| Even in the 21st century, anything up to 80% of | | | | appointed by the company. |
| incoming communications traffic to any business is | | | | Interactive Voice Response |
| via voice telephony, so anything that impacts | | | | Interactive Voice Response, or IVR, is a useful |
| upon the reliability, and effectiveness, of voice | | | | feature, which you may have come across |
| telephony systems is a major issue. Staff, for | | | | yourself if you have ever topped up a mobile |
| example, may need to access a company voice | | | | phone, or performed a similar activity. IVR allows |
| network via a landline, a mobile phone, or VoIP | | | | routine transactions to be automated, via voice |
| ("Voice over Internet Protocol"), and effective call | | | | recognition, or a touch tone keypad, so that no |
| flow management is necessary to prevent calls, | | | | interaction with a human operator is required. This |
| and business, being missed. The underlying | | | | can be useful for literature requests and other |
| technology, of course, needs to be up to the job, | | | | similar transactions, and, of course, can be |
| and there are a number of features that need to | | | | available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. |
| be considered when implementing effective call | | | | Hunt Group Routing |
| flow management. | | | | Hunt group, or "follow me", routing allows you to |
| Automated Call Distribution | | | | configure a number of different destinations - |
| Automated Call Distribution, or ACD for short, is a | | | | including mobile and international numbers - at |
| process whereby incoming calls are distributed to | | | | which a call can potentially be answered. Once |
| a series of answering positions, in sequence, so | | | | again, if one number is busy, or unanswered, the |
| that if one position is busy, or unattended, a call | | | | call "cascades" to the next available number, and |
| can be picked up by the next, and so on. This can | | | | the next, until it is answered. If implemented |
| be useful in a customer service or support | | | | correctly, hunt group routing may mean that |
| environment, such as a call centre where the | | | | missed calls are a thing of the past. |
| volume of incoming calls is high, and calls need to | | | | Fax-to-Email, Voice-to-Email |
| be forwarded to the correct parties. ACD can | | | | Fax-to-email or voice-to-email functionality |
| also provide callers with the facility to record | | | | essentially allows you to retrieve communications |
| messages and, for administration purpose, can be | | | | sent via fax, or voice telephony, on any device |
| used to gather call statistics and balance calls | | | | where you can access email messages. Fax |
| between telephone lines. | | | | transmissions to a fax-to-email number are |
| Hosted PBX | | | | automatically forwarded, as regular attachments, |
| A PBX, or "Private Branch eXchange", is a | | | | to your email account, while voice transmissions |
| telephone exchange that serves, and is | | | | are attached as audio files - ".wav" files, for |
| responsible for call flow management and queuing | | | | example - which can be played back on PC |
| within, a particular company site. As the name | | | | speakers, for example. In either case, nothing |
| suggests, a PBX is devoted to a single subscriber, | | | | unusual is required on the part of the caller; he, or |
| and does not rely on switching equipment | | | | she, simply uses a fax machine, or voice |
| provided by a common, or public, | | | | telephone, in the usual way, and the document or |
| telecommunications provider. As such it can be | | | | voice message is delivered to a specified email |
| maintained by a company, itself, or by a provider | | | | address. |