Making the Call on Business Phone

Making the Call on Business PhoneDriving Productivity by Integrating Reliable Voice and Enhanced Communications Services

Michael HarrisKinetic Strategies

Making the Call on Business PhoneDriving Productivity by Integrating Reliable Voice & Enhanced Communications Services

Nine out of ten businesses rate voice and phone as their most important method for communicating with customers, suppliers and partners.1 The takeaway: rock-solid business phone service still matters in an age of social networking, cloud applications, mobility and unified communications. Indeed, nearly half of companies say their employees still use a desk phone at work.2 Because of the importance of phone services, it comes as no surprise that small and mid-sized businesses rank reliability and quality as the most important factors when choosing a voice provider.3

Enhanced and Hosted Phone Solutions Traditional local and long distance telephone service (often known as POTS) is delivered using analog signals over fiber, copper or coax lines from a carrier switching center to the business location. Although it does not allow for a robust feature set, because the carrier fully manages the service—the physical line, voice circuits and calling features—POTS sets the standard for high reliability and voice quality.

However, some traditional voice carriers have historically been unable to the deliver the innovative features and service flexibility growing businesses demand at an affordable price point. This opened a door for providers of hosted and cloud-based voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. These services have been available for over a decade now. Customer access to hosted voice services and systems is enabled through the cloud, via an Internet connection. In some cases, the full replacement of an existing business telephone system with IP phones is required. Other hosted voice services may require specialized VoIP hardware to be installed at the business location to enable standard office telephones to place and receive calls.

While hosted or cloud-based VoIP can offer benefits, because providers do not fully manage both the network and voice service, call quality may be a challenge. Sound echoes, delays and choppiness with calls that traverse the public Internet can impede a clear conversation. This means the business—rather than the service provider—has increased responsibility for monitoring and managing voice quality, as well as the VoIP hardware and software.

When call quality suffers, so does a company’s reputation. In one survey, nearly 80 percent of consumers reported encountering poor voice quality when calling a business. Nearly half of these consumers said they believed poor voice quality was a sign that companies did not value their business.4

Thomas Lawrence, Founder of GPI Design in Westlake, OH, understands this imperative first hand. His company works with architects and interior designers around the world to create custom illuminated features for commercial spaces. When starting out, GPI Design faced reliability issues with its telephone connections that undermined growth. “Like most small businesses, when our phone lines would go down our business would go down,” Lawrence said. The company turned to Time Warner Cable Business Class for a highly-reliable voice solution. “The phone service for us has been spot on, we have not had a single problem since we switched over about five years ago,” Lawrence explained.

Many businesses are interested in the benefits of leading-edge cloud communications capabilities, but not if it means sacrificing the high-quality voice services they depend on.

of businesses say voice/phone is their most important method for communicating with customers and partnersSource: InformationWeek

90%

White Paper: Making the Call on Business Phone 01Time Warner Cable Business Class

When adding enhanced communications features, it makes sense for many businesses to build upon the foundation of their traditional voice and Internet service solutions. Indeed, three out of four small and mid-sized businesses say they prefer to buy cloud-based services from their primary service provider and 80 percent prefer a single bill for all their communications services.5

Enabling the Anytime, Anywhere OfficeA key challenge for many growing businesses is providing seamless voice access to workers on the go without diluting the company’s identity. Research finds that more than half of a company’s employees work away from the office regularly, whether at home or on the road.6 How can customers and partners quickly reach these workers—anytime, anywhere—when dialing a company phone number? Likewise, when employees are working remotely, how can it appear to customers that they are calling from the office? Several innovative business phone solutions address these needs.

Simultaneous and Sequential Ringing: While call forwarding is a common feature with basic phone service, leading-edge voice providers are taking this capability to the next level. With simultaneous and sequential ringing, when an office telephone number is called, the call is forwarded to multiple alternative phone numbers. The destination phone numbers can be programmed to ring all at once, or one at a time in a predetermined order. Using this functionality, for example, a small or midsized business can create a distributed customer service team. When customers call a company telephone number for support, it may be programmed to ring the home office phones of three team members, as well as the mobile phones of two other specialists. An available employee answers the call, improving responsiveness to customers and eliminating unnecessary phone tag and voicemails.

