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Sam and Arlene had been driving subdivisions for two weeks. Everday after work and for most of the weekends they methodically hunted the home of their dreams. As they rounded a bend in the road, they saw it. It was nestled on a ravine lot and located on a cul-de-sac. Arlene jotted down the number of the real estate firm on the "For Sale" sign. She looked worried. "It's 4:55 on a Saturday. Do you suppose they're open?" Sam tried to sound calm. "Let's call them right now and see!" Meanwhile, at the real estate office the front desk was experiencing the typical last minute crush of agents wanting to set up Sunday appointments. The skeleton weekend crew was usually more than adequate to handle setting up appointments and arranging showings. However, every so often they were inundated with phone calls as they were now. Fran was working on a Comparative Market Analysis ("CMA") for a client. At the same time, she was keeping an eye on a minimized window on her computer display. She knew the "business hours" greeting was still answering calls. After letting the caller know that he or she could press "zero" at any time for a live person, the automated attendant would provide a list of options for the caller. Fran was expecting a call from her listing appointment and was nearly finished with the CMA when she saw the call she was waiting for displayed on her computer screen along with all the other calls being handled. Caller ID alerted Fran to the source of the call. She punched the call up on her telephone station and finalized her appointment for the listing. Arlene was relieved as her phone call was answered at the real estate firm. The automated attendant stated she could enter zero at any time for a live person, then gave her a number of choices. Choice number one was if she was calling about a property listed by the firm to enter "1". She did. Next, she was prompted to enter the first four letters of the street name using the keypad on her telephone. She did that and was provided two listings the firm had on that street. She selected the second listing and was then given the choice of speaking with the listing agent or obtaining additional information about the property. Arlene selected to communicate with the listing agent, Wendy. Had she chosen to acquire additional information about the property, she could have entered a fax number to have it sent to, listened to a recording in the agent's own voice, recorded a message to the agent or all three. Wendy was not on duty at the office this weekend. However, before leaving on Friday she had entered the "Follow Me" function on the phone system. At 5:00 p.m., her cell phone rang. It was Arlene. Wendy asked Arlene to hold momentarily and immediately called the owners. Wendy apologized for the short notice but explained a couple was outside and wanted to see the house. Wendy was just a few minutes away and could meet Sam and Arlene there to handle the showing. After confirming the plans with the owners, Wendy confirmed the plans with Arlene. Within a five-minute period, the front desk at a real estate firm set up several appointments to show properties. An agent completed a CMA while keeping an eye on incoming phone calls, bypassing the front desk when the awaited call was received. And, Sam and Arlene were able to automatically reach the listing agent of the property they wanted to see. IBM's Computer Telephony Business Solutions ("CTBS") make this and much more, possible. The IBM Computer Telephony (pronounced "ta-leff´-o-nee") Business Solution is designed with the small business in mind. While it will operate with almost any analog telephone, - including a princess phone, it is designed to deliver maximum benefits with selected Northern Telecom OEM phones. The IBM CTBS is a completely integrated business communications system that can assist a business to enhance customer service, reduce telephone costs and boost the productivity of its staff. Enhanced Customer Service: When your staff can respond quickly, efficiently and with a wealth of customer data at hand, the customers are happier. The staff is happier. You are happier. It is a win-win-win situation. Being able to handle calls efficiently during normal business hours is the first step towards enhancing customer service. The next step is for the staff member handling the call to be able to access customer information from a database residing on the PC and to be able to do that instantly. Further enhanced customer service deals with seamless routing of the customer's call to other associates, automated attendant handling of incoming calls after normal business hours and the ability to set up 8 different scenarios for dealing with incoming customer traffic. Do you ever have voicemail messages on your telephone station? Do you enter your extension, then your password and then plow through the messages one by one either saving or deleting each one? Are you using a pen or pencil to write down the phone numbers being verbalized to you in the message? With IBM's system, your voice mail message appears as a voicemail item on your computer's e-mail screen. You scroll down the list "playing" only those you want to hear now. You don't have to jot down phone numbers! Double click on a message and it begins to dial or "boomerang" back to the person leaving it (whether it is an internal or external caller). Reduced Telephone Costs: The IBM system is scalable in that you can add adapters as your telephone system grows. It is easily upgraded. With most traditional phone systems if you want a feature or features that are not already built-in, you must obtain an entirely new system. With the IBM system, you can easily add vertical or customized applications through your existing reseller at a fraction of the cost of updating a traditional PBX. That in itself is real investment protection, not to mention the three-year limited warranty, which is practically unheard of with other telephone systems. Boost staff productivity: Again, there are many ways in which the IBM CTBS boosts staff productivity, but let's look at two with the CenterPoint® Fax Services and Voice Message Streaming add-ons. Suppose you are waiting for an urgent and important incoming fax. If you're like most of us, you hover around the fax machine, jealously guarding it from any lengthy outgoing faxes so as not to delay your important incoming fax. With the IBM system, your faxes are delivered directly to your e-mail inbox. No confrontations, no waiting and no hassles! Or, suppose you need to send a 20-page contract with addenda to the buyer, the seller, the buyer's attorney, the seller's attorney, the selling agent and your central office. That's 20 pages six times through the fax machine. With the IBM solution and CenterPoint's® Fax Services Add-on you submit a single fax job that includes all destinations. If a fax line is busy, the fax server retries it to make sure the fax is sent to all destinations. How about voice mail to agents in the field? Would it enhance agent productivity to enable them to connect to their ISP from anywhere there is a landline with their notebook computer, access their voicemail web page and view, handle and respond to their voicemail messages? The May 1999 issue of CTI Magazine carries an article in which its TMC Labs gave IBM's CTBS an overall rating of "A" (the highest rating given to all the PC-PBX's tested). Bottom line: TMC Labs gave the IBM CTBS their highest rating, an "A". I give it my highest rating: A+ |
