Degree Level Dissertation

www.MA-Dissertations.
com Dissertation Writing Service
THE IMPACT OF VOIP
ON CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
A Thesis
Presented to the
Faculty of [INSERT FACULTY NAME HERE]
[INSERT SCHOOL NAME HERE]
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements of the Degree of
Master of Science in
Computer Science
I
www.MA-Dissertations.com Dissertation Writing Service
Abstract
The ever-growing sector of customer relationship management (CRM)
depends on the network industry as a back-end hardware support for
communication. The current study observed voice-over-Internet protocol or VoIP
as one of such technology, which offers feasibility with many added advantages
than other traditional communication technologies like PBX and PSTN. In order
to understand the real impact of VoIP on CRM, the study took the concern of
complete background of VoIP. The study observed the trends of CRM and the
convergence factors of CRM with VoIP and the precautions that need to be taken
before implementing the VoIP for CRM applications. The study mainly observes
the challenges put before CRM with telecommunication adaptations and how
VoIP is able to solve the questions. Technology architecture of VoIP, VoIP
standards were closely observed. The myths of VoIP deployment,
implementation issues and influencing factors of VoIP growth and the challenges
involved with VOIP deployment in particular to CRM are also observed. The
impact of VoIP on CRM is analyzed under Productivity and Cost as prime
concentration. Return of investment in VoIP is understood in terms of costs at
different levels of implementation. The Study has been conducted under the
method of Historical case study analysis and observed the results of VoIP
implementation in two CRM companies – Key com and Click Communications.
The study found that VoIP deployment results in reduction of costs for CRM
operations with increased efficiency. But still the wall power dependency and the
complexity in technical adaptations resulted as major limitations of the
II
deployment. The study recommends for a thorough business plan before
pursuing technical deployment of VoIP for CRM and usage of integration
software as connector to realize the maximum interoperability and savings. Also
the research suggests for the further research on deployment of VoIP for
Wireless applications for wide spread utility of technology.
III
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ................................................................................................................................ II
List of Figures.................................................................................................................... VI
Chapter 1: Introduction .....................................................................................................1

Statement of Problem........................................................................................ 2
Purpose of the Study ......................................................................................... 2
Importance of the Study .................................................................................... 3
Scope of the Study ............................................................................................ 4
Rationale of the Study ....................................................................................... 5
Definition of Terms ............................................................................................ 6
Overview of the Study ....................................................................................... 9
Chapter 2: Literature Review .........................................................................................10

Relevance ....................................................................................................... 10
The Status of VOIP in the Technology Industry ......................................................... 10
Scenario of CRM........................................................................................................... 12
Convergence of VoIP to CRM ..................................................................................... 13
A Warning Before Convergence .................................................................................. 15
Background of Convergence and Facts .......................................................... 17
Technology trends in CRM .......................................................................................... 17
Technology trends in the evolution of VoIP ............................................................... 20
The Telecommunications Challenge for CRM implementation ................................ 23
Shortfalls of Traditional Phone Services for CRM applications ....................... 24
Reasons for a Contact center to move to VoIP: .............................................. 28
Considerations for the VoIP implementation to CRM ...................................... 31
The Technological Architecture required for VoIP for CRM............................. 34
VOIP STANDARDS......................................................................................... 42
H.323.............................................................................................................................. 42
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) .................................................................................. 44
Other Standards ............................................................................................................. 45
The Myths of VoIP deployments...................................................................... 50
Implementation issues with VOIP .................................................................... 51
Factors influencing VoIP growth in CRM ......................................................... 55
Challenges involved in the VoIP implementation of CRM ............................... 58
Productivity impact of CRM with VoIP ............................................................. 61
IV
Cost Impact of VoIP ........................................................................................ 63

The ROI of VoIP in CRM ................................................................................. 67
Market Overview ............................................................................................. 74
Chapter-3 - Research Methodology: ...........................................................................77

Research Approach:........................................................................................ 77
Data Gathering Methods: ................................................................................ 82
Originality & Validity of Data: ........................................................................... 83
Limitations of the Study: .................................................................................. 83
Summary: ........................................................................................................ 84
Methodology .................................................................................................... 85
Approach ..............................................................................................................................85
Data Gathering Method ................................................................................... 89
Database of Study ........................................................................................... 91
Case studies.................................................................................................... 91
1. KEYCOM .................................................................................................................. 91
2. CLICK COMMUNICATIONS................................................................................ 97
Click Communications is a wing of communications of KBS, Promotions of
Bradford, which is in the textile business with UK retailers. The organization has
nearly 300 distributors throughout the UK. ................................................................. 97
Validity of Data .............................................................................................. 100
Originality and Limitation of Data................................................................... 103
Summary ....................................................................................................... 104
CHAPTER-4 ...................................................................................................................... 105

Data Analysis ................................................................................................ 105
CHAPTER 5....................................................................................................................... 111

Summary ....................................................................................................... 111
Recommendations ........................................................................................ 113
Conclusions ................................................................................................... 116
BIBILOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................. 117
V
List of Figures
Figure 1 - Simple VoIP System……………………………………………………37

Figure 2 - Call Processing Server…………………………………………………38
Figure 3 - VoIP Gateway Functions……………………………………………….40
Figure 4 - VoIP Protocol Structure………………………………………………...48
Figure 5 – VoIP Protocols……...…………………………………………………..49
Figure 6 - Overall average Installation costs……………………………………..69
Figure 7 - VoIP cost per unit……………………………………………………….70
Figure 8 - ................................71
Ошибка! Источник ссылки не найден.…………………..Ошибка!
Закладка не определена.
VI
Chapter 1: Introduction
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a process or
methodology used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order
to develop stronger relationships with them.
CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer, whether
it is sales- or service-related. An example of a CRM would be a database
containing detailed customer information that management and salespeople can
reference in order to match customer needs with products, inform customers of
service requirements, etc. Many software applications are now available that
permit you to record information about this relationship from the time the client
asks the first question. Good CRM software is much more efficient than
fragmented records as it can save time in tracking communications and
transactions with a particular person.
More specifically, CRM is a business application derived from technology, and
hence has caused more confusion than any other form of technology that has
been available in the market to date. Survey after survey has shown that the
majority of companies are aware that the technology exists, but they are
confused as to how precisely it will benefit users and their customers.
The increased demands for customer interaction modes in sharing Voice, Data
and Video have led to the different modes of network convergence. Among these
modes, PSTN, PBX, and VoIP are the trial-and-error scenarios, where the VoIP
1
implementation trend is continuing as a preferable deployment. But the risks,
which include initial costs, denial of services, and accessibility, are creating
doubts for the organization’s IT architectures in considering VoIP deployment.
In this context, the study of the impact of VoIP on CRM provides a great deal of
insight into how the sector functions.
Statement of Problem
VoIP implementation is showing a rising index in the enterprise and
customer-interactive applications like CRM and call centers, but the industry still
perceives some risks with the new wave of telephony application integration.
Hence the current study intends to “analyze the pros and cons in implementing
the VoIP in the field of CRM” to understand the impact on the later business
application.
Purpose of the Study
These days, a growing number of enterprises are focusing their efforts on
building more comprehensive CRM models to enhance their customer relations.
Through the development of a more holistic, seamless and integrated approach,
these organizations want to improve the quality of their customer services. Thus,
it is evident that the very nature of CRM implementations is now quite pervasive
– The competitive organizations want to offer customer services through call
centers and leading-edge software which needs utilization of key data of the
customers. By connecting such live data, it’s possible to escalate performance
and reduce errors associated with the double and triple data-entry cycle that’s
2
typical when companies rely on paper or a mix of mobile and connected systems.
These CRM analytics need an uninterrupted linkage of client connectivity at low a
cost and with a high rate of proficiency for data and voice.
Under this purview of necessities, though VoIP stands to meet most of the stated
requirements of the CRM field, there are some challenges to negotiate for the
deployment of the technology for the profitability of the business application.
Thus the current study closely examines such differences and determines the
impact of VoIP on CRM.
Importance of the Study
The study observes the convergence of VoIP with CRM in terms of technological
implications as well as from a business prospective. Hence the study
concentrates on the architecture as well as the commercial aspects of the
merger. This gives a complete format of the structure to any one who wants to
know about the VoIP impact on CRM applications.
3
Scope of the Study
The study covers the following areas to identify and observe the whole impact of
VoIP over CRM.
