CTI Group

An International Law Firm uses CTI Group’s Proteus Enterprise to invoice customers. Since lawyers track their billable hours, this law firm is able to take the call data directly from Proteus Enterprise into an in  house application that in turn makes all of the call data available to the attorneys via a web interface. Then, the lawyers can mark their calls to keep track of the clients that should be charged for those call hours.

Human error is eliminated from this process of tracking billable hours. Because all calls made are automatically uploaded to the web interface, so all call hours are accounted for.  Many law firms use systems that require that the attorney front load the information and log all of their calls. This leaves a lot of room for error in forgetting to log calls. However, by using this telemanagement system to document all call hours, the attorney simply has to categorize that call and the invoice is processed.

Twenty years ago, every business and individual consumer paid their bills by pulling out a checkbook, writing a check, attaching the bill stub and putting it in the mail with an envelope and stamp. This six step process was common practice because there was really no other way to securely pay bills without going to the service provider’s location and paying in person. Checks were the only convenient means of bill payment.

Since then, the check industry has experienced quite a downturn in demand due to the many new bill payment options available to businesses and consumers. Service providers are working tirelessly to find new and more convenient ways for people to pay their bills. This does not bode well for the check printing industry, but certainly does make life a lot easier for the rest of us.

So, now that most Americans are no longer using checks and “snailmail” to pay our bills, what are we using?  Over the last decade, there has been an onslaught of new bill payment options made available online. These range from payment by credit card online to automated bank transfers. They can include robust bill management systems or simply bill payment online. The differences are vast but they all lead to the same end result, easier bill processing and payment for everyone involved.

However, these vast differences do make a substantial impact. Many businesses are utilizing the bill management systems offered by their service providers to enhance efficiency and improve resource management. Business are also using the automated analytics tools offered by many service providers to do their allocation management and trend reporting for them – rather than having an internal resource dedicated to that activity. Long gone are the days of 200 page paper bills and excel spreadsheet analysis. More robust tools are now available.

Many of these programs provide feature rich functionality that empowers business customers from large SMEs to multi-national businesses to produce the reports they need to conduct business, increasing customer satisfaction. Some of these programs even provide sophisticated levels of functionality that allow users to design customized reports that can be stored and run on demand. Reports are quickly generated and can be easily exported for distribution or use in other packages. Structures, reflecting that of the organization, enable users to allocate costs easily to account codes. The ability to allow the individual user to identify their personal and business costs is also available in many of the top of the line eBilling solutions.

The bill payment options available today are endless. Some people are only concerned about making a simple online payment, while others are looking for more. Regardless of your needs, the solution is out there for you. Luckily, you no longer have to turn to the checkbook and postal service to fill your bill payment needs. The potential cost savings available by using a robust eBilling system are endless: improving efficiency, maximizing accuracy, timely reporting and allocation. Talk to your service providers today to discuss how they can provide you with the bill payment options that best suit your needs.

We can barge, whisper, and monitor into the call, because the recorder actually participates in the call. This is essential call center functionality. Competitive call recording solutions can only playback the call as it is in progress. And it enables playback only off the web, where as with CTI Group’s solution, monitoring and whispering will actually initiate a phone call to the supervisor… far more usable, convenient, and what the call center manager expects. For example, if Andrea wanted to listen in on Liz’s calls, and she’s on the beach, all she has to do is put her cell phone number in and she can participate/whisper/or just monitor the phone call.

Competitive call recording solutions require modifications to the network architecture to record phone calls.

Competitive call recording solutions also won’t work if the media/voice (RTP) pathway is different than the signalling (SIP) pathway.

Competitive VoIP call recording solutions are sold on a seat based license model (annual cost). This pricing model means that the provider has a harder hurdle to sell over. They’ve got to sell more in order to make a margin.

With today’s financial challenger, it’s pretty difficult to find a company not working to find ways to plug the holes in their organization. Employees are working harder and faster. Often times, one employee is doing the work of two. It is crucial for companies to pinpoint all of the areas they can successfully cut back without affecting their quality of service.

To that end, many companies are installing software solutions that can track and monitor employee activity and investment usage. Telemanagement systems are just one solution that companies are utilizing to improve their return on investment in telecom and in their employees. Telemanagement systems vary greatly.  Some provide a brief summary of usage while others provide customizable scheduled reports and alerts to unusual activity.

No industry has been hit harder in the past couple of years than the trading industry. Not unlike other businesses, they are working to weather this storm by cutting inefficiencies and improving their processes. In so doing, a small trading firm, active on the NYSE, added a telemanagement system to their turret system to track telecommunications activity. This is becoming more and more common practice among trading companies in the wake of the financial downturn. 

