Goodbye 0844, 0845 and 0871, should you embrace 03 numbers?

Will the introduction of an EU Consumer Rights Directive on the 13th June 2014 signal the beginning of the end for 0844, 0845 and 0871 customer service numbers?

What you need to know?

This directive demands that businesses using 0844, 0845 and 0871 non-geographic number types for customer support or complaint purposes must switch to basic rate numbers beginning 01, 02, or 03, or free numbers. 

What should you do if this affects your business?

1. Firstly, check the directive guidance to see if your business type is affected.  Some business types and non-customer service lines are exempt.
2. Even if your business type isn’t listed in the directive today there’s a strong chance that it will be in the future or you may find customer dissatisfaction increasing and pressure mounting to make the change anyway.
3. Decide what number type you want to adopt.  See “Is 03 right for my business”.
4. Contact your telco and ask how they will support you through the transition.  Understand their solution and the associated costs – it could be an opportunity to review your inbound services and look for something more aligned to your current and future business needs. Many businesses today are looking to improve business continuity or achieve cost savings.

Should your organisation switch to 03 numbers?

Firstly, 01 and 02 prefixed numbers are very familiar to us all – referred to as local or geographic numbers.  They give a local service perception to customer service. 

03 numbers were first introduced as non-geographic numbers charged at geographic rates in 2007 and are the closest equivalent of the 08 numbers you need to replace.

Movement away from 0844, 0845 and 0871 in order to comply with the directive is a given, but what are the benefits of moving to 03?

For the consumer, calls to 03 numbers cost no more than a national rate call to 01 or 02 numbers and revenue sharing is not allowed.  Consumers will need to be informed of this and this may take a little time.

Switching to 03 may be the simplest direct replacement. However, whether you adopt 01, 02 or 03, calls to any of these number types can be delivered to a single centralised call centre or dispersed teams of agents anywhere under your control by migrating to SIP-Trunking or through the adoption of a cloud-based number management solution. Such solutions bring greater flexibility, technology choice and resilience across all number types.

Preparing for bad weather - how will you answer calls?

Of all the seasons, travelling in winter requires the most care. As a result we get a barrage of advice ranging from how to carry out checks on the car, packing additional supplies to checking how the weather may impact travel plans - if you’re able to travel at all. But far too often people find themselves in difficult situations when caught in fog, stuck at the railway station or stranded on a motorway.

Whilst it’s inconvenient to be stranded due to adverse weather, what impact does it have on organisations that rely on their workforce? In recent years the impact on the UK economy has been estimated at £470m per day when snow brings our roads, rail and air travel to a stop. Staying at home or working from another office is a good approach for staff but how can you provide customers the business as usual service that they expect. Technology such a virtual private network (VPN) allows your staff to connect to computer systems in the office, but how do they answer customer or supplier calls made to their desk number if they aren’t in the office?

Just like finding out that your old car battery cannot cope with the freezing weather the ability to divert telephone calls to any destination is something that needs to be considered before a disaster occurs. This is especially the case for fixed landline numbers that normally point directly to an office. Although they can have diverts or call forwarding applied from the internal telephone system and in some cases this is within the control of the user. In many cases such diverts need to be applied by the system administrator who may not be able to get into the office or they may be overwhelmed by the number of requests to divert calls. Therefore to maintain the service level and the valuable cash flow associated with business as usual service, one needs to build the delivery of voice services into business continuity plan.

So before you’re struck by bad weather, make sure that you are prepared for winter and check if you can divert calls to where your staff are located, no matter where they are. If you can’t there are a number of excellent services, such as smartnumbers, that give you control over of where to deliver calls to alternative locations such as home number, mobile phone or to another office.

Moving offices? Top 10 telecom considerations before you move.

Did you realise that even if you are moving offices across the road, you may not be able to keep your phone number? Furthermore, whether you’re a CIO, Telecommunications Manager or Head of IT, moving offices can be a daunting task. To help make sure that your phones keep ringing and you don’t miss those important calls, here are our top 10 telecommunication considerations before you move:

1. Plan ahead
First of all, the more notice you give to any of the suppliers you intend to use, the better off you will be. That’s absolutely true for your telecoms supplier, as it can take time to order and lay additional cable phone/data lines if required. So ideally plan at least six months ahead and leave at least 3 months to order new lines. Telecoms providers always ask to be contacted early as possible, so get them involved in the early stage of the planning process.