Ø Trends of Technologies in the field of CRM
Ø Considerations for the VoIP implementation to CRM
Ø The myths about VoIP
Ø The technological architecture required for VoIP for CRM
Ø Factors influencing VoIP growth in CRM
Ø Risks involved in the VoIP implementation of CRM
Ø Cost impact of CRM with VoIP
Ø The ROI of VoIP in CRM
Ø Productivity impact of CRM with VoIP
Ø Future trends of VoIP in CRM
Ø Drivers for the implementation of VoIP
4
Rationale of the Study
Although there is a vast amount of literature available on the independent fields
of VoIP and CRM, there is no direct study on the impact of VoIP on CRM.
The study proves its rationale by making itself unique with the combination of the
technology applicable in the business area. So far there has been no direct study
conducted in the area where the impact is analyzed in detail.
But by analyzing the case studies of CRM businesses with the implementation of
VoIP, the research identifies the real impact of the technology on business
operations.
The study also helps us to understand the various factors of technological
implications influencing business growth that will definitely enhance the
researcher’s understanding of the subject. Analysis from this study will improve
our understanding of enterprise deployment of VoIP in CRM.
5
Definition of Terms
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a process or
methodology used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order
to develop stronger relationships with them. (CRM Guide)
VOIP – (Voice over Internet Protocol). The technology used to transmit voice
conversations over a data network using the Internet Protocol. Such data
network may be the Internet or a corporate Intranet. (Shift networks)
ADPCM - Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation a way of encoding sound
files so that they take up less space.
Blocked Calls - What happens if the network doesn't have enough lines to allow
calls to reach their destination?
May also be used to refer to a call from an originating number that is blocked by
the receiving telephone number.
CLI / CLID - Caller Line Identification otherwise known as Caller ID or Caller
Display. The caller's telephone number is sent through to your CLI enabled
phone, so it can tell you who is calling. CLI can work with VoIP systems, but
some handsets seem to have difficulties.
6
Hard-phone - A physical VoIP telephone.
IP address - A unique number used to identify a computer or other networked
gadget. IP addresses are written as four numbers separated by periods, like this:
168.192.0.99 and can be used like phone numbers to make an IP -to-IP call - as
long as both parties have unique IP addresses and software set up.
PBX - Private Branch Exchange, A private telephone exchange for one
organization or business. Users can call one another through the PBX (usually
using a short 3-4 number code) or use one of the external lines connected to the
PBX to call the outside world.
PSTN - The Public Switched Telephone Network is the non-internet international
phone network that carries voice and fax data. The network nowadays uses
mostly fiber-optic cabling to carry most of its data, though the wire that actually
enters your home or office is usually still just copper.
The big difference between PSTN and the Internet is that PSTN creates an
exclusive circuit between you and the person you are calling that lasts as long as
the call does. Internet data doesn't create an exclusive circuit: it sends the data in
packets that will take whatever route is most efficient at the time, and while you
are receiving voice call packets you can still receive packets of other data such
as email or web pages and a service provider that can cope with NAT.
7
Registrar / SIP Registrar - A Registrar is a SIP server responsible for keeping
track of where a user is contactable, and providing that information to callers. A
SIP phone must register its current location with a registrar server to allow calls
to be made to it using a phone number or alias. Without a SIP Registrar, the
caller would need to know the correct IP address and port of the telephone.
SIP - Session Initiation Protocol is a protocol that sets up, manages and then
terminates a multimedia session. The session itself could be used for video,
multimedia conferencing or gaming, or of course for an IP phone call. If the
phone software says it supports SIP, what it means is that means it is able to use
that protocol to talk to a server or router, which will do the job of connecting the
call. Many devices support only one of these protocols, to ensure that all the
devices that buyer and Service Provider use the same protocol
Soft-phone - A software program that allows your computer to act as a
telephone - usually used with a microphone and headphones.
8
Overview of the Study
The current research paper intends to observe the emerging trends and the
technologies establishing the trends in the field of CRM. The study also collects
data on the benefits and challenges involved in the convergence of VoIP with
CRM. Then the paper examines the various types of architectural patterns
involved in the basic structure of convergence. In addition, the paper analyzes
the commercial aspects, such as the ROI and cost factors involved with the
convergence. Finally, the paper analyzes the gathered facts and assumptions in
the light of case studies dealing with VoIP and CRM convergence. In this way,
the paper analyzes the ‘real impact of VoIP in the field of CRM’.
9
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Relevance
The Status of VOIP in the Technology Industry
John Q. Walker and Jeffrey T. Hicks, in their paper “VoIP Implementation and
Management”, quote Geoffrey A. Moore’s statement that ‘the adaptation of new
technology goes through a predictable process’. According to Moore there is an
initial period where pioneers tend to ignore ROI because they want to deploy the
technology – which gives them a real or perceived technological advantage.
(John Q. Walker and Jeffrey T. Hicks., Pg-2)
Walker and Hicks also state that VoIP appears to have “crossed the chasm,”
moving past the Early Adopter phase and into the Early Majority phase.
The above authors claim that, "Early Majority users are more cautious about
expanding capital on still-evolving technologies. They therefore prefer to wait
until a technological innovation has a positive track record. In the Early Majority
phase of a new technology, it is difficult to ignore ROI and important to build a
business case before making a purchase. The benefits of VoIP can be measured
in different ways. Bottom line cost savings are fairly easy to quantify. Other VoIP
benefits, such as productivity improvements, are more difficult to quantify in
terms of ROI. These types of benefits sometimes require a leap of faith or
intuition about potential results". (VoIP Implementation and Management)
10
Chris Roberts, in his paper on Voice over IP, explains the shift in the
conventional telephonic system in the following way: "Many of the analogue PBX
(Private Branch Exchange) and PABX (Private Automated Branch Exchange)
installations are nearing the end of their economic life with many manufacturers
discontinuing product lines in favor of IP (Internet Protocol) telephony enabled
replacements. The chances are, however, your data network is amongst the
estimated 85% of networks in use today that are not ready to support IP
telephony without modification2. With an industry-wide move to voice and data
convergence, VoIP is likely to feature prominently in organization’s IT strategic
planning and investments over the next 5 to 10 years." (ccip)
According to Johanne Torres, "Analysts believe that with the margins on all types
of voice calling continuing to decline, telecommunications hardware and software
vendors will unlikely see the service providers substantially increase their CAPEX
budgets. The study, titled North American Telecom, International Telecom, and
VoIP: A Global Market Perspective 2005-2011, predicts an international VoIP
revenue of $84 billion this year, representing about 28 percent of international
voice traffic revenue. Additionally, by 2011, VoIP bypass of international voice
traffic is expected to hit $96 billion, or just over 22 percent of international voice
traffic."
11
Thus it is shown that VoIP implementation has become a significant part of the IT
strategic planning process than a simple more necessity particularly with
up-and-coming organizations.
Scenario of CRM
Gary Barnett, CEO of Aspect Communications, in addressing the 'Internet
Telephony Miami Conference in February 2005' states, "VoIP would play an
instrumental role in turning contact centers into multi-faceted Interaction
Management Centers within the next four years, claiming that VoIP and SIP
would simplify and enable new applications and contact center functionality as
the contact center became increasingly integral to the enterprise" (VOIP in
business).
Many contact center analysts now believe that VoIP is taking off in the contact
center, stressing that the value-added benefits of VoIP are too numerous to
ignore.
Camille Mendler, Research Director of Yankee Group Europe, believes that the
usage of VOIP is reaching a tipping point.
NextiraOne has a stronghold in contact center deployment in Europe, and the IP
Communications is enabling organizations to improve agent productivity and be
more flexible in meeting customer demands. In particular, it points to the building
of virtual contact centers. The use of sophisticated load-balancing techniques
12
can lead to a potentially huge savings on a company’s telephone charges,
compared with traditional call forwarding models, which result in fewer agents
needing to be roistered for duty at any one time. This in turn allows those who
are working to be busier and more productive.
Many experts also stress the impact that rapid advancements in IP
communications will have in bringing about the integration of enterprise apps,
consolidation in administration and analytics, and enhanced productivity amongst
global and remote workforces. As customer expectations for flexible
multi-channel communications rise, IP communications is now seen as the best
way to deliver the necessary high quality services, both rapidly and
cost-effectively.
Convergence of VoIP to CRM
Tom Burkardt, chairman and CEO of BlueNote Networks, in his article “CRM
Platforms Need a Voice for Collaboration”, emphasizes the need for VoIP in
CRM.
Citing the evolutionary stages of CRM, Burkardt mentions 4 stages where CRM
organizations deal with their customer-centric issues, viz: ‘Consolidation,
Communication, Coordination, and Collaboration’.
According to Burkardt, “Consolidation is a stage, as initial implementations, CRM
platforms provided a way for companies to consolidate their customer and supply
13
chain processes and data”. He also points that the initial implementations were
hampered by their complexity and the proprietary nature of their programming
languages. Also, they suffered many security issues in giving customers access
to the data.
