Increase of productivity through managed unified communications

With more mobile and remote workers, the old communication system could not scale-up to ION's needs. Facing communication problems like many other companies, Claudio Mourato, and his management team realized that VoIP would cut their phone bills, lower network maintenance costs as well as offer the flexibility to implement advanced technical features as their business grows.

“We were looking for a solution that can be integrated into our existing work flows.”
-Claudio Mourato, COO of ION Network Solutions

The company's previous phone system provided some basic capabilities for placing calls, but it lacked additional features that would allow customers and co-workers to reach others while on the road, and it was missing now-necessary collaboration components.

So the company needed a way to migrate from its old telecom system to a new IP platform without disrupting operations and, more important, with a level of cost savings. ION wanted its technicians on the road and sales men on-the-go to communicate and message more effectively, essentially enhancing customer service through tighter collaboration and communications.

ION began looking into unified messaging systems. Having researched various vendors, they were looking for a solution that supports open standards. They wanted to move away from proprietary protocols and vendor locked solutions. Their major requirement was flexibility. They were looking for a flexible license model and a system, agile enough to connect to their existing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and contact database. As an IT integrator ION is familiar with concepts such as Software as a Service (Saas). They no longer wanted to buy version 1.0 of a product and pay costly updates to get version 1.1. Basically their new communication system should offer a continuous feature evolution.

MIXvoip's managed services offered exactly what ION Network Solutions was looking for.  Configuration, updates and features are managed in a central, hosted environment which  provides automatic updates; features and configuration changes to the telephony system and phones installed at the customers site. Through an intuitive web application ION's technical staff can change or add new employees with a few mouse clicks. Managers can access call records and reports online no matter where they are. The required support is included in MIXvoip's monthly service subscription which is based on the number of users allowing companies to expand dynamically. MIXvoip's managed unified communication solution seemed the right choice. Through a software based approach the solution can scale dynamically without costly hardware upgrades. The fact that MIXvoip is a voice over IP Provider was the deciding argument. By using all of MIXvoip's services the support chain stays small. If there is a question about communication ION know exactly whom they should contact.

ION wanted more as just another phone system. After the easy installation of the base system  ION's internal software needed to be integrated. Connectors for LDAP, Outlook and most browsers were provided by MIXvoip but ION has a non standart, in-house developed CRM. ION's developers used MIXvoip's webservices for fax, presence and call management to enhance thet CRM with call features. Their new support call center migrated to software phones and headsets to cut hardware costs. Support agents enjoyed the new freedom to work without a phone and handset.

ION found it very challenging to better organize the appointments of their technical staff. The problems ION technicians need to solve are sometimes complex and can take more time than predicted whereas other appointments are sometimes finished within minutes. MIXvoip's presence module fitted perfectly into their existing infrastructure. A small application that is installed on the Blackberry or IPhone, allows technicians to set their status or provide the management team with their geographical coordinates. Bottlenecks in the planning are now automatically redirected to the closest, available member of the ION team. The presence application enhanced the dialing process. Everyone has just one, single phone number. Calls are automatically forwarded to the appropriate mobile phone if the employee is not in-house and if his status is set to available.

A positive side effect is the included chat system which technicians now use to exchange problem descriptions and solutions between each other. Solved problems reach the other members of the team faster and as such helps to improve the know-how the team which leads to a better customer service.

“MIXvoip managed voice over IP solution has clearly proven its value to our company. The service is reliable and the cost benefits are almost immeasurable. It was one of my first major decisions when I joined ION Network Solutions as COO." says Claudio.

ION is an excellent example of how a modern, unified communication system helps a small business to improve their services and productivity. Even though ION has only 25 employees they make now use of the modern enterprise features. The lesson for small and medium sized companies is that given the right situation, unified communication can dramatically improve operations. MIXvoip's managed voice services can assist large and mid-size businesses to lower costs and, more importantly, give smaller businesses the critical competitive edge they need to play ball with the big boys.

Because of the unification of voice and data, users enjoy evolutionary advances. Computer and phone systems are ubiquitously connected resulting in capabilities never before imagined and calls can be routed anywhere at any time based on the presence status of a user. Presence is the key feature that unifies the user's communication devices, software and other objects like computers, PDA's and vehicles into understandable states. The physical presence of an employee in the office can be detected by using the bluetooth or GPS features of his mobile phone. Based on the localization phone calls can be automatically redirected to home office of the user or his mobile phone using VoIP technologies.

Connecting phone calls over the data network has inevitably lead to the convergence of voice communication with all other types of communication platforms including email, instant messaging and video conferencing, to name a few. How companies customize that technology to fit the needs of their business is the most fascinating part. This is the core mission of MIXvoip: “ Delivering enterprise features to small and medium sized companies.”