VOIP Click-To-Talk
It seems the whole call center world is going over to VOIP software, as way of meeting the challenge of the new communication revolution. The most obvious reason, being cost. But many operators have found the VOIP system much easier to operate and maintain.
Circuit switch was always the most negative aspect of the old systems. There had to be a highly skilled team of engineers at hand in order to maintain it. So small firms could never hope to compete in a world market. Once the VOIP click-to-talk system was Outsourced, many firms found a level of skill and education more than able to implement the new system.
Call quality is the most obvious barometer of VOIP and Outsourcing. Service level agreements (SLA’s) place very demanding metrics on how a call center performs. How many rings a call takes, and how helpful the staff actually were on the phone, can make all the difference. With VOIP click-to talk these metrics are achievable. Very advanced software is now available to test and monitor the performance of these systems. Something not available with the old fashioned systems.
One way of measuring the quality of calls was something called Jitter metrics. Calls are sent as packets of information down the line, and processed at very fast speeds. VOIP gets round this with software, that corrects any delay or distortion which may sound annoying to the caller. There may be delays between two different people speaking on calls which could be across the globe. The delays can be cued to synchronize the call to sound like a sensible conversation.
Media Gateways can employ Jitter Buffers can compress a packet delay on the order of 50 to 150 milliseconds. Another problem area is Packet Loss Concealment (PLC). VOIP uses Codecs (coder/décor) to deal with the correct delay and loss in the system.
This is to fill in any embarrassing silences brought about by a void in the system between speakers. There is still a long way to go with the VOIP system, but with global Outsourcing, this is one of the few applications than be used with an guarantee of success.