At second stage, CRM platforms used browser-based Web interfaces as a way
to simplify the way end-users accessed CRM data. To establish communication
with the customer, their initial efforts relied on the integration of Web
technologies. The Web integration made it easier to "communicate" the
information to a more diverse internal and external user community - more
simply, more quickly, and more effectively.
“An easy-to-use user interface and hosted solutions, however, are just the
beginning. Another Web innovation -- Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs)
based on Web Services (WS) standards -- is set to reshape CRM platforms
again. According to AMR Research, 20 percent of large enterprises have already
integrated SOAs into their business systems with another 33 percent planning to
implement in the next 12 months.”
In the fourth stage, Burkardt mentions the collaboration between SOA and SIP.
They both leverage Internet and Web-based standards at their core; are highly
scalable and location independent; integrate with legacy applications and
architectures; combine smaller application resources to provide more
14
comprehensive business applications; and offer resource reuse by developers,
users, and applications.
Explaining the need for Voice for CRM, Burkardt illustrates that in a "collaborative
CRM" world, the manufacturer's sales manager would not only be able to view
inventory and manufacturing schedules in real time, but the manager would also
be able to initiate a voice or video call from the CRM application to manufacturing
immediately.
Adding Voice to CRM, according to Burkardt, “offers increased productivity, fast
response to business needs, and a way to collaborate in real time using any or
all corporate application and networking resources. When considering all of these
benefits, bringing SOA and SIP to your CRM infrastructure looks like a winner.”
A Warning Before Convergence
In contrast to the positive statements mentioned above, George Goodall,
research analyst at the Info-Tech Research Group says, "Voice over IP (VoIP)
can be very successful in the enterprise," and "On the other hand, it can also be
a massive failure." The key, Goodall says, is to step very carefully and make sure
that everything is in order before trashing that old private branch exchange (PBX)
and going to IP. He adds, "Most of the problems with VoIP implementation can
be caught before you implement it. You can save a lot of trouble if you proceed
carefully."
15
These statements from Goodall are a warning to organizations to be cautious
before implementing VoIP in their organizations.
Hence the current study tries to analyze the various factors involved in VoIP
implementation in the context of the CRM industry in the following sections. The
study will closely examine the architecture, benefits, and risks involved in the
implementation.
16
Background of Convergence and Facts
VoIP enables organizations or Contact centers to connect with small groups of
people to offer better CRM services. Customers who call the contact center can
get the information about the local bank or about their account from Customer
Service Centers. For this, highly secure communication lines are necessary.
VoIP enables the CRM to maintain effective customer response management
through the seamless contacting and routing of each contact. VoIP offers such
facility to the CRM operations through the following architecture.
Technology trends in CRM
Predictive dialer technologies were the feasible utilities for CRM in the year 1980.
These were highly utilized by outsourced teleservice companies and in-house
telemarketing centers. The primary use of predictive dialers was for outbound
telemarketing for such applications as collections, lead generation and sales
support, etc.
Earlier to this technology, companies like Rockwell, Aspect, Teknekron
Infoswitch, etc. formulated Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) technology during
1970s and early 1980s. This ACD technology made a contribution to the
development of inbound telemarketing, and predictive dialers.
The current era of the modern technologies started from 1990s and includes the
development of the following:
17
Ø CRM technology;
Ø Workforce management;
Ø Monitoring;
Ø IP contact center technologies;
Ø Speech technology;
Ø Outsourcing technologies;
Ø Off-shoring technologies (VoIP);
Ø Data security;
Ø Performance management and optimization;
Ø E-learning;
Ø Home agent technologies; and
Ø Last, but not least, workforce optimization.
Though the above technologies contribute a major growth, the advent of VoIP
gave a good turn to the telecom industry with high cost savings and efficiency.
Industry Outlook for VOIP:
The year 2004 can be said as the year of VoIP. During this period, new items
have been added to its menu as the technology becomes a platform for new
feature development that has revolutionized the telephony.
There are two factors that aggravate the growth. One is the service providers'
rollouts of VoIP services to home and business users.
18
The other factor in support of VoIP's readiness for mass market deployment is
that OEMs delivered VoIP equipment to the enterprise with the quality, reliability
and user-friendly features that businesses wanted. This resulted in switching of
large customers to VoIP.
As the key investments are made in critical requirements such as billing, tracking
minutes and customer service, VoIP began its rapid ascent as the dominant
telecommunications technology of the twenty first century.
According to Infonetics Research, VoIP service revenue nearly doubled in Asia
Pacific, Europe, and North America from 2004 to 2005. The number of worldwide
VoIP subscribers is expected to double from 2005 to 2006, where it will top 47
million, and the market is expected to prosper for at least the next 5 years. (Marin
Perez)
“The study, titled North American Telecom, International Telecom, and VoIP: A
Global Market Perspective 2005-2011, predicts an international VoIP revenue of
$84 billion this year, representing about 28 percent of international voice traffic
revenue. Additionally, by 2011, VoIP bypass of international voice traffic is
expected to hit $96 billion, or just over 22 percent of international voice traffic.
Analysts believe that with the margins on all types of voice calling continuing to
decline, telecommunications hardware and software vendors will unlikely see the
service providers substantially increase their CAPEX budgets.” (Johanne Torres)
19
Technology trends in the evolution of VoIP
But VoIP is the only serious replacement/upgrade phone system being
considered today in the enterprise. Till recently, many decision makers delayed
merging their voice and data networks into a single infrastructure supporting
voice and IP communications on the desktop. But now, VoIP integration is driving
major changes in the enterprise by delivering information more efficiently than a
dual-network approach. Enterprises of all sizes can now flexibly host all of their
IP-based solutions in the corporate office and extend these services across IP to
branch offices, saving costs and improving employee productivity across the
board.
A four phase evolutionary trend of VoIP solutions are as follows:
PBX-based gateways
PBX equipment manufacturers have contributed to the early phases of the VoIP
market. The PBX based approach can integrate VoIP functionality with the
existing corporate voice communications platform. The vendors also contribute
reliable software and hardware to the voice market.
As these vendors have minimal experience in IP-centric data networking,
connectionless networks and non-determinate protocols, the issues of voice
signal quality in the IP world becomes a problem with the PBX-based approach.
20
Though the market position for PBX-based gateways is strong among telecom
buyers and distribution channels, it is extremely weak on the data
communications side. So the PBX vendors could not maintain a long standing
dominance in the communication world.
Lack of technology standards is the one major hindrance to the adoption of PBX-
VoIP. CRM centers, which are to be standardized according to the Industrial
practices are supposed to prove themselves with quality norms. In such an
instance PBX-VoIP solution may not be the best solution for the desired
transparency.
21
Router-based gateways
Manufacturers of routers and other data networking hardware are also a
presence in the VoIP market. Here data communications managers and
networking equipment resellers play a vital role with good stand in IP technology.
The IP quality-of-service (QoS) techniques clear the voice quality problems.
The router-based VoIP approach could not offer the perfect voice technology and
call management, thus it can hamper the smooth functionalities of CRM. And the
failure to raise the reliability standards disqualifies them from serving the
corporate voice infrastructure.
The end-to-end solutions that serve the entire enterprise’s operations also could
not make them familiar, as most of the technology implementations would go on
trial and error basis and plug-in modules, and would not dare to go for such type
of VoIP plan.
PC-based gateways
These are the stand-alone gateways offered by small vendors on the market.
These products offer a router- and PBX-independent solution. These vendors
exhibit a greater ability to rapidly adopt and define the industry standards. As
these are based on a PC platform, reliability is a big question here. Also these
solutions are expensive, as they themselves do not hold manufacturing of
equipment.
22
Intelligent, multi-path switching gateways
The multi-path switch implementations have the solutions for the major problems
of the voice market voice quality, network reliability, and vendor independence.
The Telecommunications Challenge for CRM implementation
The economics of investing in a business phone system that is feature-rich and
can scale to its potential growth precludes young companies from purchasing
these powerful tools.
Limited funds and a dynamic, often dispersed, business environment make the
options going forward an intermediary step until the company grows large
enough to consider a premise-based PBX.
With Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, the customer contact
centers now have a cost-effective, feature-rich alternative to the traditional
business phone system that facilitates the geographic independence to work
from homes, a powerful business feature set along with local and long distance
for a fraction of the cost of both the low-feature multi-line phones or the feature-
rich PBX.
