable network partners like Bandwidth.com, OnState is able to offer true virtual call center and virtual PBX solutions that are completely network based and hardware free.

    This post was written by OnState for Bandwidth.com’s blog. The original post can be viewed here.

    Posted in: Business Presence, From the Corner Office, Virtual Call Center, Workforce Virtualization.
    Tagged: · · ·

    More Features Added

    Jan 25th, 2010
    by Joyce.
    No comments yet

    Over the weekend, OnState released a new version of their software. This was  minor release with just a few new features. Here’s an overview of what was added:

    • New Mode of Call Transfer – Agent-initiated transfers no longer include the step where the agent hears his phone ring and then he picks up to initiate the transfer. It is a now a smoother transition, much more typical of how transferred calls are normally handled. The agent now simply selects the person or skill queue to which he wants to transfer the call and he immediately starts to hear the phone ringing at the other end. This feature is especially convenient for agents answering calls on landlines and mobile phones.
    • Embedded Google Talk Chat – For agents enabled for chat using the Google Talk protcol, there is a new OnState Anywhere tab called “Google Talk” that will allow the agent to answer chat calls right inside the OnState Anywhere screen, as shown below. Each chat call is  a separate tab.
    • Second Chance for Forced Off Agents – If an agent is forced off because he misses an incoming call, he now has an additional 60 seconds to reset his state to Ready to be able to answer the call. Previously, the call immediately went to voice mail if there were no other agents who could answer the call.
    • Stats - The Stats tab in OnState Anywhere no longer shows all skills in the system. It is back to showing only the skills assigned to the user. Also, the information now only displays data for the current call activity, and does not include historical information for pending call time.
    • Chat Stats – Chat calls are now included in the real-time display throughout the duration of the call.

    Posted in: Joyce's Help Corner.
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    OnState Jan ‘10 Release Notes

    Jan 9th, 2010
    by Joyce.
    No comments yet

    OnState’s January 2010 product release includes support for several new features including Gtalk chat, more flexible prompt menus, configurable ring timeouts, an external routing server API, and settings to limit maximum number of simultaneous chat calls. It also includes several product enhancements and a few bug fixes.

    NEW FEATURES

    • Support for Google Chat – In addition to answering chat calls on Skype, users can now answer calls on Google Talk.

      Customer’s View                                                             Agent’s View
    • Flexible prompt menus - Each prompt menu can customized  to use any digit for any purpose, instead requiring 8 for voice mail and limiting each menu to a maximum of seven consecutive choices. With this release, you can use any digit including zero and the # key. You can also decide what happens if no choices are made. For example, if no button is pressed, you could repeat the menu, send the call to voice mail, send the call to a specified skill, or even route to another prompt menu. The choice is yours.

      Prompt menu configuration screen

      To go with the added options, there are new icons that appear in the Dialed Numbers/Names view, as shown below.

      Prompt menu overview with new icons displayed
    • External routing server API (database routing) – The OnState Call Event Interface provides call events for integration with CRM systems or other business applications. Events are sent to a customer webservice. The system supports three call events, one of which you now can configure via the OnState Supervisor, as shown below. Click here for more details.

      Example of a RoutingQuery setup
    • Outbound dialing options – For users answering calls on Skype, it is now possible to indicate if you want their outbound calls made via OnState or Skype. Use the Skype option if your users have Skype credit or a Skype subscription. Use OnState if they don’t.
    • Configurable simultaneous chats – By default, the system allows a user to receive up to 4 simultaneous chat calls. You can now set the maximum to any value. Additionally, you can also prevent the system from sending voice calls to a user if he/she has a certain number of ongoing chat calls or more. For example, it is now possible to prevent voice calls from being sent to a user who has 3 or more simultaneous chat calls (as shown below). By default, voice calls always take precedence over chat calls and will ring through regardless of the number of chat calls currently handled by a user, however, you now can override that behavior.
    • Configurable ring timeouts - Previously, users had 30 seconds to answer an incoming call before they were forced off and the call was delivered to another user or sent to voice mail. Now, the administrator can choose the length of time that a call will ring at an agent’s desk before giving up. The timeout can be set for ACD calls and personal extension calls. The timeout for calls transferred out to an external number can also be specified.

      Settings to specify ring timeouts

    PRODUCT ENHANCEMENTS

    • AutoDialer – Numerous improvements including weighted campaigns so you can have more calls from one campaign compared to others, more error reporting so you can see exactly why a CSV file failed to upload, and a new Status view that displays the current state of a campaign including the number of records for each call disposition.

