Making Sense of Telecom Jargon – Part 1

Listening to someone speak about telecommunication systems can make us feel a little like Ginger in this Far Side cartoon:

It’s an industry that loves acronyms and isn’t afraid to use them.

Over the next few blog posts, we are going to define those common acronyms and terminology associated with telecommunications in the cloud.

Hosted PBX  – PBX stands for private branch exchange.  It is hardware that is stored in your office – generally in a back room or closet that connects all your internal phones to the outside phone lines through something known as the trunk line.  If you want to go really old school, your PBX would look like this:

With Hosted PBX, your system is managed off-site by a business phone services provider (Hi!) and instead of travelling into your business through a trunk line; all calls and PBX features (extension dialing, voicemail, conferencing, disaster recovery solutions, etc.) are connected to your internal phone system through the Internet.

The advantages associated with having your PBX hosted are no upfront costs associated with having to purchase hardware, or continuing costs from maintenance and upgrades.  A hosted solution is a subscription service, so you only pay for the lines and services you need and you can add or delete users as necessary.

Hosted Voice – Hosted voice is essentially the same as Hosted PBX, but its features may be limited.

IVR – Interactive Voice Response.  IVR automates interactions through the telephone.  These come in the form of prerecorded prompts that the caller can respond to using dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (the touch tone key pad) or through speech recognition.  You know that drill:

Press or say “1” to hold, press or say “2” to hold….

IVR systems can be either installed in your business or integrated through your business’ network by using a telephony solution provider (hi, again).   The advantages of having your IVR hosted are the same as the PBX:  no upfront costs for equipment, no maintenance, no hardware to manage, and scalability.

Here are a sampling of ways an IVR system can help your business:

• Capacity to handle high call volume
• Provides answers to routine customer service questions after hours
• Lowers call center costs
• Prioritizes call – urgent problems can be dealt with first
• Ensures that the caller reaches the right person/department quickly and accurately

Stay tuned for more!

The Problems Are Solved: Quality, Integration, and Security

By Mark Swanson

This is Part 3 of 3 in a series about How VocalQ Has Already Changed Your Business, The Personality of Speech Recognition, and The Problems Are Solved: Quality, Integration, and Security

It is no secret that the amount of data in our world has been growing exponentially. The term “Big Data” has been coined referring to the ability to analyze very large data sets.  According to McKinsey, Big Data “will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus.” Big Data provides the ability to take all this data we have been generating and make better decisions based on it.  A recent study by IBM identified that one in three business leaders make decisions without the information they need and half don’t have access to the information they need to do their jobs. That has significant competitive implications. Once the data is extracted and analyzed, a whole world of possibilities opens up.

SIRI is just a crack in the door.

Imagine scanning tens of thousands of voice conversations both in and outside of your company, recognizing what is said in those conversations, and then being able to map and measure both the quantity and quality of the conversations that took place.  We are doing it on the Web, why not on the phone? According to Forrester, over 73% of businesses are spending a combined almost $1billion on Web analytics technologies. Imagine being able to capture and rate each customer interaction, and be able to select any conversation and play it back, offering either encouragement or praise for that employee.  We agree with Norman Winarsky’s comments, not specifically for voice recognition, but rather for the voice recognition combined with voice analytics.

In addition to leveraging data, performing speech recognition and analytics in the Cloud has solved other obstacles that have been holding the technology back: audio quality, complex integration and security issues.

Quality

The quality of voice signal at the network core is as high as it is going to be while traveling inside the telecommunications network.  Capturing uncompressed audio signals at the core of the network means you eliminate transcoding issues, clipping and other effects that can disrupt voice recognition.  In addition, many of today’s Cloud Voice Networks are operating with the wide-band audio (G.722) standard which allows the voice to be captured with pristine quality.

Integration

Another issue that the Cloud solves is the ability to capture and integrate multiple collection points into one central repository.  Multi-site organizations have greater costs and higher integration risks than single locations.  The costs and risks have held back the deployment of these technologies.  Centralizing the collection and analysis of voice conversations allows for a much simpler deployment and vastly less integration.  In addition, the ability to connect to large processors to crunch the data and deliver analytics provides for a faster experience.

Security

Deploying voice recording and analytics technology on premises opens up another can of worms.  Establishing and assuring consistent security across all points of control becomes a very difficult task for a typical IT department.   Recording in the Cloud greatly simplifies the security and risk management of operations.   In the Cloud, a policy can be enforced and checked on by the customer.  Many Cloud vendors have established security and privacy policies that are verified by third parties.  In addition, most have backup systems that are used regularly.   Also, the ability to monitor and lock out “insiders” is of great benefit to companies.

The widespread adoption of Cloud technologies is providing a significant boost to call recording.  Are you prepared for the shift?  How do you plan on implementing these changes into your business?  Share your thoughts below.