23
Shortfalls of Traditional Phone Services for CRM applications
Traditional telephone networks were designed solely to carry low-fidelity audio
signals with a high level of reliability. Though these networks are reliable for
voice communication, the business operations are not comfortable with them
because of the following reasons:
• They are expensive to build – each phone must be individually connected to
the central office switch, which is usually several miles away from the
subscriber's location
• Resource Utilization: Use dedicated circuits for each call, which require fixed
connection and operator taxation throughout the call’s duration, whether or not
voice is actually being transmitted
• Scalability: the traditional phone systems don’t posses the capacity to operate
on large scale to address potential growth
• Poor data transmission: Transmits data at very low rates and resolutions,
making them poorly suited for delivering integrated Internet communications,
entertainment-quality video or other rich multimedia content
• Lethargic: these systems cannot be leveraged to provide new or differentiated
services or functions, such as a geographic independency.
24
Specific Business advantages of VoIP applications
The VoIP technology comes with the following software components in general,
and can be configured individually depending on the need of client’s contact
center.
Unified Messaging/Converged Communications:
Unified messaging software is one of the core components VoIP systems, which
enables users to check e-mail, voicemails and faxes from their e-mail inboxes,
and listen to their e-mails and faxes from their phones.
The people who are away from their regular e-mail boxes can call in and have
their e-mails automatically read to them. Also the Voice messages can be
converted into e-mail messages to make them available to read on mobile or
computer. This capability makes all messages always available, thus improving
responsiveness and employee productivity.
Call Identification and Routing
This software identifies priority phone numbers and forwards those calls to a
device of the user's choice such as a cell phone or pager.
A call from a specific customer can be routed to the receiver’s cell phone, while
all other calls can be diverted to voicemail, or to another colleague. VoIP system
enables the users to make decisions about their routing, thus increasing
25
productivity by allowing them to prioritize important calls and circumvent less
important ones.
Call Recording and Monitoring
Call recording and Monitoring features can be configured automatically by the
system admin with VoIP during network set up without the assistance of external
tapes and recorders, unlike PBX systems.
This results in a cost efficiency as call recording with VoIP is doesn’t require the
purchase of additional hardware. The recording software with built in hardware in
PC provides the advantage of VoIP system.
IP Paging
IP paging applications allows the VoIP owners to perform simultaneous overhead
voice paging to multiple locations within a facility, branch office buildings or
remote locations using the Internet or intranet. This lets them communicate
company-wide emergency alerts or general announcements very efficiently.
This feature also enables the users to send text messages of voice
announcements. This can be useful to school administrators who want to send
announcements to teachers without disturbing the students.
26
This text-messaging feature can also alert call center employees about the
number of customers in the call queue. This feature also results in CRM by
informing customers about queue lengths and time of their service etc.,
Date Tracking and Reporting
VoIP technology enables companies to create new phone numbers and analyze
the usage of those numbers easily. The resulting reports contain valuable
information to strategize production, marketing and customer service operations.
For example, the customer's marketing department might create a new phone
number to support an ad campaign, and then use the software to track the phone
responses and evaluate the campaign's effectiveness. By accessing the same
data the HR department of the same company can identify the trends in call
volume and duration and can schedule the staff to meet the call demand.
27
Reasons for a Contact center to move to VoIP:
The rationale for moving to VoIP usually includes:
Ø Cost savings
Ø Improved efficiency and productivity
Ø Simplification and consolidation and
Ø Improved capability
Cost Savings: The cost savings in Contact centers with the deployment of VoIP
mainly result from reduced toll call costs. While this may be an operational cost
saving, some considerable capital expenditure may be required to achieve this.
But with the new network equipment, VoIP implementation makes less
installation cost impact in the beginning of transition.
The increased turnover with the resulting direct cost savings is a big advantage
to CRM with VoIP.
Improved Efficiency and Productivity: Today’s VoIP systems come with a variety
of productivity tools such as integrated email, voicemail, fax and messaging.
Other features may include called party “presence”, and a “follow-me/find-me”
capability. By integrating with such features, CRM systems can offer better
customer service.
28
Simplification and Consolidation: VoIP is an opportunity to consolidate data and
voice communication in CRM implementations. The convergence of VoIP with
CRM can reduce equipment requirements, simplify network management and
lead to application convergence. Complexity can be reduced with properly
planned networks, flexibility to add, change or remove nodes. The operational
efficiencies like desktop-to-desktop video conferencing helps in improving
communication and improve internal customer relationship.
Improved Capability: The separate communications paths used for voice and
data in a TDM world are combined into a consolidated data infrastructure in the
VoIP architecture. Also VoIP can deliver numerous features including advanced
call routing, computer integration, unified messaging, integrated information
services, toll call bypass and encryption. These can only be possible with the
union of telephony with facsimile, video conferencing, electronic white boarding,
multimedia and other multi platform services. The integration of service center
calls with web services and shared screens can provide faster query resolution
times, aiding Customer Relationship Management. The features like voice
messages delivered to multiple mailboxes over the Internet, voice-annotated
documents and “follow-me” features where a person is always contactable at a
single telephone number or extension number, irrespective of physical location
are the tremendous tools to improve CRM.
29
And in a multi-site environment, an IP-enabled architecture simplifies inter-site
connectivity. In such instances the headquarters location equipment provides all
of the routing intelligence, and directs inbound calls to the appropriate location
over the WAN.
30
Considerations for the VoIP implementation to CRM
To implement the VoIP for CRM, the first step is to have a vital plan in hand in
the following areas:
Business planning
A critical business plan for the VoIP implementation will help in finding out the
Break Even time and ROR issues. Not only that but he business case will also
put forth the segmentation and targeting operations well in advance. The basic
contents of the business plan to look for contact center VoIP implementation are
as follows:
Ø The type of industry sector to outline the related features of contact
center, and henceforth the call communication system features.
Ø A clear cut definition of mode of operation of contact center between
volume-oriented and value-oriented
Ø Classification and determination of target customers of contact center -
internal or external customers
Ø Definition of activities and nature of contact center weather it is only for
customer support or also to help generate additional sales and
revenue
Ø Consideration of different service provision media like - voice, e-mail
and web
31
The business goals will help the organizations to choose the options of VoIP that
they want. TDM-based users need few options; IP-based contact centers use
rich functionalities. A TDM deployment requires separate administration of each
site, imposing a greater financial and personnel burden.
Whereas, an IP-based system lets a single contact center manage all sites with
greater security, scalability and adaptability. IP based contact a center diffuses
more to customers, channel agents through data and voice communications and
by using multimedia options. These features help the contact centers to
communicate the promotional strategies, to resolve account queries and to up
sell or cross sell the products and services. Customer buying experiences can be
recorded and tracked for the further usage. This data in turn can also be
converted into the MIS reports and metrics for the contact center to enhance the
productivity of the call centers. These varied business requirements can be
incorporated into the business plan at the beginning to smooth the
implementation.
Implementation planning
The business plan must also avoid hindrances and functional dropouts. This
execution plan helps the contact center to meet its objectives in the areas of
functionality, cost, and features.
32
Some considerations to prepare the implementation plan are as follows:
Ø What's the best design for the network?
Ø How will it interface with other network components, such as voice mail
or an existing customer relationship management system?
Ø Will the system be centralized or decentralized across many sites?
Ø Will customer service include a Web-based component, or only voice?
Ø How will the system be managed?
Ø How will be the system’s reaction for the additional users, locations, or
features in the future?
Here the types of data that the system needs to capture and maintain should also
be configured to manage an effective representation of information and reduction
of cost in database management.
Deployment and support
As like every other IT projects, VoIP deployment plan should be planned and
documented for ongoing support and maintenance of the implementation. For
VoIP deployment, the company has to consider the following factors to choose
between making its own or to outsource the services:
Ø How large and complex is the deployment?
Ø Does the deployment plan supports the onsite staff and equipment with
the appropriate knowledge?
33
Ø Can the current staff cover the deployment, or is additional support
warranted?
The deployment outsourcing can be made through the service vendors who
make quality deployments through certified standards and expertise. These
vendors can offer the customizable and packed solutions for varied and
affordable features exactly suitable for the VoIP deployment. Thus a carefully
drawn deployment along with these vendors can result in cost effective and quick
implementation. The early involvement of such vendors in the deployment plan
will help the companies to define and prioritize their requirements, to mix and
match the available features.
Contact centers can benefit most from VoIP when they engage in detailed
business planning, thorough implementation planning, and knowledgeable
deployment and support.
