Business Phone System Reviews | SE Telecom

Avaya has done some research to see just how their customers are using Avaya products and services. The findings have been that 80% of automated self-service portals get deployed and never reviewed again. While the world is moving to self-service applications, these applications need constant evaluation on their effectiveness.

Reviewing self-service applications is more than just making customer experiences better. Better efficiency, happier customers, and less time needed with live service agents are all part of the review process companies need to review with their self-service applications.

Avaya doesn’t just offer easily integrated hardware and software. Avaya also has the Avaya Self-Service Optimization service. This service assists customers in understanding the full ramifications of what appears to be small design changes. This service can lead to large impacts on contact center effectiveness and customer happiness.

How does the Avaya Professional Services team help companies? First, this group of people has a deep knowledge of needs on living people to resolve their issues.
how best to handle real world customer calls. This group will take a sample of your real world customer calls and figure out the pathways they took during their calls. The Avaya team will then provide suggestions on areas for improvement based on metrics of success rates.

All of this tweaking and specializing leads to a few key factors for companies. The Avaya suggestions are geared towards getting the most frequently used self-service pathways handled in as quick of a manner as possible. These suggestions also help alleviate customer You want your self-service options to be as easy and friendly to use as talking to a neighbor. Avaya has yeas of experience in analyzing just this type of data. Why not bring them in from time to time to evaluate your system and optimize it for how your customers are using it. Happier customers only mean better word of mouth advertising.

CTI Group is an international provider for enterprise level communication management software. They also provide services in VoIP management, call recording solutions, electronic invoice processing and management. These services will now get the benefit for one particular CTI Group offering getting the Avaya certification approval.

SmartRecord is a call recording solutions that plays nicely with the Avaya Aura platform. SmartRecord is the piece of software that just got Avaya’s highly sought after stamp of approval.

What does SmartRecord offer that makes it such a spectacular piece of software? First, it is hailed as an easy installation process with self-care upgrade tools. Second is that SmartRecord employs dual-tone multi-frequency media clip generation. This allows users to enter soft key sequences at the beginning and end of their conversations. These key sequences then generate media clips that can be automatically emailed out to distribution lists.

What really sets SmartRecord out from other solutions is that this software not only has the Avaya certification, but it also has the VMware certification. In the ever-changing world of IT, obtaining this virtualization market leader certification has big benefits. This certification brings companies the peace of mind of knowing SmartRecord will work for them even as their business grow and expand, even in the virtualized datacenter.

CTI Group can even bundle SmartRecord with Proteus for unrivaled accounting and reporting. Resellers can offer their customers a complete unified communications solution. The Avaya certification will open up a broader spectrum of added value opportunities. This only means increased profit margins and reduced customer complaints for all.

This is another big win for Avaya as well. As more and more companies strive for the Avaya compliant certification, the more offerings Avaya has to offer customers in all areas of the communications market. This in turn enhances the customer’s expectations and benefits from choosing Avaya, and Avaya compliant applications.

Social Media is growing by leaps and bounds every year. It is not uncommon for major companies to use outlets like Facebook and Twitter to sell their products and Services. Avaya recognizes this trend and is now embracing social media in a big way.

A recent polling of companies found that 29% planned to kick their social media budgets up even more. Avaya’s very own Paul Dunay, Global Managing Director-Services and Social Marketing, is part of this group that plans to grow their social media presence. Avaya plans to devote as much as 15% of this year’s online marketing budget to social media.

Avaya has even moved away from their online experiment into more of a maintenance mode. Avaya is now using tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Internet forums to answer customer questions, build new customer relationships, and increase their Internet search rankings.

The biggest shift in social media marketing is how Avaya believes they should approach this growing marketing area. Instead of looking at social media from an R.O.I. only perspective, Avaya is coming at it from the angle of how can they support current customers, while pulling in potential new customers by growing the Avaya brand name.

Social media is more than just having followers on Facebook though. SEO, better web sites, and keywording are all becoming huge marketing tactics. Avaya is even taking search optimization as one of their top five marketing strategies. However, Avaya search results do not get the honor of claiming their top marketing need.

Avaya is sure to see a great amount of benefit from this social media marketing campaign. Younger generations use social media for more than just talking about lunch. Just look at all the press that now follows companies like Apple, AT&T, and Verizon. Social media now plays a big part in how a company is perceived and respected.

Android is sure making a big splash on the cell phone market as of late. New phones, possible tablets, and some bad press from competitors are surely all factors in this Android explosion. This use of Android has led to an eruption of cellular data usage. Two new studies show that Android users consume more data than iPhone users.

The not so big shocker is how these studies compare apples to oranges. The reports find that users of Android on Verizon consume more data than iPhone users locked to AT&T. Let’s not forget that AT&T now has a 2GB/month data cap in place. Verizon currently allows users to stream all they want with little repercussion.

Another factor is that some iPhone apps won’t let you stream data unless you are on a WiFi network. This only further hinders data consumption on 3G networks.