In the first month or two, they noticed small changes here and there that they could make to improve their telecom usage and day to day efficiency. But, after about 4 months of using their telemanagement system they noticed something in the trending report. There was one trader that was making significantly less phone calls from the turret system than the other two traders they had on the floor. They found this curious because there was no difference in job function or reported trades. How could that trader have the same number of trades with only half the calls? 

After further investigation, they found that the trader in question was not making all of the trades he was reporting. This presented two issues to the trading company. First, there was clearly a human resources issue to be confronted regarding the trader that was not making the trades he was being paid to make.  But, second, and almost more importantly, they were faced with a legal liability issue. They were under the impression that these trades were being made and were charging their customers for these fraudulent trades. After taking a closer look, they were able to reconcile the situation with their customers before legal action was taken. But, this could have been a potentially costly and embarrassing situation that was avoided due to the installation of a telemanagement system.

This is just one vital example of how a telemanagement system can help a company to improve efficiency while possibly uncovering more than they expected. More times than not, companies find that there is one way or another that telecommunications systems are being used in a fraudulent manner. They are not always as serious as this example, but they are always costly.  By alleviating these costs, companies are able to save money and improve business processes.  

While the adoption of eBilling systems is becoming more and more popular in the telecom industry, it is important that we not underestimate the importance of differentiating between solutions. eBilling solutions range from a simple internet accessible bill, through the providers web portal, to sophisticated bill analysis software that delivers reports directly to your email box. So, it is very important that you know what you want and understand the advantages and disadvantages of each end of that spectrum. 

Does your company simply need a simple electronic bill presentment solution to make bills available online? These solutions are a dime a dozen.  In fact, if you don’t at least have this bare bones solution at this time, your billing system is grossly outdated and in need of some serious review. But, some companies find that this is all that they need. Or BELIEVE that this is all that they need. But, is providing the same service as your competitors your goal or is providing superior service your goal?  This is obviously a question you have to ask yourself and not one that I can answer for you…but, certainly should be considered.

In understanding which eBilling solution you should offer, you must first consider the needs of your customers. A simple survey should do the trick. How many man hours do your customers spend on reviewing, analyzing and allocating their bills?  How much does that really cost them in operational expense and therefore how much would they be willing to pay to alleviate that expense? This is really the first step on your journey to find the perfect eBilling solution. You must first understand the needs of your customer base.  By making assumptions about their needs, you may be missing a large piece of the puzzle.

Second, you must understand how different eBilling solutions work and what services they provide. If you think you want a plug-and-play web portal solution, you have to ask yourself a few questions. Will your customers be able to pay their bills via the web portal?  Studies have shown that consumers that can are more likely to pay their bills BEFORE they are due rather than paying them on the due date or late. Will your customers be able to drill down into their bill to answer detailed questions about extensions, departments, expense allocation, etc.?  Studies have shown that by allowing the individual consumer to research their own billing statements, telecom companies are able to reduce churn (customer service expense) by 10% annually. Do you have customers that receive bills that are 100+ pages each month?  If so, have you calculated the expense in printing and mailing these lengthy bills?  Not only can you save on paper and postage expense, but you can also save on operational expense – someone has to compile, print and mail these bills.

The real question that you have to address when searching for eBilling solution is what are your needs and the needs of your customers. It is simple, really. You can opt for a solution that provides the bare bones of eBilling and stay competitive with your competition OR you can differentiate yourself from your competition and provide a more robust, analytical tool that can save both you and your customer time and money in bill analysis and bill payment.

Recently, VoIP call recording and VoIP high definition phone service announced that they were joining forces to provide high definition IP call recording. This new high definition VoIP telephony offers end users their final proof that VoIP telephony is able to support their needs not only in convenience and price, but also in higher quality voice communication. By adding the ability to record these higher quality communications, the complete package is now available.

Since the release of VoIP phone service, the number one user complaint has been surrounding the voice quality. A few industry leading VoIP hardware vendors have found a way to solve this issue by incorporating the G.722 codec into their VoIP telephones. If the voice quality is improved with G.722 codec, so then will be the voice that is recorded with any given IP call recording solution, or so many would assume. Well, the fact is that most IP call recording solutions do not support the G.722 codec yet and therefore these calls are simply not recordable on those solutions. Recently it was announced that one call recording does support the G.722 codec and is now able to provide high definition call recording, offering many benefits to the provider and to the end user.

By successfully achieving interoperability with the G.722 codec, this unique IP call recording solution is able to provide high definition call recording with the new audio standard for internal PBX communication. This means that only the IP call recording solutions that are compatible with the G.722 codec can work effectively with the new Cisco Unified Communications Manager, the next generation of Cisco phones, and the new Polycom phones. If the call recording solution is not compatible with G.722, the calls will be listed as “empty” meaning that the solution is unable to record the call. As the next generation VoIP phones become the standard, more and more calls are going to be listed as “empty” and user’s satisfaction with their service is going to drastically decline. UNLESS, your call recording solution is able to foresee this change and act now to become interoperable with the G.722 codec.