The Technological Architecture required for VoIP for CRM
The Center for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CCIP), illustrates the technology
architecture of VoIP as given under:
The communication of VoIP calls exists in three ways:
1. PC-to-PC
2. PC to Phone or Phone to PC and
3. Phone to Phone
34
Juniper networks states that all the above must perform the same functions as
the PSTN network, which are,
1. Signaling
2. Database services
3. Bearer Control and
4. CODEC operations
Signaling
Signaling is the means by which devices communicate, initiate, manage, and
terminate functions to complete a call. In a VoIP network, signaling is achieved
through the exchange of IP messages compared with a PSTN network where a
PABX, PBX or a switch manages call connection and routing.
Database Services
“In a PSTN, endpoints are identified through the allocation of a ‘phone number. In
a VoIP network and IP address is the primary means of identification, although
an endpoint may also be allocated a ‘phone number. A call control database
records and manages endpoint identifiers and mappings. It will also record
transactions for billing, audit, operational and security management.” (Chris
Roberts)
35
Bearer Control
In simple terms, this is the call connect and call disconnect management.
CODEC Operations
“CODECs (coder/decoders) provide the means to convert analogue voice signals
to digital signals and reverse the process on delivery. CODECs are also known
as VOCODERs or voice coder/decoders.
On conversion from analogue to digital, a data stream is packetised and
transported across the network. The receiving endpoint will not only have to
reassemble the packets into the correct sequence, but also decode the contents.
Clearly commonality of standards and CODECs is essential if the communication
is to be intelligible.
Any detected signaling tones are routed around the CODEC that can modify the
tones to the point it is not recognized by the device being signaled”, (Chris
Roberts).
36
Major Components of VOIP:
The major components of a VoIP network are as follows as depicted by CCIP:
1. Call processing server;
2. User devices;
3. Media/VoIP gateways; and
4. IP Network.
The following figure illustrates the simple network of VoIP with the above
components:
Figure 1 - Simple VoIP System

Source: http://www.ccip.govt.nz/ccip-publications
37
1. Call Processing Server
“A call processing server, also known as an IP/PBX manages all VoIP
connections. These can be deployed in various configurations from a single
server through to a server farm. Fault tolerance, redundancy, reliability, load,
flexibility and traffic growth will factor in the choice of configuration. These
deployments are based on standard hardware running specialist software
applications. Call processing servers are also available on router platforms or as
an appliance.
To establish a VoIP communication, control traffic establishes and manages a
call while the voice traffic is carried as a VoIP payload or voice stream in a peer-
to-peer fashion in an RTP stream. Exceptions to this are some conferencing
functionality, music-on-hold and routed voice traffic to another call server.”
Figure 2 - Call Processing Server

38
2. User Devices
“User devices may be discrete devices, sometimes known as ‘hard phones’ or
software based or ‘soft phones’. Such devices include VoIP phones, PCs and
other desktop or mobile VoIP devices such as laptop computers.”
3. Media/VoIP Gateways
“Sometimes also known as gatekeepers, which were traditionally used for, call
admission and control and bandwidth management. With technology
convergence, the distinction between this function and traditional gateways has
fallen away and the functionality now exists within traditional gateways.
The main function of a media gateway is to create VoIP packets from analogue
voice signals using CODECs.
Other features such as compression, echo-cancellation, and silence suppression
and traffic management are often incorporated into gateway functionality.
• Media gateways can fulfill a number of functions:
• Trunk gateways that form the interface between a telephone and VoIP
network, typically managing multiple digital circuits;
• Residential gateways that provide an analogue interface to a VoIP network.
Examples include cable modems, xDSL devices and broadband wireless
devices;
39
• Access media gateways provide an analogue or digital PBX interface to a
VoIP network. Examples include small-scale (enterprise) VoIP gateways;
• Business media gateways that provide digital PBX interface or an integrated
soft PBX interface to a VoIP network;
• Network access servers that connect a modem to a telephone circuit and
provide data access to the Internet.”
Figure 3 - VoIP Gateway Functions

The above figure illustrates the functional components of gateways using the
H.323 standard 33.
40
4. IP Network
“The IP network connects the, often distributed, elements of a VoIP network. As
VoIP traffic is sensitive to delay, Quality of Service must be maintained. This is
discussed below. The IP network prioritises VoIP traffic through Class of Service
(CoS) identifiers to ensure VoIP traffic is not affected by other network traffic.”
QUALITY OF SERVICE
“Data networks are designed to transport data efficiently but can be susceptible
to jitter, delay, packet loss, data errors, bandwidth fluctuations and “dropped”
connections. While IP was designed to manage these conditions, latency and
jitter can have an unacceptably detrimental effect on voice and video over IP.
The reliability of today’s PSTN allows fast call setup times, a robust feature set,
and a sophisticated billing and settlement system. This has created expectations
of QoS for VoIP calls, which should be at least as easy and as good as PBX or
PSTN calls (sometimes referred to as “toll quality” or “feature parity”). In some
cases, the fact that VoIP is perceived as an application of technology, compared
with a simple telephone, creates expectations of higher capability. VoIP QoS
requires careful network management, monitoring, fault resolution, call
management and security management.”
41
QoS covers the following aspects:
• Voice quality;
• Network performance;
• Call control (packet loss and voice processing); and
• Interoperability.
VOIP STANDARDS
The VoIP standards summarized by Centre for Critical Infrastructure
Protection (CCIP) are as under:
“The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) are the two major international organizations recommending
standards for VoIP. The ITU recommends H.323 and the IETF recommends the
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). While there is some overlap of functionality
there are differences in approach and terminology. In addition, some vendors are
providing proprietary, product dependent implementations. Both protocols can be
extended to manage new capabilities. The argument has been advanced that
H.323 is more stable because of its maturity but SIP provides better support for
some functionality and is easier to implement. Fortunately the ITU and the IETF
are now co-operating in developing standards in this area.” (CCIP)
H.323
“Currently in version 2, H.323 is a standard recommended by the
Telecommunication Sector of the ITU. It defines real-time multimedia
42
communications and conferencing over packet-based networks that do not
provide a guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) such as the LAN and the Internet.
It is an “umbrella standard” belonging to the H.32x class of standards
recommended by the ITU for videoconferencing applications:
These were amongst the earliest standards to classify and provide solutions to
VoIP.
1. H.310 for conferencing over Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN);
2. H.320 for conferencing over Narrowband ISDN;
3. H.321 for conferencing over ATM;
4. H.322 for conferencing over LANs with guaranteed QoS;
5. H.324 for conferencing over Public Switched Telephone Networks.
Earlier versions of H.323 had a large overhead in control signaling, particularly
when establishing a session. This has presented some scalability limitations,
especially when a large number of simultaneous sessions are presented.
Subsequent versions have focused on addressing these issues.” (CCIP)
43
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
“As the Internet developed, the IETF produced a large number of standards and
Protocols through the Request for Comment (RFC) process. In the VoIP area,
some were based on ideas in the H.323 standard and developed through the
RFC process.
SIP is a protocol to invite an individual user to participate in a point-to-point or
unicast session and part of the IETF’s multimedia data and control protocol
framework. It manages the setup and orderly termination of sessions which may
include telephone calls, videoconferencing and multimedia distribution.
Sip is text-based and designed to be simple, efficient and extensible. It has
inherited some design characteristics from the Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).” (CCIP)
44
Other Standards
“Other relevant standards and recommendations include:
1. H.225 defines the lowest layer that formats the transmitted video, audio,
data, and control streams for output to the network, and retrieves the
corresponding streams from the network;
2. H.235 specifies the security requirements for H.323 communications. Four
security services are provided: authentication, integrity, privacy, and non-
repudiation;
3. H.245 specifies messages for opening and closing channels for media
streams and other commands, requests and indications;
4. H.248, also known as Megaco (MEdia GAteway COntrol), is a current
draft standard and a co-operative proposal from IETF and ITU. Also
described in RFC
5. 3015. It addresses the same requirements and has many similarities to
MGCP;
6. H.261. If video capabilities are provided, it must adhere to the H.261
protocol with QCIF as its mode;
7. H.263 specifies the CODEC for video over the PSTN;
8. Various audio CODECs are specified under G.711, G.722 G.723,G.723.1,
G.726, G.729 and G.729.a;
9. T120 a protocol for data and conference control.
Over 120 leading computer, telecommunication and technology organizations
have indicated their intent to support and implement H.323 in their products and
45
services. This wide-ranging support establishes H.323 as the de facto standard
for audio and video conferencing over the Internet.” (CCIP)
VoIP Protocols
“There are a number of other protocols that may be used in VoIP applications.
Although these protocols will generally interoperate with H.323 standards, some
may not. Other protocols include:
1. Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP). A development of SGCP and
IPDC protocols.
2. IP Device Control (IPDC). A group of protocols for controlling hardware
devices such as control gateway devices at the boundary between the
circuit- switched telephone network and the Internet. Examples of such
devices include network access servers and voice-over-IP gateways.
3. Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP). Described in IETF RFC 1889, this is
a real-time, end-to-end protocol, utilizing existing transport layers for data
that has real-time properties.
4. RTP Control Protocol (RTCP). Described in IETF RFC 1889, a protocol to
monitor QoS and carry information on the participants in a session. It also
provides feedback on total performance and quality so allow modification
to be made.
46
5. Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP). Described in IETF RFC 2250-
2209. This is a general purpose signaling protocol allowing network
resources to be reserved for a connections data stream, based on
receiver-controlled requests. There may be scalability issues in using this
protocol due to its focus and management of individual application traffic
flows.
6. Simple Gateway Control Protocol (SGCP). SGCP is a simple "remote
control" protocol that the call agent uses to program gateways according
to instructions received through signaling protocols such as H.323 or SIP.
Now superseded by MGCP, an IETF work in progress.
7. Session Announcement Protocol (SAP). Protocol used by multicast
session managers to distribute a multicast session description to a large
group
8. Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). Interface management to a server
providing real-time data
47
9. Session Description Protocol (SDP). Describes the session for other
protocols including SAP, SIP and RTSP. In common with many
communication and data systems, the protocols used in VoIP generally
follow a layered hierarchy, similar to the Open Systems Interconnect
theoretical model developed by the International Organization for
Standards (OSI). There are, however, exceptions to this, for example IP
over ATM.” (CCIP)
Figure 4 - VoIP Protocol Structure

48
The following table provides an overview of the principal VoIP protocols, as
described in a Cisco white paper:
Figure 5 - VoIP Protocols

49
The Myths of VoIP deployments
Jeff Fried used the following commonly identified myths, while analyzing the
pitfalls that interfere with the successful implementation of the project:
1. VoIP is just another data application: Generally organizations often
underestimate the complexity of VoIP deployment. Consistent delivery of high-
quality user experience is a challenging task which is overlooked very often.
2. Voice quality is not an issue: even after the surplus availability of bandwidth
voice quality is another area that needs concentration. This requires careful
configuration of the system, than just flipping a switch or setting the knobs on the
network correctly. The user's perception of voice quality depends on a range of
factors, including a network that can be complicated to engineer and difficult to
troubleshoot, and which requires regular maintenance.
3. All VoIP phones are created equal: “With IP telephony, calls are not limited to
traditional telephone devices; users can take advantage of soft phones, personal
digital assistants and wireless devices, as well as traditional phones. The
characteristics of the phone and the application matter as much as the health of
the network--a cheap phone on a clean network can sound worse than a high-
quality phone on a poor network. Successful VoIP deployments require a
systems view that takes infrastructure, applications and instruments into
account." (Communications News)
50
Implementation issues with VOIP
CCIP assumes that implementation of VoIP is more problematic though it is
justifiable for financial, operational or strategic reasons. Hence CCIP proposes
certain aspects that are to be accommodated:
Ø Functionality; which may include interoperability, reliability, availability
and accessibility
Ø Fault tolerance and management
Ø Accounting and call billing
Ø Configuration management
Ø Addressing and directory management
Ø Access control, authentication and encryption
Ø Security
Ø Legal considerations and
Ø Network deployment
Functionality
“VoIP offers an effective communication which overcomes the geographical
locations and the media they connected with each other like POTS, VoIP ‘phone,
wireless phone, PC, facsimile etc., VoIP also offers the similar telephony services
in terms of reliability, interoperability, availability, accessibility, QoS, management
and security.
51
Along with multimedia and multi service applications the features like text-to-
speech/speech-to-text and voice response systems enhance the functionality of
CRM applications.” (CCIP)
Fault Tolerance and Management
“Fault Tolerance became a mandatory specification for every current day network
system. Fault tolerance is a function of the design, systems architecture,
interoperability and quality of the system devices and software. To offer such a
Fault tolerance system, with VoIP, the legacy networks should be reengineered
to provide the QoS and robustness expected in a VoIP network. Swift
identification and resolution of failures, faults and other problems is a
fundamental network management task. “(CCIP)
Accounting and Call Billing
“VoIP helps in maintaining CRM accounting and Call Billing particulars. VoIP
tracks the network traffic and call management which in turn helps the CRM
business owners to allocate and recover costs where appropriate. The VoIP
should also help in maintaining call metrics by giving a complete record of call
duration, number dialed, source and destination IP address, packets sent and
received etc., Users should receive a consolidated billing for network usage.”
(CCIP)
52
Configuration Management
“The VoIP configuration should be flexible enough to any changes in live-system
implementation in the areas like authorization, record keeping, backup and
management of configuration changes. The live system changes may include
protocol changes, compression algorithm modification or change, dialing plans,
access control, audit, recovery, fault management, port reassignment and so on.”
(CCIP)
Addressing and Directory Management
“ The configuration changes like IP address reassignment, dynamic directory
updates, changes in Telephone numbers should be made transparent to the
users and are supposed to maintain regularly.” (CCIP)
Access Control, Authentication and Encryption
“Access to VoIP networks should be at least as carefully managed as access to
data networks. VoIP also offers authentication and encryption capabilities that
can enhance access control and call security.” (CCIP)
Security
“VoIP adds a level of complexity to network operations and the network must be
designed with particular security to resist the new vulnerabilities that the new
implementation may bring.” (CCIP)
53
Legal Considerations
“There are a number of legal and contractual considerations that may impact the
decision to implement a VoIP network. These may include:
Ø Caller ID and Local Number Portability (LNP);
Ø Calling line identification restrictions;
Ø Malicious call identification;
Ø Legal interception;
Ø Carrier selection; and
Ø Emergency services (911 calls).” (CCIP)
Deploying a VoIP Network
“Once the implementation of a VoIP network has been agreed, there are a
number actions required. While not an exhaustive list, these include:
Ø Systems and network architecture design;
Ø Selection and procurement of core infrastructure devices and cabling;
Ø Interfaces to the PSTN;
Ø Determination of routing plans and an internal number convention;
Ø System resilience including automatic recovery calls flows and calls
rerouting rules;
Ø Single point of failure identification;
Ø Disaster recovery planning and equipment acquisition;
Ø Billing strategies and links to billing and accounting systems;
Ø Change management; and
Ø Technical and user training.” (CCIP)
54
Factors influencing VoIP growth in CRM
Joseph McFadden’s “The Impact of VoIP on the Customer Service Experience“
explains the following reasons as very compelling to adopt VoIP based systems
to the companies who offer customer care services.
1. Simplified CRM integration: With an IP customer service center on
single-network architecture, CTI is built in, reducing deployment time from
weeks or months to hours. This includes the integrations of CRM
applications like Microsoft, Oracle, People Soft, SAP, Siebel, etc.
2. VoIP will save money: It can reduce labor and telephony costs, and
eliminate costly CTI deployments. Also the Carriers drive to reduce costs
while providing more features to satisfy the customer’s desire to access
different modes through single network without capital Investments
3. Phone, email, and Web contacts on a single platform: A single
platform can reduce the cost of acquisition and integration, but more
importunately, it improves the customer experience. Self-service Web
applications, deferred services like email, and immediate services over the
phone are now seamless to the customer.
4. Route contacts to the best agent anywhere on the corporate
network: The latest IP customer service center systems identify specific
customer needs and match them to agent skill sets.
5. Continue to leverage legacy investments: Ultimately every contact
center will go to a single-network, IP-based system. The right migration
55
plan will maximize the investment in legacy automatic call distribution
(ACD) systems while providing a quick transition to IP.
Along with the above, another growing factor is the Improved quality and
reliability of broadband networks that enable the VoIP calls to transfer on
standard broadband lines and increased bandwidth capacity at low cost.
Risks of VoIP
Voice quality and availability
Quality loss in Voice Quality: The problems of the enterprise IP network and
Wide area network (WAN) connections are results in impairments that can
threaten the continuity in the voice quality. The daily business operations of CRM
applications can face customer calls at any moment of the day and a break in
voice service is entirely unacceptable.
Application contention
Interaction of voice and data applications: The increased traffic due to the
interaction different application may result in breaks or delays in voice,
jeopardizing voice quality. By the same token, those same applications may be
adversely affected by the growing presence of prioritized VoIP traffic on the
network. CRM organizations have to protect voice and data applications from
each other as they contend for the same limited infrastructure resources.
56
MAC-related risks
Moves, adds and changes (MACs) on the network: As organizations add
locations, shift users, and make other modifications to the structure of the
network and its traffic patterns, end-to-end voice service levels may be affected
due to the poor configuration of new net work system. For example, may not be
capable of supporting the additional VoIP traffic that will result when staffing
levels at that office grow. CRM organizations must take these factors into
consideration as the number and distribution of end-users changes over time.