2. Do you want to keep you phone number?
Often businesses find out too late that they cannot retain their business phone numbers that clients and suppliers have stored in their phones. If the office you’re moving to is served by another Digital Local Exchange (DLE), you will not be able to keep your phone number. So check with your operator if you can keep your phone number. If you find you can’t keep your numbers, there are solutions such as smartnumbers that can control where calls are delivered, no matter where you move.

Even if you want to take the opportunity to acquire a new number range, it’s worth speaking with your telecoms provider to see if the DLE has enough capacity.

3. Voice and data connectivity to the new location
How many lines/channels are you currently using? What connectivity does the new office have; regular analogue line, digital lines (such as ISDN2/ISDN30) or perhaps IP (such as SIP). If you need to order new lines to be installed, make sure you leave at least 90 days to order new lines from your telecoms provider.  It might be a good opportunity to upgrade to a digital line. More information about the benefits of ISDN is available from the BT site here.

4. Move everyone in one go?
How many employees are you moving to the new office? Up to a 1,000 people can be moved in a weekend if you have already set up the IT and infrastructure. If you’re bringing IT and furniture with you, a common weekend move size is about 250 people. Many businesses go for a phased approach to minimise risk. The challenge though is how will you control where calls to each of the direct dial-in (DDIs) are delivered during the transition - to the old site or the new?

Speak to your telecoms provider they might be able to divert your main number to another location and coordinate a switch over date. If you need control of where calls to each DDI are delivered, for example if you are moving teams or departments separately, then a cloud based service like smartnumbers will give you the flexibility you require.

5. Make sure you have enough plugs
Plan where you are going to locate the PBX, printers, scanners and faxes in the new premises. The new building may require additional cabling and IT networks. Are there enough data and power points? The general rule of thumb is two per person plus an extra four per four person group for other equipment such as printers etc. Make sure that any structural alterations are completed before the move, especially if you are moving to an old building where it might not be possible to run cables or drill through walls. Make sure that all these fall under Building and Health & Safety regulations.

6. Be prepared for the unexpected, have an emergency plan
If business continuity plans are important to manage day-to-day risk, it’s even more important to get a plan in place during an office move. Make sure that it contains a contact list of all persons involved in the move, including the contact numbers of all IT and telecoms technicians. A great video guide about business continuity planning from Maris is worth a watch.

7. Consider an IT and telecommunications moving expert
Managing a substantial move can involve a complex range of variables including cabling, IT equipment, how calls are to be answered and off-site storage of data. It might be worth consulting an IT and telecommunications specialist to support your move so doesn’t affect your day to day business.

8. Disposing of old electronics - stay within the law
As well as complying with general waste legislation, you will need to consider how to recycle or dispose of your electronic equipment. This also includes how to dispose of sensitive data stored within hard discs and other computer memory.

9. Moving forwards
Whether your office relocation is driven by growth in personnel or you’re consolidating your office estate, an office move is a good opportunity to review if your telephone system is fit for purpose. Do you need a more flexible switchboard, are staff going to be working from home? If so, it’s worthwhile investigating if a new telephone system will be a better fit. If you get new technology, remember staff may need time to be trained to use the new equipment.

10. Test, test and test again
You’ve moved all the desks, bookshelves, got new ISDN lines installed and perhaps even got a new telephone system, now it’s time to test that it all works. Don’t forget to test that calls to each DDI are delivered to the right place. It’s highly recommended that you have a plan B if the unexpected goes wrong, so prepare a business continuity plan.

The landline is dead? I don’t think so.

Recently a much famed journalist, Lucy Kellaway talked about ‘The Telephone and New Office Technology’ on Radio 4. During the programme, she suggested that we are witnessing a phenomenon called ‘the death of the office landline’. While she may have a point in suggesting that we are seeing a drop in call volumes to landlines, which was confirmed by Ofcom’s Communications Market Report this week, she can’t be more wrong about linking it to the death of the landline – especially in business.

The truth of the matter is that the landline is far from dead or even dying. In business it remains the chosen medium for dealing with complex issues, solving problems and communicating important news.

In fact, in a recent research, commissioned by Resilient Networks amongst 500 employees and 150 IT leaders, both employees and IT leaders revealed that they consider voice calls to be the most critical channel of communication within business. And while there may be certain industries where voice communication is not that important, in business it remains a valued and essential medium.

