Leading Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Hostcomm has detailed its approach to managing the telephony traffic often generated by contact centres and diallers.
Driven by a new need seen with prospective clients, Hostcomm uses its expertise and experience in outbound call centre services to carefully monitor and manage traffic, ensuring it fits with carrier expectations and does not lead to a suspension of services and downtime.
“We hear from a huge number of contact centres who are frustrated with their current VoIP service provider, due to suspended services,” says Chris Key, Director at Hostcomm. “Many VoIP service providers overlook call patterns and related traffic profiles. When profiles go unchecked, a poor profile will lead to short notice service suspension. Carriers look for patterns in telephony traffic to ensure fair use, a reliable overall service, and maintain their revenue. This means that, if traffic does not fit with the expected pattern, carriers will often disconnect services at short notice – making it impossible for contact centres to operate.”
Whenever a call is made from a contact centre, telephony data is passed to a service provider, who then relies on one or more of the major carriers to take this traffic to the appropriate public telephone exchange. Tasked with providing service for millions of connections, carriers will assess traffic across several metrics, including the Average Call Duration (ACD), the number of Calls Per Second (CPS) and the Answer Seizure Rate (ASR), which indicates the percentage of calls that are not busy, disconnected, or unanswered.
Contact centre and dialler traffic is often outside of the usual parameters expected by carriers. In an attempt to focus signalling and switch resources on high revenue calls and avoid unnecessary congestion, carriers may issue a short-notice suspension and refuse to carry the traffic.
“The average contact centre makes a huge number of calls in a short period of time, with a high frequency of short duration or disconnected calls,” says Key. “This traffic is unfavourable to carriers, but it is not always possible for contact centres to change the way they make calls. However, a service provider with experience in the unique requirements of contact centres can effectively mitigate traffic, managing the overall profile to avoid suspension.”
Hostcomm has extensive insight into the demands of contact centres. The company’s network infrastructure peers with three major carriers and is designed to balance traffic before it reaches carrier connections. Meanwhile, Hostcomm’s in-house support team continually monitors and manages traffic, enabling clients to work without the threat of suspension.
To help customers understand this complex area, Hostcomm is preparing a new eBook.
“We think it’s important that contact centres understand what happens when they make a call,” adds Key. “When you understand how calling creates telephony traffic, and why carriers favour some patterns of traffic over others, you can make an informed, educated decision when you choose a hosted telephony provider.”
To find out more about Hostcomm’s contact centre telephony traffic eBook, visit our resources area.