What can consumers pull from these studies? First, Android is on a massive sales upswing. Android phone growth has grown a staggering 561% over the last year. This puts Android in the number three spot for adoption. This number is expected to grow with a possibility of overtaking iPhone’s number two spot.

Secondly, Android is also on a larger number of devices on more networks. This shows just how open the platform is. This makes it easier for phone companies to put Android on their phones. It also means tablet manufacturers can look at Android as a tablet OS. Continue to look for more Android based devices as the months tick away.

There is concern over these finding as well. Currently, companies like Verizon and Sprint have not instituted data usage caps. The more people flock to these networks, the more congested they get. How long does anyone really think it will be before these companies follow in AT&T’s footsteps and slap down some data restrictions?

If you have been debating on snagging an Android phone, now is the perfect time to get one. You have your choice of carriers with a wide selection of phones. Do it now while you can still stream those hockey games without concern of how much data you are consuming.

This week, Gartner released its seventh annual Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications. Though the name is plenty confusing, the concept is relatively simple: they rate some of the world’s largest telecom companies to identify the leaders from the challengers.

This year, Avaya, along with Cisco and Microsoft, were identified as the leaders. Their distinction was based on in the ‘completeness of vision’ as well as their ‘ability to execute.’ Unified communications included offering products (such as equipment and software) as well as communication methods such as VOIP, email, videoconferencing, instant messaging, and more.

From the Gartner report: “Unified Communications [UC] products integrate communication channels (media), networks and systems, as well as IT business applications and, in some cases, consumer applications and devices.” Corporate telephony is also included.

Other companies, such as IBM, were defined as the ‘challengers,’ who had the ability to execute but not as much the completeness of vision. Companies like Siemens were categorized as ‘visionaries’ for possessing the opposite skill sets. And companies such as Toshiba and SAP were ‘niche players’ without significant abilities to execute or complete their visions.

The report, obviously, was good news for Avaya. “The open, standards-based flexibility of Avaya Aura coupled with the Avaya DevConnect programme… provide an unparalleled network of leading technology companies to enable a fully-integrated, ‘best in class,’ multi-vendor approach to addressing the particular needs and purposes of a company,” said Alan Baratz, President of Avaya’s Global Communications Solutions department.

For our part, we’re glad to see the report too. It more-or-less confirms what we already knew: by offering a large selection of Avaya telecom products to our corporate clients, we are offering the best-in-class of communications and telephony hardware, software, support.

If you have any questions about Avaya products, or want to see what the buzz is for, call SE Telecom 24/7 any day of the week. You can also use our Contact page if you want to write.

Traveling BlackBerry Users Face Complications; Others To Likely Follow

Two related stories in the Globe and Mail caught our eye today. One was on traveling BlackBerry users facing service cutbacks amid security worries from countries such as India, while another said that while different phone companies (such as Apple) are staying quiet as the firestorm around RIM builds, they too are bound to face scrutiny over security as well.

The back story starts with our cultural dependence on our smart phone devices. Especially for business people continually on-the-go, their BlackBerry is a invaluable productivity tool, keeping them connected with their office through text, voice, and email capabilities.

However, several countries, dismayed over their inability to control BlackBerry content (we’ll call these “security complaints”) have threatened to ban RIM’s phones within their borders. Chief among these countries is India, a major world business player, who has set the end of this month as a deadline for RIM to meet their demands.

United Arab Emirates — home to booming business and travel center Dubai — has threatened to do the same by the end of October. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Lebenon, and Indonesia are either looking to follow in these countries’ footsteps, or at least take a closer look at security concerns.

The effect on international business travelers, even if they have a home base in the US or Canada, is clear. The devices they depend on so much while on the road may only work, and partially, in certain stops, while becoming about as good as a paper weight in some others.

While the uncertainty surrounding BlackBerry devices have prompted some to look at using other options like Apple’s iPhone, the switchover would be costly not only in hardware but in training time. And of course, as the other Globe article also points out, scrutiny toward different companies may pick up soon too.

There’s nothing egregious RIM is doing that other competitors are not, and if a country’s government wants to pick on the makers of BlackBerrys, they can just as easily do so for the makers of the iPhone. Or, for that matter, many other smart phone manufacturers or service carriers, at least until new standards are adopted across the board.

The question for business travelers now, which is admittedly a very difficult one, is to wait out the RIM-invoked storm… or to switch to a device that has less immediate doubts around it, but may be in the same position just months from now. Only time will really tell which strategy is best.

Just a quick note for the Avaya followers out there: Yesterday, they announced that Joe Heel has been appointed Senior Vice President and President of Avaya Global Services, while Christopher Formant was appointed President of Government Solutions. Click here to read the entire Avaya press release.

If you are interested to learn more about Avaya phone systems or Avaya technical tips, visit our main website. If you would like to talk to someone about Avaya products, you can contact SE Telecom 24/7 at info@setelecom.ca or toll free at (877) 816-8324.