How Far Has Telephony Come?

Just how far has telephony come on the technology development and deployment scale over the years? Indeed, the answer is, very far. Telephony used to consist of telephones connected directly together in pairs. Each user had separate telephones wired to the various places they might wish to reach. This became inconvenient when people wanted to talk to many other telephones. As it applies to today's retailers, telephony is viewed as secure and reliable. In the not-so-distant past, retailers had the option of one direct telephone line for telephony communication. Today, retailers have entered the mature stages of VoIP (voice over nternet Protocol). And, according to some industry experts, IP telephony is becoming part of unified communications (i.e. voice, voice mail, messaging, mobility, audio and video conferencing, etc.).  In addition, telephony technology has become more affordable. Industry experts weigh in on telephony to provide insight and guidance for retailers looking to upgrade their means of telephony communication. 

Telephony has improved in quality and service offering. "Today, not only can retailers determine who's calling, but they can forward that call to multiple devices," says John Higgins, director of business solutions at Sprint. "Voice mail, caller ID, and four-digit dialing have made retailing so much more efficient. In addition, wireless integration has helped retailers become more efficient. If mobile devices can look, feel, and act like a business device, additional hard lines in the store may not be necessary." Mobile devices allow retailers to worry less about missing an important telephone call and concentrate more on customer service.

VoIP quality has improved in the past five years because compression bandwidth has improved. "We've worked out the kinks in VoIP quality issues by coming up with new codecs used for voice and compression," explains Paul Marra, VP of business development at MegaPath. "New varying degrees of quality of service have been improved — typical things you work out with engineers. Also, improvement in quality is seen across the board. New VoIP technologies are being developed in the lab, and new developments are being made on the hardware side." Remember that VoIP is highly dependent on upload and download speeds. If you experience hissing or delays during a call, call your ISP (Internet service provider).

Reevaluate Your Telephone Connectivity
There are a few things to consider when reevaluating telephony connectivity. First, examine the future needs of the business and where you see it going in 5 to 10 years. "It's not just about a retailer's telephone connectivity, but also its entire data platform," says Higgins. "Are they running on frame relay or have they made the move to MPLS [multiprotocol label switching]? If they've made the move to MPLS, they have to make sure they have the correct router hardware in order to add VoIP." Second, you need to consider the cost savings associated with upgrading telephony, though many of the cost savings benefits are understood. For retailers, these tend to include centralized administration, auto attendants, long-distance savings, and cabling savings. Larger retailers or any retailers with multiple locations benefit the most from centralized dministration, especially those retailers who have merged and therefore manage various systems. "In general terms, the maintenance and sustainability of IP telephony is typically 80% lower than traditional elephone systems," says Paul Butcher, president and COO of Mitel. "Further cost savings are achieved from the centralization of system management. Consider retailers that need to make special store nnouncements within a block of stores [i.e. special store opening/closing hours for 150 out of 1,400 stores]. This type of work becomes very time-consuming for IT staff. Reduction in network costs and tariffs drive additional savings. We've seen a typical 50% reduction in cost from traditional telephony to VoIP."

While having the ability to manage remotely for monitoring, maintenance, and system configuration reduces costs, tailored VoIP solutions can also be used to drive new revenue. "In today's environment, retailers need to move beyond the basic VoIP functionality [e.g. dial tone, administration, IVR (interactive voice response)] and think about how they can use the technology to improve customer service for both in-store and remote customers," says Butcher. "For smaller retailers, we are seeing demand to allow customer calls to be handled on the owners' cell phones, which can be programmed to extend the period of time that potential customers can speak with the retailer." For instance, SMB retailers can answer any call, such as an important customer service call, no matter how few associates may be in the store. If the manager must leave the premises for any reason, the call — and potential sale — will not be lost. 

Read up on call center performance at ismretail.com/jp/7244.

What's In Store For Telephony?
Retailers can deploy distributed networks to give the simplicity of store-by-store upgrades, but at the same time, layer networkwide applications. "In the future, chain store retailers in particular should be looking towards SIP [session initiation protocol], a standard by which devices and applications communicate, as a way to further reduce costs," says Butcher. "SIP trunk consolidation allows stores to keep individual numbers to maintain their local presence while increasing trunk utilization and therefore reducing costs by upwards of 40%." Collaboration applications and mobile integration all have inherent value to reduce costs, decrease the need for travel, and improve employee efficiency. Cost-effective and flexible solutions can be built around an existing infrastructure to allow a retailer to grow at its own pace.

Marra agrees that SIP trunking is the next step up from using legacy handoffs like POTS (plain old telephone systems). "The next logical progression includes a SIP trunking product that works with an IP PBX [private branch exchange]," says Marra. "It's no more than bringing PBXs up to the IP level." Higgins states that first came the POTS line, then VoIP, and now wireless. "Wireless will lead to wireless integration," says Higgins. "Beyond that, it's going to come down to a combination of retailers wanting a device that has 802.11 wireless connectivity for inventory control. Retailers will want their device to work everywhere with absolutely no interruptions."