57
Challenges involved in the VoIP implementation of CRM
Reliability:
VoIP depends on wall power. Traditional phone lines do not require power. Even
if the power goes out, the phone lines still work. But with VoIP, no power means
no phone. Creating a stable power source is an essential for a VoIP system.
Securing the Line
The potential familiar threats in the VoIP implementation include eavesdropping
and malicious replay, toll fraud, service theft, voice Spam (SPIT), and identity
theft. These are the technological and implementation issues. Where as the
usage of certain software and hardware does also pose some problems like
security problems with Soft phone usage. Some new technologies come with
encryption and authentication deficiencies allowing the hackers to intrude into the
system. The wireless technology networks are much more accessible to remote
attackers.
Security issues’ Impact on Quality of Service
Voice communications over the Net are not as seamless as they are over
traditional phone lines. The security issues outlined above raises need for quality
service with voice and video communication on the same network. These will add
Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. In order to send voice, the information
has to be separated into packets just like data. Packets are chunks of information
58
broken up into the most efficient size for routing. From there, the packets need
to be sent and put back together. The data transmission issues like packet loss,
jitter, and echo results in QoS impairments. The implementation of security
measures can, itself, cause a marked deterioration in QoS.
Network security needs the implementation of vulnerability detecting systems
such as firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Intrusion Prevention
Systems (IPS), Virtual Private Networks (VPN), authentication services, anti-virus
software, and gateways. Since VoIP is highly sensitive to delay, packet loss, and
jitter; many of these data security measures are inadequate and must be
specialized for VoIP. For example, current firewall/NAT devices can delay or
block call setups, encryption engines can introduce additional jitter, and inline
IDS/IPS devices can add delay to inspected packets.
Interoperability Concerns
Another issue that requires careful review is interoperability among the
components and devices used by different systems and departments of the large
organization. Interoperability considerations not only involve the ability to
interoperate with equipment on the commercial side, but on the compliance of
security protocols of the adopted network as well.
The interoperability depends on factors like the type of solution the contact
center is deploying and the level of interoperability promised by the vendor. This
59
again depends on the technical expertise of the people involved in the
deployment and maintenance of the VoIP system. If the system admin resources
are well acquainted with the complete knowledge, there will be more
interoperability.
Providing 911 Emergency Services (E911)
Emergency 911 calls also pose a challenge with VoIP. As stated before, VoIP
uses IP-addressed phone numbers, not NANP phone numbers. There is no way
to associate a geographic location with an IP address. So if the caller can't tell
the 911 operator where he or she is located, then there is no way to know which
call center to route the emergency call to and which EMS should respond. To fix
this, perhaps geographical information could somehow be integrated into the
packets.
Processor Drain:
Another problem associated with VoIP is having a phone system that is
dependent on individual personal computer systems of varying specifications and
power. A call can be affected by processor drain. If a caller is chatting away on a
soft-phone, and decides to open a program that saps the processor, quality loss
will become immediately evident. In a worst-case scenario, the system could
crash in the middle of an important call. In VoIP, all phone calls are subject to the
limitations of normal computer issues.
60
Productivity impact of CRM with VoIP
The advantages of integrating CRM applications with IP contact centers are:
Ø Elimination of third-party ACD requirement.
Ø Vendor certifications and multi-vendor implementations are not
required.
Ø Low Cost of acquisition and low cost of ownership
Ø Elimination of CTI requirement
Ø Elimination of CTI middleware testing and certification aspects
Ø Streamlined implementation to the customer which offers quick
deployment
Ø Lowers the cost of acquisition and ownership to the customer
Ø Facility to add media channels (telephony, email, web, fax)
Ø Ability to sell and turn-on multi-media.
Ø Ease in workflow integration to CRM databases
The call centers that intend a shift to VoIP recognize several benefits in terms of
cost, flexibility, efficiency, and scalability.
Flexibility:
Networks can be built in a variety of configurations to suit the number of
users, client/server application requirements, and desired bandwidth availability.
61
Efficiency:
Ø Bandwidth and network connectivity are consumed only when needed.
Ø Service providers are able to converge their traditionally separate voice
and data networks, and carry voice, video, fax, and data traffic over the
same network.
Ø Many terminals can share a network connection and, as a result,
significantly reduce equipment costs to deploy VoIP compared to a
circuit-switched telephony network.
Scalability:
Users can be easily added to the network anywhere there is a connection
as growth demands with minimal network costs to carriers
These advantages create cost savings that are passed on to consumers in the
form of lower telephony rates.
62
Cost Impact of VoIP
CAPITAL AND EXPENSE SAVINGS:
Free calls:
When VoIP technology appeared, people thought that everything all about it was
free. The enterprise’s long distance calls result as heavy payment among
overhead expenses. In a VoIP implementation, the network is an IP network, and
calling distance does not matter. So VoIP calls could be considered free.
Long Distance Savings:
Long-distance rates on the PSTN have decreased dramatically as VoIP has
matured.
Single Network and Infrastructure Savings:
Maintaining separate network infrastructures is neither simple nor cheap. VoIP
offers a single network infrastructure built on an IP network, resulting in savings
shown below:
Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TOC): A single network can lower the cost of
network ownership. Instead of buying a PBX and network infrastructure for Public
switched telephone network PSTN calls, organizations spend the money on IP
network infrastructure. Both voice and data traffic can take advantage of the
63
enhancements. These savings allow VoIP to provide a lower total cost of
ownership.
Reduced Instrumentation cost: VoIP can provide a reduced incremental cost of
network ownership. This is achieved by keeping the per-user cost for phone
service same irrespective of the number of additional staff. Adding an additional
user to VoIP does not result in cost increment unlike in traditional PBX system.
Facility to expand and change of single network: During the times of
organization expansions, moving to VoIP implementation would result as
profitable rather than purchasing another T1 link for the increased call volume,
Because VoIP accommodates the expansion allowing the organization to use the
available capacity on the DS3 link to carry additional voice traffic.
Desktop cost efficiencies: Desktop cost drops dramatically as the desktop phone
terminal/console is replaced by a soft-phone with at least the same capabilities.
Easy and fast efficiency tool upgrades: Once the desktop phone is completely
“soft”, upgrades in terms of enhanced features or improved efficiencies are
downloadable and need not be installed, one by one, on each of several
hundreds (or thousands) of workstations.
64
Reduced wiring costs: A single network offers reduced wiring costs, especially in
new construction. Instead of wiring for data and voice, the company can pull one
set of wiring. Wiring for both voice and data can be accomplished in many
different ways.
Easy transit to wireless infrastructures: A single network can easily incorporate
wireless infrastructures. As many organizations are turning their networks to
wireless technology. The wireless networks which use 802.11 technology support
IP network applications readily, making VoIP easy to implement in this type of
environment.
Efficient database maintenance through Unified messaging (integration of data
and voice files): As long as both voice and data are transmitted over the same
network, and as long as voice and data have the same file characteristics, they
may be stored in a similar manner and format. They are easily retrievable, which
translates into better customer service.
Productivity Savings: Another set of quantifiable benefits of a VoIP
implementation involves savings due to productivity improvements in CRM
operations. When the contact centers is thinking about moving to VoIP, it is
necessary to concentrate on its operations to bring out the cost savings in the
following areas:
65
Management and support savings: In a traditional PBX phone system, the
organization needs one staff to manage the telephony system and another staff
to manage the data network. In a VoIP system, the convergence of infrastructure
reduces the internal staff required for support and management of the two
separate infrastructures. However, these savings may come with a high initial
cost for training. A converged network requires a consolidation of skills to
manage it. VoIP thus requires a significant training for the data-networking group
learning telecom skills, or for the telephony group learning data networking skills.
One way to try to estimate the training costs associated with VoIP is to compare
it to the rollout of other business critical technologies. For example, the move
from office memos and snail-mail to an e-mail system was quite a leap
technologically and required extensive training to deploy and manage. A VoIP
deployment has similar characteristics.
Employee productivity enhancements: If an employee is both voice and data
dependent, the simple fact that both voice and data communications are
displayed on the same screen, rather than on one screen for the computer and
another screen or LED readout for the phone console, results in time efficiencies
and consequent productivity enhancements.
Maintenance, upgrades, and additions: VoIP makes adding, moving, or otherwise
changing users and services much easier and cheaper. In one estimate, these
types of actions can account for as much as 14 percent of an IT budget. VoIP
66
uses IP protocols such as Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) to allow IP
phones to automatically reconfigure themselves when moved from one location
to another. When analyzing the cost savings that a VoIP implementation can
provide, consider this important reality. Since end users don’t see cost savings
directly, they are less tolerant of reduced quality or reduced reliability.