Remote Calling: Using this feature, when a remote worker makes a call from any location, the business number is displayed in the incoming caller identification. This way it appears the worker is dialing from a company office phone, reinforcing the company’s brand identity and professional appearance.

Personal Attendants: Much like an auto attendant or directory function for a primary business line, personal attendant features enable individual lines within a company to offer custom greeting and call routing options. This way, a caller has a choice of whether to leave a voicemail message or have their call transferred to another worker who can help them immediately.

Enhanced Voicemail: When calls are sent to voicemail, businesses need features that speed message delivery and response. For example, voicemails can be automatically converted to digital auto files and delivered via email or accessed through a secure web-based interface via computer, smartphone or tablet.

The doctors and nurses at ABC Pediatrics in McKinney, Texas see up to 100 patients in their offices each day and check in with dozens more by phone. Reliable, secure and feature-rich business telephone service is an essential ingredient for delivering excellent patient care. The practice turned to Time Warner Cable Business Class for a comprehensive solution. “We have multiple lines. We use call forwarding, and we use voicemail features, because our patients need to get a hold of us, or hospitals need to get a hold of us, 24/7,” explains Dr. Suzanne Davis, Owner, ABC Pediatrics.

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3 out of 4

Source: Amdocs

businesses prefer to buy cloud services from their primary service provider

Simplicity RulesTwo out of three small business owners say they often feel overwhelmed with the number of technologies available to run their business.7 For many businesses, enhanced phone features are only beneficial if they are easy to use and manage. Customer-focused communications service providers offer tools to ease the learning curve for small and mid-sized businesses. For example, some innovative voice providers offer web-based management

portals that allow business phone account administrators and users to log in from a range of connected devices to configure their basic and enhanced services. With point-and-click simplicity, users can configure basic voice features, such as call forwarding, call waiting, and speed dial, plus enhanced features like simultaneous and sequential ringing, remote calling, and personal attendant settings. Users can configure voicemail preferences and listen to messages, as well as view call history and other details.

Research finds that simplifying information technology management and reducing capital expenditures are the top reasons businesses turn to enhanced communications services.8

Making the CallVoice services are essential to business success. High-quality voice solutions empower small and mid-sized business teams to stay connected and be productive. With reliable phone service, businesses are always ready to take orders, serve customers and process credit card payments. By adding enhanced features to traditional business voice services, office phone calls and messages can be made and accessed anytime, anywhere. Web-based tools make business phone services easy to configure, use and manage. Making the right call on business phone solutions can make all the difference for today’s growing companies.

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Source: Wakefield Research

2 out of 3small business owners feel overwhelmed with technologies

1 InformationWeek's 2014 Unified Communications Survey2 InformationWeek's 2014 Unified Communications Survey3 “What Do SMBs Want from Commercial-Services Providers?” Cisco Systems (2013)4 “Could you repeat that please? The costs and impact on the customer experience of poor voice quality,” Customer Experience Foundation (September 2010)5 “2014 Amdocs SMB Survey,” Coleman Parkes Research (April 2014)6 Forrester Foresights Workforce Employee Survey, Q1 20117 The Brother Small Business Survey 2014 conducted by Wakefield Research8 “Top Unified Communications Trends For Midsize Businesses,” Forrester Research (Jan 2014)

About the AuthorMichael Harris is principal consultant at Phoenix, Arizona-based Kinetic Strategies, Inc. Applying more than 15 years of experience as a strategist, research analyst and journalist, Michael consults with select clients in the networking, Internet and telecommunications industries.

About Time Warner Cable Business Services Time Warner Cable Business Services, a division of Time Warner Cable, offers a full complement of business communications tools to small, medium and enterprise-sized companies under its Time Warner Cable Business Class brand. Its Internet, voice, television, network and cloud services are enhanced by award-winning customer service and local support teams. Through its NaviSite subsidiary, Time Warner Cable Business Services also offers scalable managed services, including application services, enterprise hosting, and managed cloud services primarily in the U.S. and U.K. Time Warner Cable Business Services, founded in 1998, serves approximately 625,000 business customers throughout Time Warner Cable's service areas.

For more information, visit http://business.twc.com.

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