Another obvious perk of high definition call recording is that it enables a higher fidelity of audio recording, enabling other third party applications which perform word-spotting, compliance checking, and call center quality assurance to work better without requiring a larger MP3 because these calls are recordable in the same compression quality as earlier IP call recordings. In other words, you get the quality enhancement of high definition call recording without adding any additional storage nightmares.

And finally, it has been proven that the G.722 codec enables VoIP conversations to be clearer than traditional digital line/PSTN calls. This provides another level of differentiation against digital line (PBX) solutions or traditional POTS conversations. Since the number one criticism of VoIP has been the voice quality, this is a huge victory for the VoIP industry. Not only are they now able to provide higher quality voice communication than previously available in the VoIP market, they are now able to provide even higher quality than traditional phone systems, removing that last and final obstacle to converting to VoIP telephony. 

With budget cuts everywhere, especially in government spending, schools are looking for ways to cut costs right and left, especially when they can do so without effecting spending on student-related activities. So, they scour the books looking for possible ways to tighten their belt so they can continue to offer the students the robust educational and extracurricular experience they deserve.

In doing so, a public school system in Indiana was having issues with managing the cost of their phone system. There were a couple of areas where they felt they could really “cut the fat” in their phone bill if only they could get to the root cause. First, they were having an issue with prank 911 calls being placed from somewhere within the building and they were unable to pinpoint from where these calls were coming. Each subsequent time 911 was dialed and the local authorities came to the school, the school was being charged a nominal fee. And second, the school was incurring increases in telephone bill costs and had no explanation for this random increase in cost with fraud protection, the school found some very interesting activities. First, they were able to identify the classroom from where the calls were being placed to 911 and they were able to catch the culprit and provide appropriate punishment.  Second, they were able to identify the source of their increased telephone expenses. One of the teachers had decided to start an arts and crafts business on the side and was using the school’s phone system to place calls to vendors, customers, logistical companies, etc. They were able to eliminate the long distance phone activity and, thus, reduce their monthly telephony costs immediately.

These are just two examples of how call management system with fraud protection can help an organization save money on their monthly bills. Call management systems with fraud protection offer high quality, real time monitoring of activities such as incoming, outgoing, international and out of hours calls, together with 24×7 monitoring of a voice network’s status.

Fraud protection software provides three types of monitoring:

·         Call Monitors – Display user-defined lists of calls in chronological order

·         Alarms - Triggered by user-defined telephonic events, provide instant notification of telecom usage that may adversely impact or effect the running of a business’s voice systems

·         Threshold Alarms - Allow businesses to set  warning levels (60% - 90%) that trigger before the actual alarm level is breached

Traditionally, call management systems are used to analyze historical call traffic, for example; investigating calls made by individual departments at the end of each month. This means that organizations don’t always have the immediate, hands-on control they need to manage their ongoing communication costs.

Control Costs and Usage

·         Identify excessive personal telephone calls

·         Set expected spends for individual carriers

·         Monitor calls made outside normal business hours

·         Monitor switches for no calls during a set period

The opportunities that this school system found to cut costs were unique to their circumstance but not entirely unique in their existence. Every organization has opportunities available to cut costs in their telecom expenditures. It seems like a simple thing, but most organizations have no idea where they spend their telecom budget or where they could cut those costs. Call management systems with fraud guard offer that visibility so that organizations can control their costs rather than having their costs control them.

I often hear the question, why would I use Proteus as my call management system when there are so many systems available on the market?  Well the answer is simple. You would choose Proteus if you want a robust system with scheduled reports, alerts, fraud guard, etc.  However, if you believe you only need to generally monitor your telecom usages, you might go with a simpler and cheaper product.

If you do so, however, I think you will find that you are not able to see the return on investment that you can see with Proteus. You will not be able to cut costs, cut phone lines, cut out telecom fraud in your organization in the way you can with Proteus.

Competitive solutions are able to provide very basic telemanagement service, but to really see maximum results from incorporating a call management system into your business operations, you will really need to go with a robust system, like Proteus.

In the accounting and finance world, it is always important to find ways to cut costs.  Whether it is by improving efficiencies or getting better prices for existing goods and services, their eyes are always on the bottom line.  So, naturally the best way to approach the financial sect of a company is to discuss how you might be able to affect that bottom line positively.

In an effort to entice the executive officers of a large Louisiana Steel Company to give eBilling and analytics a try, an account executive approached the CFO for a meeting to discuss the specific product that he wanted to demonstrate. The CFO was adamant that their company did not need eBilling and analysis software; they were, after all, trying to cut costs, not incur more costs. With some significant arm twisting, the account executive was able to schedule a meeting anyway.

