Telephony systems rarely make it onto the list of business continuity requirements, but how many businesses can survive without access to a working telephone? Just how much money would be lost if customers could not place orders, make sales inquiries or raise support calls for 30 minutes, an hour, a day – or even a week, asks Graham Chick, chief executive, GemaTech?
The telephone has become invisible; while reliance upon it has become complete, a perception of constant availability has created a culture of complaisance. But just what happens to a business when the phone network fails or a power cut takes out the PBX or, even more familiar, a cable in the road is cut, or a fire, flood or gas leak keep staff away from the office?
In an increasingly edgy economy, no organisation can afford a glitch in service – whatever the cause. Business as usual is essential if customers are to retain faith in an organisation's ability to deliver, on time and to contract – from manufacturing to financial services.
The good news is that while the carriers can only offer call recovery for expensive non-geographic numbers, a cost effective business continuity solution that delivers a seamless transfer of geographic DDI numbers to a range of pre-programmed, event dependent locations, from home to branch office, is now available for every geographic number.
Telephone Reliance
Even in this world of email, online transactions and instant messaging, voice communication underpins every aspect of business – from receiving customer orders to chasing unpaid bills. Yet how many companies actually consider the value of the telephony system within their Business Continuity plans? Just 2% according to the annual Business Continuity Awareness survey conducted by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and IMP events.
Indeed, the survey reveals that telecoms protection is almost a blind spot in the planning of many businesses. If asked to think of something adverse happening to their business, very few people spontaneously think of telecoms failure. But when directly asked, nearly all acknowledge that it's one of the gravest threats of all.
And, perhaps, this lack of focus on telecoms is understandable – the phone service is highly reliable; indeed the carriers' exchanges are, by OfCom Regulation , 99.999% reliable. But not so the connection between the local exchange and a company's premises – running underneath the pavement these cables are now fighting for space with a multiplicity of other services, and increasingly prone to accidental fracture.
Furthermore with every component of the telephony system – from PBX to ISDN30 connection – dependent upon power, for those organisations without an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), an outage in power will bring down not only the IT systems but the telephony network too.
Of course, at a pinch, employees can take to their mobiles – fine if the problem is building specific; no good if it affects a wide area, when the mobile network will keel over within minutes. And what about in bound calls? With the PBX down, calls cannot be automatically forwarded from DDI number to mobile, leaving customers' calls unanswered. Just how much would it cost an organisation if customers could not get in touch for 30 minutes, an hour, a day – a week? And what is the on going impact on reputation and loss of customer confidence in an organisation's ability to meet its obligations?
Limited Recovery
Of course a number of carriers are making great claims about their ability to recover calls for customers should a network failure occur. Unfortunately these services apply only to the non-geographic numbers, the 0845s and 0870s used primarily within call centre environments. The carriers offer little support for the geographic numbers that make up the majority of business lines – unless an organisation is prepared to pay an extremely expensive fee for some higher-end service providers.
And yet the perception amongst many organisations is that such functionality is already a basic component of their contract. One large government agency assumed that in the event of any problem in telephone services at one call centre using geographic numbers, the carrier would automatically route calls to another centre several hundred miles away. It was only when the agency actually asked the carrier to confirm this perception the truth became clear: the service was a figment of the agency's imagination and was simply not deliverable at any price.
Geographic Support
So how then to protect these key geographic numbers? What is required is a facility that can intelligently divert any DDI number to any other number – from mobile to home, branch office to call centre – at a price that brings telephony protection neatly within budgetary levels normally associated with other essential insurance policies
The solution must, of course, be robust and resilient, preferably leveraging the highly secure carrier exchange building and fast ISDN30 connectivity. If a problem occurs with the connection, incoming calls are automatically directed from the sanctity of the local exchange, at which point powerful rerouting software is used to forward calls on an individual DDI basis to individuals in any location – from home to branch office or recovery site.
Critically, this service must be affordable, and, if possible available as a managed service. For a £2,250 set up fee and £995 per month, up to 15 concurrent inbound calls can be recovered – potentially enough for a company with 150 employees. Underpinning the 'business as usual' concept is a flexibility to respond to the diversity of business continuity issues – from rerouting calls to home when employees cannot reach the office to managing a range of options in the event a major disaster.
In any situation, it is essential that the personalisation associated with DDI numbers is not lost if customer confidence and quality of service is to be retained. While it is often expedient to transfer all incoming calls directed to multiple DDI numbers to selected "operators", an organisation can retain the personalisation by playing one of up to a hundred recorded messages and flagging up the name associated with the DDI to all personnel allocated to answering the re-routed calls.
Invisible Costs
The phone's reliability has become its Achilles heel. It is an invaluable yet invisible business tool and, as a result, few businesses even take the time to consider the implications of lost voice communications. And yet the cost to business is severe – as one organisation that had been prevaricating on the implementation of a back up solution recently discovered. Several thousands of pounds and a loss of customer reputation later, a business continuity strategy and solution for the telephony network is suddenly top priority. So why pay for it twice?
Published: Friday, October 28, 2005
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