The research went on to reveal that nearly half (47%) of employees believe voice calls are best used for resolving complex business issues. In addition, 56% believe calls will always be important to their day-to-day roles, and given the vast choice of traditional and modern communication channels available in the work place, voice is the most commonly used form of communication for handling/resolving most scenarios at work.

Moreover, a loss or failure of the voice network is considered to be seriously disruptive to business, with just over a fifth (21%) of IT leaders going as far as to say that it would destroy their organisation. As such, the ‘death of the office landline’ is still clearly quite far off.

But what does the drop in call volumes represent then? While domestic call volumes might be dropping, the situation is again much different for businesses. Our survey findings revealed that 55% of employees suggested that the number of calls they have received have increased, while only 39% have seen an increase in email volumes. In addition, over the next three years 64% of employees believe that landline call volumes will only continue to increase.

Taking all of the findings from the research into account I think it’s safe to say that the office, and probably your home, landline will be around for many more years to come. Its use will be fundamental to solving complex business issues and for getting things done. The more important question we should ask ourselves is, if voice is as critical as it appears to be, how will we communicate effectively if the landline disappears? It’s something to keep in mind while we ponder the role voice will continue to play in our day to day lives.

Fire Service Review - A scope for innovation

Fire services in England need to become more ‘effective and efficient’, the recently-published government report found. But before this can happen there must be a change of heart in the way fire services think about technology.

The report issued by Sir Ken Knight in May highlighted an important problem with English fire services. While the lives of citizens and public service servants are undergoing a profound change due to the increased influence of digital and social channels and the infestation of technology in general, fire services remain in the shadow, trapped under the rising costs of service provision and more budget cuts than ever before.

There is no doubt, as Sir Ken pointed out, that fire services need transforming. But how exactly would that transformation happen? What needs to change? Many experts in the field of frontline services, myself included, believe that one way of tackling this problem is creating efficiencies by sharing services.

Those aware of the history of shared services in the Fire services sector will probably frown at that suggestion. After all, the famed FireControl project, based on the concept of shared services, cost taxpayers approximately £500m at the time and was scrapped in the not so recent past to avoid generating even greater losses.

While it was indeed a large failure, the idea of shared services, which gave birth to the project, wasn’t flawed in itself. And there are in fact, fire services who are implementing shared services with successful results - already making savings. For example, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk and Hertfordshire and Lincolnshire have all successfully managed to combine their control rooms through the use of technology, in particular - intelligent voice communications technology, in a shared service programme first of its kind in the UK. In doing so, Cambridgeshire has saved approximately £500,000 and continue making savings now.

So why do more fire services not embrace this type of sharing in the current economic climate? One challenge lies in the fact that front of mind for many fire services is citizen safety. As such, promoting successful shared service case studies, where a fully operational fire service with a merged 999 response centre helped achieve efficiently while maintaining front line services, could be a step towards encouraging more fire services to follow.

Fire services could be saving millions by sharing infrastructure with their neighbours but before that happens there must be change of vision in service provisioning. Fire services will have to become open to the idea of sharing their services – taking note of those who have already made significant savings by doing so in the past and emulating their success.

Stepping up to support Operation Olympics

The MOD has a primary role in civil protection and with the Olympics just around the corner, extensive contingency plans are already in place.

Under Operaton Olympics, Military personnel are being deployed in and around the venues to protect the general public from any potential threat. Business continuity plans have been extensively rehearsed for any event. And staff, especially those based in Main Building, are also planning for any impact to regular working practices which may happen due to the potential travel disruption.

The smartnumbers services are already used extensively across key sites within the MOD and they are under-pinning Operation Olympics. Those with a smartnumber will be able to take calls from wherever  they are located using any device.

If staff are unable to reach their usual place of work and have to work from an alternative location, they can still be contacted on their usual number.

Get the call to the right person and brand loyalty will follow

Neil Worker, Head of Sales for the UK Commercial, talks about the importance of customer service in tough economic conditions.

The answer to growing a business is simple: focus on customer service. Customer Loyalty and brand reputation are paramount if today’s businesses are to flourish.

A key component of customer service is being able to manage customer enquiries and sales made over the telephone to the highest standard.