fixing a fault
Transcription
fixing a fault
What connection do I need? Boost PBX Power your Internet access and cloud solutions have become a key part of how we work. But the success of these online tools relies heavily on making sure you’ve got the right connectivity. Here’s our simple guide to choosing what’s right for you. managing risk “internet’s useful to us” “internet’s essential to us” “internet’s critical to us” “internet’s critical to us – all 30+ of us!” What would we recommend? DSL Fibre broadband Ethernet First Mile Ethernet Fibre Who might use it? An online business who use A small business that uses A business that relies on cloud based applications, email, perhaps writes a sending and receiving for example for their blog, orders online, checks large files, or media, customer relationship social media such as a design agency management (CRM) system Why use it? If you want to take your first step into dedicated business-grade internet access If you need a robust, dedicated solution that can easily be scaled up as your business grows How fast is it?* Expect speeds of up to 35Mbps for download AND upload Expect speeds of between 10 and 1000 Mbps for download AND upload Expect speeds of up to 76Mbps download, 19Mbps upload One reason these options are so cost-efficient, is that effectively you ‘share’ the connectivity. It could, for example, be shared with 20 users; if all 20 people were downloading something at the same time, the speed could drop. This is known as a ‘contended’ service. What technical info do I need to know? How much is it? Expect speeds of up to 17Mbps download, 2.5Mbps upload from £16.99 from £36.00 These options include something called symmetric bandwidth, which means all your devices can send and receive data at equal speeds. You also benefit from QoS, or ‘quality of service’, which means that the important things, like voice traffic, get there first. This will be critical if you want to implement a hosted telephony solution. from £200.00 from £400.00 * Speeds may vary depending on the line, technology available and distance from the exchange. Q: What’s the nature of your business? A: Stanco Services specialise in the repair, service and maintenance of all types of coffee machines and vending equipment. Q: How many employees and sites do you have? 5 minutes with Stanco Services Ltd A: 30 employees – most of us are out on the road. Q: What products do you take through Nine Telecom? Upgrading your telephony solution doesn’t always mean moving away from a traditional PBX. Many PBXs are set-up to be able to connect to something called IP, which gives you a great gateway to access new technology while fundamentally keeping things the same. Sound too good to be true? Not at all… .Built-in disaster recovery .Scalability, whether your business is expanding or downsizing .Number .Instant access to a wide range of useful features, such as call recording. call queuing The extra features available with IPSDN allow you to plan ahead and put contingency plans in place for managing the unexpected. For our customers A great big Nine ‘thank you’ for all your positive feedback about the first issue of The Outside Line. We’re all incredibly proud of it here, but that means nothing unless you enjoy it too! We’ve taken on board your suggestions for future issues and indeed, a lot of the content included in this issue is in direct response to some of your suggestions so please keep them coming. In 2012 UK businesses made 25 billion minutes of outgoing mobile calls, compared to 24 billion minutes on traditional landlines Paul Ballinger Group Sales Director Even better, because you already have the PBX in place there is no cap-ex and the install process is quick and painless. mobile office next generation connectivity made simple. Win a Kindle ! BYOD Connected Efficiency Find me Homeworkers good luck! FIXING A FAULT What goes on behind the scenes? We’ve put together a list of just some of the benefits of using your telecommunications to mobilise your workforce. If you can find all nine of these in our wordsearch we’ll put you into a draw to win a Kindle. working on the move? Solutions to make life easier Please scan your entry and email it to [email protected] Q:What business challenges do you face that you think could be addressed by smarter telecommunications? A:Keeping in contact with field based engineers and responding quickly to customers’ queries or service calls. The competition is not open to employees of Nine Group and the judges’ decision will be final. a chance to have your say about what you like and more importantly, what you need from us. Please take part when we issue the survey and please be brutally honest… you can even be anonymous if that helps! Lastly, we wanted to try and de-mystify the subject of connectivity. Yes, we all know that these days a business needs connectivity, but One key thing readers asked us to cover was how do you know which service is right for you? the whole area of Service issues – what happens Our simple guide to connectivity should help… when you log a fault with us? In this issue we’ve Keep the ideas coming in, and good luck with sketched out an outline of this process and we the competition to win a Kindle! introduce you to some of the key players you’re likely to meet along the way. Hopefully this will Chat soon help, but of course, let us know if you need any more information. Coming back to feedback, my colleague James Carroll talks in this issue about a future survey P.S. Don’t be alarmed by the very early ‘seasons we’ll be issuing, which will ask for your thoughts greetings’ below; it’s the crazy world of on more general Nine Telecom issues. This is Marketing apparently! Seasons Greetings GROUP MARKETING DIRECTOR, MARK SAUNDERS, TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO UNPOPULAR IDEAS BY LOOKING FORWARD TO THE FESTIVE SEASON. Mobilisation One number