Telephony Today and Tomorrow

By K.C. Jones

The phones are ringing off the hook on any given day at Galpin Motors. A seemingly endless stream of calls from vendors, service clients and many potential customers light up the lines from open until close.

There’s nothing sweeter than the sounds of a ringing phone to a business that thrives on sales, however, Galpin came to realize that their existing phone system had its limitations. Management wanted to keep the lines of communications open for its customers and did not want them place on hold for long periods of time.

The solution for Galpin was a new phone system with increased capacity, customer service and reduced costs, along with specialized features. Today, there’s never a problem with dropped calls or two to three minute hold times.

Galpin contacted Accurate Telecom, which provides business phone systems and services, for a systems that could provide the growing automotive dealership with a cost effective way to communicate.

The actual equipment cost of what Galpin bought was considerably more than they initially wanted to spend, but they bought it, realizing that over time, they would recoup their investment. But the savings they would realize was surprising even to its telecommunications vendor: even with increased usage and activity, the upgrade has cut their monthly telecommunications bill by upwards of 40%. That 40% savings doesn’t even include the added, though hard-to-quantify bonus of increased sales and improved customer service.

Now that Galpin’s problems are solved, the more important question remains: How many companies in California are like Galpin, frustrated daily by the headaches of an outdated phone system. unaware that an upgrade will simultaneously lower their blood pressure and drastically reduce their telecommunications costs?

Buddy Chancellor, Vice President of Accurate Telecom said, “based on experience with substandard phone systems, we estimate that up to 50% of capital outlay for phone systems can be wasted if spent on systems that don’t have features needed for a given organization.”

“A smartly-deployed, state-of-the-art phone system beats out an outdated, overtaxed system any day. It is unfortunately all too common for companies to spend extravagant amounts of money securing prestige office space and an extravagant computer system–only to skimp on the company’s lifeline to the outside world,” said Chancellor. “It’s often hard to explain to these companies the benefits of spending more money up front for a significant payback over the long haul, even after the existing system starts performing more poorly than expected.”

Payback on the Galpin system is estimated conservatively to be 18 months. Certainly, not every business will get the same jaw-dropping bottom line savings Galpin did. But the key to the company’s success was the drafting of a detailed needs assessment, identifying problems they wanted to solve and goals they wanted to achieve. Once completed, the needs assessment allowed vendor Accurate Telecom to put together a diverse package of products and services tailor made to fit the dealership’s needs.

One good example is a “direct inward dial” system. While paying for a direct extension for every single employee and department of a company can be extremely expensive, direct inward dial allows a company to configure a number of extensions to be reached through a small group of external phone lines.

Using this technology Galpin was able to save money and increase service to the customer at the same time. Regular callers simply bypass the front desk, freeing up the receptionist to care for some of the most important calls – new customers. The direct inward dial extensions can even be configured to support fax/modem lines, further reducing the need for expensive dedicated lines.

There are opportunities for savings and improved performance at every step along the way. A T1 line can be used to rout long distance calls at better rates, as well as reducing the quantity of and cost of local lines. A phone system equipped with automatic call distribution (ACD) will queue calls in an orderly fashion and provide reports on how customers are being serviced and how employees are performing. A manager can track calls by department and see how quickly callers are being assisted, allowing the company perhaps for the first time to measure performance and customer service.

Considering numerous other examples like these, a detailed needs assessment is crucial for a wiser, more informed buying decision. Larger companies may be able to call upon their communications consultant to draft this plan, but small-to-mid-sized companies should expect this service of their vendor. Surprisingly, many vendors don’t typically perform a needs assessment.

Alan Skobin, Vice President and General Counsel for Galpin Motors said, “Good planning and implementation are key. Both of these two areas were critical when designing a communications system for Galpin.” He added, “One of Accurate’s greatest strengths is in the planning stages. They designed a system that provided tremendous features and growth ability, while at the same time lowering our overall telecommunications costs. It was a win-win situation.”

The biggest advantage of the need assessment is that it simply states how a phone system will work within the corporate structure, how quickly it will produce return on investment, and how much more efficient and effective it will make the organization. Because a phone system is a big-ticket item that will be used 5-7 years or more, organizations that act without such a needs assessment are incurring unnecessary risk.

Moreover, a well-planned system will set the stage for easily incorporating enhancements coming down the pipe, like super fast data transfer through what’s really not more than a regular phone line. Both GTE and PacBell have announced plans to deploy this asynchronous digital subscriber line (ASDL) service by the end of the year. With downstream data rates up to 1.54 mega bytes per second, ASDL may eclipse today’s ISDN lines as the premier low-cost, high speed Internet access and data transmission service for business.

It’s about time for an ISDN alternative. ISDN has been around for 15 years now, and it’s barely a blip in the market, mainly because it provides only 128 Kbps of throughput. If ADSL proves to be half as promising as it looks, ISDN will have a tough time competing. In addition, there may be other ADSL advantages that emerge as companies find they don’t have to tie up phone lines for Internet access and wait for web pages to download.

Currently, most of the excitement in emerging services surrounds computer-telephony integration (CTI), which promises to marry the function of the two most important business communications infrastructures and take videoconferencing and other services to the next level. Companies that take advantage of CTI applications will have a contact manager program that automatically dials customers’ numbers. Detailed caller ID data screens pop up on a desktop screen displaying the calling customers information as the employee’s phone begins to ring, and practical real-time videoconferencing applications that incorporate interactive whiteboards and content from programs like PowerPoint.

As the worlds of data and voice are joined, CTI will allow organizations to manage information more effectively and access data more quickly. Particularly in video conferencing, CTI will increase “face time” and drastically cut the need to purchase business-class airplane tickets.

But the excitement about CTI has to be tempered with a lot of real-world concerns. The most burning question is whether voice and data should really be incorporated into one line. People are comfortable with the speed and tactile sensation of picking up a handset and punching the phone keypad. Some companies are wary of mixing up their phone networks with their computer networks.

A lot of the new technology talked about today is still a little too green for widespread application. Voice-over-internet is a good example. The early adopters of this novel technology have found that it’s good for internal communications but disconcerting for customers, considering that the sound quality might be as good as talking on kazoos through a 2-way radio. But over time, the algorithms that support voice-over-Internet will improve and the data pipes will get fatter, making this new technology more attractive to the average business.

Even ADSL has some potential limitations. What happens if everyone in GTE’s service area suddenly decides they want to sign up; how much would that burden the Internet’s infrastructure? Imagine replacing everyone’s water faucets with fire hydrants–everyone would have lots of capacity, but this would not be good without water pressure.

Considerable evolution needs to take place. It’s better today to identify existing voice and data needs, fix problems and customer service issues created by inadequate phone systems, and investigate the opportunities that are out there.

One company, after installing a phone system that could handle multi-party conference calling system in-house, was able to save the $500 a month they previously spent on conference calls through a major long distance carrier. Companies that dig a little can find opportunities like this for their own business, freeing up funds to be spent on what successful businesses do best; stay one step ahead of the competition.

K.C. Jones is President of Accurate Telecom.