      AutoDialer Campaign Status View
    • OnState Anywhere Stats - The skill statistics, shown under the “Stats” tab, now display all skills in the system, not just those assigned to the user. Two additional columns have been added as well. “Agents” displays the total number of users who are logged in with the skill, and “Backups” shows the total number of users who are logged in with the backup skill for the skill.

      Expanded user statistics in OnState Anywhere
    • Skill Summary Report – The wait time has been split into two parts: “Wait to Answer” and “Wait to Abandon.” These times indicate the average queue time for calls that were answered and unanswered.
      The data under the “Answered” and “Not Answered” columns are now hyperlinks to the Call Detail Report for those calls. For example, in the figure below, if you clicked on the “11″ for the default skill, it would open the Call Detail Report containing the 11 calls routed to the default skill that were answered on during the week of January 2-9, 2010.

      New Skill Summary Report view

      The blue times under “Wait to Answer” and “Wait to Abandon” are links that will open a graph displaying the duration of the queue times. The next example shows the distribution of the wait times for all “support” skill calls that were answered for the week of January 3-9, 2010.

      Distribution of the wait times for answered calls
    • Supervisor View By User – This tab on the Status page will show only information for users who are logged in, not everybody in the system.

    BUG FIXES

    • Users answering calls on a SkypeIn number, mobile phone, or landline can now answer chat calls.
    • Corrected the agent counts per reporting period in the Skill Detail Report.
    • Under the heading “Other Party,” outbound calls in the Agent Detail Report table properly display the phone number or Skype ID of the person called.

    Posted in: Joyce's Help Corner.
    Tagged: · · · · · ·

    “Agent Lite” Retired

    Jan 9th, 2010
    by Joyce.
    No comments yet

    As of December 31, 2009, OnState Communications has ceased support for our original agent application, sometimes known as “Agent Lite.” Customers who have used it may continue to do so, however, they should be aware that no further testing and development will be done on it, and OnState cannot guarantee proper functionality.

    We highly encourage all Agent Lite users to switch to “OnState Anywhere,” which has many more features such as call history, management of personal queue calls, audio recording uploads, conferencing, and warm transfer. Unlike Agent Lite, which could only be used with Skype and Internet Explorer on a PC, OnState Anywhere is compatible with all phone devices, operating systems, and browsers.

    Posted in: Joyce's Help Corner.
    Tagged: · ·

    Assessing Your Teleworker Capabilities

    Dec 31st, 2009
    by Shawn LaVana.
    No comments yet

    The Telework Exchange issued a report earlier this month on its findings with regard to the workforce challenges still faced in allowing employees to work from home. The full PDF of the press release issued in conjunction with this report is embedded below.

    In short, Telework Exchange reports that while “81 perfect of government and business IT decision markers have written business continuity plans [but] report implementation challenges and lack assurance that employees could work remotely during an emergency.”

    The findings later state, “In addition to business continuity driving the requirement to empower the remote workforce, mainstream mobility demand is rising in organizations. Eighty-four perfect of surveyed IT decision makers believe the need for mobility in their organization has increased in the past year and telework is the leading driver.”

    So why am I throwing out all these quotes? Well, as 2010 rolls in it brings with it a time to assess where your organization stands in many areas, including how you’re modernizing your infrastructure to deal with the new breed of workers. Sure, a good percentage of employees want/need to telework, and keeping up with is important. But even more important is giving your company access to the best talent possible, regardless of where the talent resides. You can do this with teleworking. With the proper telework set up, you can also have an inherent business continuity plan. What allows this? Simply have your telework business communications system based in the network. A network-based solution gives your employees the freedom to work from wherever they need, using any device to take and make calls of their choice. Their presence, associated skills, and business rules that apply to them are then monitored in real-time to ensure that an incoming customer is connected to the right employee to help them, regardless of from where the employee is working–in the office, on the road, teleworking from home, or remote on a mobile phone. So in the new year, keep the findings of the study in mind and take an honest assessment of your business and its teleworking needs in the upcoming year.

    As a side note, we’ve had a great year here at OnState, and look forward to an even better 2010. May you all enjoy a wonderful New Year’s Eve, and a prosperous New Year.

    Posted in: Business Continuity, From the Corner Cube, Workforce Virtualization.
    Tagged: · ·

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