Smarter working Stay in touch by 12th October 2013. The lucky winner will be chosen at random from all correct entries. The winner will be notifed by email or telephone and announced in the next issue. A: Calls and lines, Mitel 5000 telephone system and maintenance Issue 02 | September 2013 The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013 IPSDN is a new, simple, voice connectivity solution that works with your PBX to give you: flexibility (keep the same number even if you move to a different geographic area) A large office, with 30+ staff, perhaps with remote workers and multiple cloud based applications It’ll give you faster speeds It’s good, cost effective than DSL, for greater internet access efficiency The Outside Line The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013 The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013 Broadband slowing you down? Solutions to speed things up In cricket The Ashes have been secured, the football season is underway, the children are back at school, nights are drawing in and unwelcome adverts are appearing outside Christmas party venues. Now, these locations do need to publicise their Christmas hospitality packages – the market for lively evenings with a Blues Brothers tribute act is a cut throat one, but does anyone really want to be reminded of the forthcoming festive season in September? So, my question is how do you market something that most people don’t want to be reminded about? At Nine Telecom, we believe that taking time to understand the customer’s perspective is essential. For example, we deliberately steer away from the emotive term “disaster recovery,” preferring to talk about “managing risk.” We don’t want to highlight switchboard hacking, gridlocked transport systems, power outages, or flooded premises, but these things can all happen and could disrupt or damage your business. As with the Christmas night out, prevention and planning is much better than treating the following morning’s headache, so talk to your Customer Account Manager about our range of solutions for managing risk. Visit www.customerdrivers.co.uk and click on Managing Risk to find out more. we love business we love business we love business we love business email [email protected] for more information email [email protected] for more information email [email protected] for more information email [email protected] for more information Mark Saunders Group Marketing Director The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013 Driver spotlight The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013 Whether you’re at a customer’s premises, travelling to meetings or working from home, take your work with you and never be out of the loop again*. By making your business truly mobile you can benefit from cost savings and efficiencies, that’s got to be a great thing right? But how can it be done? Q: What’s the nature of your business? A traditional PBX – everywhere Working on the move A: 100+, over 20 sites Using a hosted IP telephony solution you can redirect your inbound calls to whatever – and however many – devices you like so you can work effectively wherever you are. The call routing is simple to change whenever you need, which also has the added bonus of disaster recovery, should you ever need to react quickly. together to completely change the way we work so you no longer need to be tied to the office. Thanks to smartphones, laptops and tablets, everyone can have the tools to do everything they need to do, just as if they were in the office. Your company budget says one mobile, but you prefer another? No problem Latest trends show that many companies allow their employees to ‘bring their own device’ (known as BYOD) to work. This has many advantages, as the company can get great savings on SIM-only devices, while the employee gets to use a handset that they’re comfortable with. “that all sounds like a lot of hassle and a lot of Technology trends are coming suppliers” Video calling Not for those who choose to work from home in their pyjamas admittedly, but IP video calling is a great way of cutting down on meeting travel costs while ensuring everyone can continue to work together. As well as video calling, with IP telephony your voice calls can go through your PC, mac, tablet or smartphone with fantastic clarity. Actually, it doesn’t have to be. Choose a supplier who can provide the full range of mobility products and services so that you can see them all on a single bill, with transparent display of information and explanations of all charges so that you can keep on track. When you switch to a hosted IP telephony solution, installation is a simple and quick process, meaning you can be up and running within no time. of a service issue A: We’re a Costa Coffee retail franchise in the north of England Q: How many employees and sites do you have? The most efFIcient way of getting things done is to make your work come to you, not the other way around. ASK THE Don't get ... for Service issue reported via email Service issue reported via telephone Q: What products do you take through Nine Telecom? back Email sent ledge to acknow receipt A: Lines, calls, broadband and phone systems maintenance Q:What business challenges do you face that you think could be addressed by smarter telecommunications? A:Reduced telephone costs by not using the old ADSL technology, as we continue to expand. Improved speed of communications as broadband becomes faster, allowing better technical interaction with our customers at all times. By using better telephone products our customer interaction should become much more professional, whilst also keeping our ‘small company personal touch’. James Carroll Service Director we really appreciate the feedback you’ve given us - thank you ! *unless of course you want to hide away once in a while! The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013 The journey 