Upon seeing the demonstration of the product and understanding first hand the how quickly and easily they could cut costs within their accounting and finance departments, the CFO was definitely willing to listen to what the account executive had to say. Since there was no proprietary software to be downloaded, it was a snap to immediately install eBilling and analytics to save the accounting department time and money.

The first cost savings opportunity he saw was in cost allocation.  This particular steel company had 17 locations all over Louisiana. In order to properly allocate expenses from location to location, they had to manually analyze and allocate their calls when they received their bill. By adding eBilling and analysis software, each location was able receive their individual allocation via email on a monthly basis with no manual effort required. The CFO saw how this was able to relieve his accounting department from sifting through excel spreadsheet after excel spreadsheet. It allowed his employees, instead, to focus on other projects which saved the company valuable time and money. And as a result of his added interest, a 30 minute call turned into a 90 minute call and eventually ended in the Louisiana Steel Company installing eBilling and analysis software for their monthly cost analysis needs.

This is just one example of how a company was able to install eBilling and analysis software and see significant return on investment through cross functional and cross departmental cost savings. And these examples abound. Many companies have entire departments that sift through excel spreadsheets on a monthly basis, consuming hours upon hours of valuable time and resources. 

Benefits of eBilling and analysis products:

• Cost Savings – alleviate paper, postage, processing costs
• Non-Price Related Market Differentiator – Go Green
• Faster bill payment – cash in hand
• Lower billing enquiry costs
• Improve customer satisfaction

With the downturn in the economy, everyone is looking for a way to cut costs, run more efficiently, and differentiate themselves from their competition. These eBilling products do just that. By going green, your company is a step above the rest and is still able to reap the benefits of a highly productive, electronic approach at billing and analysis.

Bill analysis tools provide a vital service to business customers while saving time on account management and billing print fulfillment costs for the service provider. The customer can understand and manage their expenditures by creating their own reports and allocating costs with the option to access their bill. Reports are available instantly at every level of analysis – from trend summaries to individual line items.

What’s new in bill analysis tools?

Some cutting edge companies now offer multi-level integration and deployment options for service providers of all sizes. Complying with the “JSR168 standard portlets” helps electronic bill presentment companies deploy into existing portal technologies such as BEA Weblogic, IBM Websphere or open source portals like Liferay. These bill analysis tools can be supplied with an API & SDK, making deployment quick and cost effective while creating a truly unique offering to your customers. Some of the best bill analysis tools mirror the user’s own business structure, so that phone usage can be easily managed. They provide a range of reports that are presented as charts, making them easier for users to read and understand.

Why would a service provider decide to provide bill analytics?

For one thing, bill analytics allows the service provider to cut customer service costs by providing tools for customers to resolve their own billing queries. They also allow service providers to maintain proactive customer relationships; by encouraging online activity, service providers can develop a better understanding of consumer behavior. With these fast, powerful cost analysis tools, clients can set up watchpoints to view succinct, customized summaries of the reports that matter to them. And allow them the ability to access the exact level of analysis to fit their needs.

• Self-service – Electronic bill presentment tools empower customers to answer their own billing queries, therefore, you will benefit from savings in time and money. Win new customers – as the variety of telecom services grow and billing becomes more complex, bill analysis tools are becoming more and more necessary.
• Differentiate from the competition – Bill analysis tools provide a nonprice related service that adds value to users.
• Complements existing systems – Bill analysis tools can be delivered online as a stand alone solution or as a part of your portal or third party hosting.
• Hosting – Some of the most cutting edge bill analysis tools now offer flexible deployment, meaning it can be applications provider hosted, hosted by your company, or hosted by a third party.  
• Scalable – Bill analysis tools are available in all shapes and sizes and are made to meet the needs of any business size…it’s just a matter of finding the right solution.

Why would the end user opt to use a bill analysis tool?

• Makes information more accessible – with reports, graphs and data concisely summing up expense and usage trends.
• Saves time & cost – standard reports are instantly available, and even customized reports can be run within seconds – so the user gets just what they need, when they need it. Compare this to competitor solutions that can take hours or even days to download!
• Customizable reports – standard reports with wizard features are generally available with the best bill analysis solutions.
• Cost allocation – the best electronic bill presentment tools enable administrators to allocate usage to hierarchy or cost centre structures that reflect their business.
• Greater transparency – The recipient benefits from transparent bill information, allowing them to examine usage at department, team and individual levels.

Bill analysis tools make allocation and reporting a snap.  Making these tools available to the end user improves the end user experience while reducing their need for customer service support. It makes real business sense to integrate a tool like this into your business processes.  It can help you to cut costs, while providing a non-cost related differentiator to your customers.  If you make their life easier, they are more likely to stick with you.