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Even in the 21st century, anything up to 80% of incoming communications traffic to any business is via voice telephony, so anything that impacts upon the reliability, and effectiveness, of voice telephony systems is a major issue. Staff, for example, may need to access a company voice network via a landline, a mobile phone, or VoIP (“Voice over Internet Protocol”), and effective call flow management is necessary to prevent calls, and business, being missed. The underlying technology, of course, needs to be up to the job, and there are a number of features that need to be considered when implementing effective call flow management.

Automated Call Distribution

Automated Call Distribution, or ACD for short, is a process whereby incoming calls are distributed to a series of answering positions, in sequence, so that if one position is busy, or unattended, a call can be picked up by the next, and so on. This can be useful in a customer service or support environment, such as a call centre where the volume of incoming calls is high, and calls need to be forwarded to the correct parties. ACD can also provide callers with the facility to record messages and, for administration purpose, can be used to gather call statistics and balance calls between telephone lines.

Hosted PBX

A PBX, or “Private Branch eXchange”, is a telephone exchange that serves, and is responsible for call flow management and queuing within, a particular company site. As the name suggests, a PBX is devoted to a single subscriber, and does not rely on switching equipment provided by a common, or public, telecommunications provider. As such it can be maintained by a company, itself, or by a provider appointed by the company.

Interactive Voice Response

Interactive Voice Response, or IVR, is a useful feature, which you may have come across yourself if you have ever topped up a mobile phone, or performed a similar activity. IVR allows routine transactions to be automated, via voice recognition, or a touch tone keypad, so that no interaction with a human operator is required. This can be useful for literature requests and other similar transactions, and, of course, can be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Hunt Group Routing

Hunt group, or “follow me”, routing allows you to configure a number of different destinations – including mobile and international numbers – at which a call can potentially be answered. Once again, if one number is busy, or unanswered, the call “cascades” to the next available number, and the next, until it is answered. If implemented correctly, hunt group routing may mean that missed calls are a thing of the past.

Fax-to-Email, Voice-to-Email

Fax-to-email or voice-to-email functionality essentially allows you to retrieve communications sent via fax, or voice telephony, on any device where you can access email messages. Fax transmissions to a fax-to-email number are automatically forwarded, as regular attachments, to your email account, while voice transmissions are attached as audio files – “.wav” files, for example – which can be played back on PC speakers, for example. In either case, nothing unusual is required on the part of the caller; he, or she, simply uses a fax machine, or voice telephone, in the usual way, and the document or voice message is delivered to a specified email address.