Voice Over IP

The following is provided as key information and ideas to get started with these technologies and not to be considered a full evaluation of available vendors or any issues associated with vendors.

Ways it can work in your agency:

Extend after hours support by setting up rules in the system that direct after hours calls to a particular employee at home or to a virtual assistant, voicemail or customized messaging.
Use call routing features for flexibility in working from offsite or out in the field.
Transform voicemails to emails allowing agents to address calls while in meetings.
Create seamless exchanges with customers no matter where you are when they call.

Features:

Not all systems include every feature. Ask vendors if their systems include:

Integration with agency management system or customer relationship management system
Live chat
Call recording
Call metrics analysis

Texting
Videoconferencing
Conference calling
Call logs

Marketing
Call transfers
Call queuing

Important considerations:

Type of equipment: many solutions enable you to bring your own equipment
Technical expertise required to set up and maintain (many new systems are easy to manage and customize without any special experience)

Vendors:

Pricing:

Most systems have subscription pricing which ranges from $10-$55 per user per month. There are a variety of vendor options at the lower end and higher end. Some vendors structure plans around number of minutes and number of texts which can range from $10-$600 per month.

Guide for calculating ROI:

How to quantify the benefit of your VoIP phone system.

(+) Savings on existing phone lines	$
(+) Savings on long distance phone charges	$
(+) Reducing or eliminating charges for ad hoc services (such as videoconferencing) that are now included in new system	$
(-) Additional one-time costs for equipment or consulting to set up new system	$
(-) Costs of the new system	$
(+) Soft benefits: faster customer response	A model that considers average annual customer value, annual customer churn, and expected improvement in customer churn

Guide for KPIs:

You can use your VoIP system to track a variety of Key Performance Indicators important to your agency.

Channel mix

% of customer and prospect interactions using the VoIP system.

Average speed to answer

Average time to answer a call, how does it compare to industry averages, how is it trending.

# of voicemails

How many calls go to voicemail, how quickly those voicemails are resolved.

After hours responses

Number of calls coming in after hours, how quickly they are answered and resolved.

Call abandonment rate

How many callers hang up before reaching a person or voicemail.

# of texts

Numbers of texts received and sent.

# of emails

Numbers of emails received and sent.

Average handle time

Amount of time your producers, CSRs, and other staff take to address client and prospect requests.

New leads

Number of new prospects that are addressed through the VoIP system, number of prospects addressed after hours.

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