A broadband technology that delivers high data transfer speeds over existing phone lines.

 

This was the original, and still is the common telephone line for many small systems, however some of today’s modern telephony systems are moving from traditional analogue to more cost effective digital alternatives such as ISDN. Analogue lines are rented, if you rent 3 analogue lines then 3 members of your company can speak to 3 separate outside destinations all at the same time. If you have 3 analogue lines, yet only require 1 telephone number for your company, then you simply request 1 line and 2 auxiliary lines. Don’t forget to allow lines for fax machines and franking machines etc.

 

Analogue phones, otherwise known as POTS (Plain Old Telephone System), are basic telephone system phones that allow calls to be placed and received by routing them through the public switched network.

 

A transmission and switching technique capable of supporting voice, video and data (Multimedia) communications. It is unique in that each piece of information is addressed and is of the same length, allowing for very high-speed communications.

 

An auto-attendant is the recorded message that answers your phones and instructs callers how to reach the person or department they are looking for. The caller uses their telephone keypad to choose who they need to speak to e.g “For support press 1, for sales press 2.” Automated Attendant can prove to be beneficial if your company receives a high volume of inbound calls as it can reduce disruptions to your staff carrying out their duties.

 

Automated Call Distribution (ACD) enables you to quickly and cost-effectively introduce a range of sophisticated call management techniques that will allow you to prioritise calls so that existing or high value customers are placed at the head of the queue, identify types of call and direct them to the most appropriately skilled agent, set up intelligent announcements to advise callers of their place in the queue and the estimated time to answer. ACD is a popular software solution for call centre environments as it provides statistics that can be incorporated into intelligent management reports.

How much you can send through a connection. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits per second; a full page of English text is roughly 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 57,000 bits per second whereas full-motion, full screen video would require some 10,000,000 bits per second, depending on compression. 

A feature of telephone systems which allows incoming calls to be diverted automatically to a different number, for example a mobile phone or a home office.

 

Call Management is a software client/server application that links to your telephone system and collects real-time call data such as, number of calls waiting, number of available agents, number of abandoned calls, time of oldest call waiting, speed of answer and average talk time. Typically used within call centre environments, Call Management provides a means for managing call traffic and producing monthly reports, it is a graphical, PC-based call reporting and administration application that makes it easy to collect, display and analyse real-time and historical data that can help call you run operations more efficiently.

 

Call recording allows you to record telephone conversations for later playback and analysis. Conversations are recorded to a storage medium, often a hard disc on a PC or network device. Typically, the voice recorded files are saved in Windows .wav file formats making them easy to use. There are many uses that voice recording can be put to, Solicitors, Call Centre Supervisors, Doctors, Insurance Brokers and Accountants can all benefit from this facility.

 

One of the key ISDN features, CLI displays the phone number of the caller on the answering phone’s display. CLI alpha tagging also shows the caller’s name and company. CLI is the enabling feature of many computer telephony integration applications.

 

A software programme that is used to contact and obtain data from a server software programme on another computer. Each client programme is designed to work with one or more specific kinds of server programme, and each server requires a specific kind of client. A web browser is a specific kind of client.

 

Computer telephony integration (CTI) covers a wide range of applications that connect your computers to your phone system. The classic CTI application is “screen popping”, which uses CLI to identify the caller and display his/her database records on the screen before the call is answered. CTI also enables calls to be made directly from a contact management package by simply clicking the call button.

 

Generic term for applications designed to streamline interactions with customers. CRM software allows call centre agents to access a customer’s service history from the back-office customer account packages. Small businesses are waking up to the advantages of CRM solutions that integrate with their PCs. The Internet, Email, IVR, voice and interactive TV have sparked a seismic shift towards web-enabled call centres, opening up a new dimension in offering good service.