5 minutes with Sim Trava Ltd WORKFORCE MOBILISATION The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013 The details of the issue are taken and recorded on our system What do you think? Based in our Luton office, Nine Service delivers PABX engineering, maintenance and support for Nine Telecom customers and it’s fair to say that we’ve been dealing with challenging times of late. Relocation from our Hemel Hempstead office, expansion of the team and the integration of new businesses have placed a strain on many of our processes and our people, but thanks to a lot of hard work and attention to detail, we are increasingly confident of providing the high level of service that you should expect. Among the improvements we’ve made along the way, our teams have received cross training on various products and systems and we’ve been busy implementing robust processes to ensure you receive a consistent, professional response every time you need to contact us. Of course, we’re incredibly grateful to you for your patience if you have been impacted during this period of transition and we really do appreciate the feedback that you’ve given us. We’re keen to listen to everyone though, so we’ll shortly be sending out a very brief survey to get your thoughts on the areas that matter to you. Please be honest in your answers so that we can improve where necessary and deliver the service that you need. If you prefer, you can feed back anonymously, although if you are happy to provide your name, we’ll enter your details into a prize draw to win a Kindle. Watch your inbox for details coming soon. Renalda Milasiute Service and Installation Supervisor “if you completely lose your systems don’t worry, it’ll get fLagged as a priority.” The Service Manager will review each job and allocate to an engineer accordingly “I’ll give the engineer a job sheet with everything he needs to know, including any historic fault information.” Field Engineer We’ll contact you to confirm when the engineer will visit “It’s rare for us not to be able to resolve an issue, but if we can’t, the Service Manager can escalate it to the On site, once the engineer is satisfied the manufacturer.” issue has been resolved, you’ll be asked to confirm and sign the job sheet “If we can, we’ll fix the issue remotely so that you can get back to your day job asap.” it costs too much ! Q: We’re an engineering company with offices Meet the TEAM Anthony Simmonds Job title Barry Wyatt Service Manager 5 minutes with SE Leisure About He’s Australian, very friendly and extremely tall - just as well, his favourite hobby is basketball! Q: What’s the nature of your business? “If the repair does turn out to be chargeable, don’t worry, we’ll let you know quickly how much it’ll be. We won’t work on anything until you’ve told us it’s ok.” A:The supply, rental and maintenance of amusement equipment. Pete O’Mara Senior Tech Desk Engineer A:150 employees across 3 depots, although the majority of staff are field based. Q:What products do you take through Nine Telecom? The next day, our Service Team will contact you to check you’re happy and that everything is as it should be Behind the scenes, we’ll monitor our SLAs and details of faults to make improvements wherever we can and to spot trends, which in turn are passed on to the manufacturer. Q:How many employees and sites do you have? A: PSTNs, including ISDN, DIA and EFM, as well as MiCall ISSUE CLOSED Q: What business challenges do you face that you think could be addressed by smarter telecommunications? A:With most of our staff being out in the field, it’s critical that we’re able to all keep in touch easily. We’re currently implementing MiCall which will help in this area. throughout Europe and the Middle East and, although we have a hosted solution in place which makes contacting our colleagues easier, inevitably we sometimes need to use a traditional landline or mobile to contact them. The cost of these calls is so prohibitive and it’s starting to delay projects. What can we do? Vicki says: Customer Services Manager Technical Desk Ricky Plummer Senior Field Engineer “We’ll add an updated job sheet to your records; that way if you have the same issue again we can make a quick diagnosis.” the clocks go back on 27th october. If you need help adjusting your systems don’t forget to book time with us so that we can get to you quickly. TEAM ... You’re right that having the hosted solution will generally make contacting your other sites easier, but I can understand that sometimes an ‘old fashioned’ landline is the answer. International rates will always vary greatly and we’re confident we can offer you competitive rates on international calls, however for your company you may be better off choosing the International Saver Tariff. For just £5 a month, you can get access to a greatly reduced ratecard for the most frequently called international destinations. Even better, there’s no call set-up fee Vicki Cowperthwaite Job title Customer Services Team Leader About Vicki’s fanatical about making friends and keeping them happy - she also makes a mean chocolate brownie. We’ve got a very friendly and helpful bunch of people supporting Vicki and Tony. If you need anything just call 0800 970 2999, they’d love to hear from you. we love business we love business we love business we love business email [email protected] for more information email [email protected] for more information email [email protected] for more information email [email protected] for more information . Sweden fixed line 2.00 . Netherlands mobile 27.60 . UAE fixed line 27.50* With a combination of your hosted solution and the International Saver Tariff, there’s no reason to delay any projects… it’ll be like they’re in the next room! *call charges are pence per minute Have a question for the team? Send your communication challenges to us at [email protected] and we’ll answer them in the next issue.