The ROI of VoIP in CRM
While implementing VoIP over CRM, the ROI figures are to be concentrated with
close attention. Installation and operational costs, including administrative and
training costs are to be balanced with the savings of the convergence. The CRM
companies should find out about the total cost of deployment, and the likely
return on that investment in terms of both value and time. Here are two examples
of VoIP deployments and their positive ROIs:
The global market leader in high-end supercomputers Cray Inc. reports that their
650 phone VoIP deployment has “generated a seven-month payback on
investment and a 33% productivity increase in network support.” Cray says it has
saved “$30,000 in the first year in costs” that moves, additions, and changes to
its legacy PBX system would have generated. And Cray has realized savings of
“$25,000 annually in inter-office calling costs” after adding VoIP to its existing
network. Before making the final decision to go to VoIP, Cray “compared the cost
of Cisco’s telephony and data gear to the cost of selecting a PBX” and found that
“the upfront costs were equal.” In fact, it was only after they “factor[ed] in
additional operating costs and productivity benefits that Cray made the purchase
decision to go with an IP/PBX.” (Cisco)
67
Cisco Systems reports that “lower total costs of network ownership and positive
ROIs are the two key business drivers for using IP telephony.” They cite the
example of the H.B. Fuller Company, “a worldwide manufacturer and marketer of
specialty chemicals” that “expects to save approximately $2 million over five
years” from a VoIP deployment of 3,000 IP phones and unified messaging from
Cisco’s Unity product. H.B. Fuller claims that their VoIP ROI comes mainly from
“the reduction of $60,000 in annual network administration and training costs,
significant annual savings in inter-office calling charges, a $52,000 reduction in
wiring costs at one site alone, and the elimination of 85% of costs associated
with PBX upgrades.” And the company hopes “to save $37,000 annually” in costs
associated with moves, additions, and changes. (Cisco)
68
Below are some estimates of cost and ROI, extracted from a guide on The ROI
of VoIP published by Networkworld.com
1.1. Overall average installation costs
The VoIP implementation must expect to spend nearly $100,000 with a cost of
$17,220 for Baseline network assessment, $23,563 fro planning, $37,676 for
Installation and $13,396 for Trouble shooting.
Phases People hours Average cost
Baseline network $17,220
assessment
(Internal or external)
Planning 447 $23,563
Installation 631 $37,676
Troubleshooting 263 $13,396
Total 1,340 $91,845
Figure 6 - Overall average Installation costs
69
1.2. VoIP cost per unit
Companies with 1,000 or more users are able to show the lowest cost per unit
i.e., $525 when compared to $763 for Fewer than 100 number of users.
Number of users Operational Hardware Total cost
cost per user cost per unit per unit
(including
PBX)
Fewer than 100 $122 $641 $763
100-499 $136 $771 $907
500-999 $117 $548 $665
1,000 or more $37 $488 $525
Figure 7 - VoIP cost per unit
70
1.3. Circuit savings for converged networks
Companies can save money on international calls, access lines and POTS
charges depending on the usage. The average monthly costs and annual
savings were realizing same for midsize and large size organizations. There is no
significant variance in profitability.
Cost variable Small Midsize Large
Per-minute long 40% 20% 20% - 30%
distance —
international
Local loops (per 0 1 to 2 2 to 6
site)
Average monthly 0 $400 to $800 $800 to $2,400
cost (x $400 each)
Annual savings $4,800 to $9,600 $9,600 to $28,800
POTS lines (site 95% 75% 70%
100% IP)
Figure 8 - Circuit savings for converged networks
71
1.4. Cost details for Audio conferencing savings
VoIP can bring significant cost savings on audio and videoconferencing. When
cost prior to and costs after VoIP were analyzed between 800 person
professional services firm and 1000 person engineering firm, there is a significant
difference in costs and annual savings. Though the pay back is less for 1000
person engineering firm, the Annual savings were resulted than the other as like
monthly costs.
Costs 800-person 1,000 person engineering
professional firm
services firm
Per-minute price prior to VoIP 15 cents 19 cents
Per-minute price after VoIP 2 cents 1 cent
Minutes per month 180,000 27,000
Cost prior to VoIP $27,000 $5,000
Cost after VoIP $3,600 $250
Monthly savings $23,400 $4,750
Annual savings $280,800 $57,000
Equipment cost $132,000 $21,000
Payback in months Six months Four months
Figure 9 - Cost details for Audio conferencing savings
72
From the above it is evident that VoIP implementations results in high savings
with Low Break even time. The rate return is directly proportional to the number
of users.
73
Market Overview
“From year 2000 to 2005, the U.S. broadband Internet access market grew from
4.5 million subscribers to 41.3 million subscribers. Over the next five years, it is
expected to grow an additional 8 million subscribers. VoIP providers that rely on
broadband Internet access saw revenue increase from $ 5 million in 2003 to
$500 million in 2004, and then top $1.1 billion in 2005. Their revenue is projected
to reach $5.1 billion by 2009, according to the Telecommunications Industry
Association’s (TIA’s) newly released TIA’s 2006”
Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast: TIA predicts that the number
of VoIP subscribers would grow from 2005’s 4 Million subscribers to 18 Million
subscribers by 2009. Large enterprises have been taking advantage of these
trends for the past 10 years to reduce telecommunication costs between sites.
With the adoption of VoIP, businesses are demanding that broadband providers
deliver high-quality and continuous connectivity. Broadband carriers who cannot
deliver an acceptable level of quality are having a difficult time retaining their
customers.
From a consumer perspective, broadband is a now more than just a $40 per
month portal to the Web, but a new avenue for feature-rich telecommunications,
video, and television. Also, beneficial to end-users is the reduction of monthly
charges for access as traditional mainstream services continue to leverage
broadband connections.” (8x8.com)
74
Future of VoIP in the field of CRM:
The broadband Internet impacts the growth of VoIP market. As many potential
VoIP customers are looking for features like voicemail to email notification and
online account management, VoIP phone service is quickly becoming a logical
alternative to costly traditional phone service solutions.
Over the past ten years, the market for VoIP has been driven by several factors,
chiefly the promise of inexpensive voice communication. As the cost of the
traditional phone systems have raised, with increased tariff rates and without
addition of new features, the customers tend to go for a new alternative which is
affordable and that offers convenience and efficiency.
As VoIP results in cost savings and early ROI, service providers can pass on this
savings to its customers. Also the adoption or expansion is also becoming very
easy, the growth of VoIP especially in contact centers is growing day by day.
The facility of multi-platform adaptability and compatibility with different networks
like wire line and wireless, makes the VoIP as an upcoming technology in the
telecom world.
75
Michael Brito, in his article on VoIP for Small Business, “A No Brainer gives a
herald to SMBs that they need to be wise up and switch to VoIP and illustrates
that the growth of the VoIP future is due to the following factors:”
Ø Demand for lower cost phone service
Ø Carriers drive to reduce costs while providing more features
Ø Customers increased feature set without capital investments
Ø More dispersed workplace driven by tele-workers and best of breed
global hiring practices
Ø Improved quality and reliability of broadband networks enabling
Ø VoIP calls over standard broadband lines, as well as inexpensive
increased bandwidth capacity and
Ø New product innovations in VoIP segment that allow VoIP providers to
offer specific and unique services that are not currently offered through
traditional telephone products.
76
Chapter-3 - Research Methodology:
Research Approach:
As discussed in the sections above, the research objective is to study the impact
of VoIP on CRM, with a specific focus on the implication of this technology
deployment on the business application. Considering Dibb, Simkin, Pride, and
Ferrell’s (2001, p. 167) statement: "the researcher's challenge is not just
generating data, but in creating a vision from that data", the study also analyzes
the facts backing up the VoIP technology in different cases of implementation
and adopts the following approach.
The study identifies Historical Case study analysis as a suitable research
method for the present paper.
Historical Research studies focus on events that have led to a current interest
regarding a specific problem or issue. If this type of research is chosen, the
researcher considers a past situation that is related to an important current
situation, which requires investigation and reevaluation based on new
information.
As described by Jordan, Historical Research requires the collection of data and
other information concerning a significant past event and analyzes the data and
information to provide a comprehensive, objective description of it. This
methodology may include reconstructing a past event as it relates to a specific
theory or conceptual framework, which is why the current study tries to observe
the historical events and implications of the CRM organizations using VoIP.
77
The Historical Research procedure supplements the observation in which the
researcher seeks to test the authenticity of the reports or observations made by
others. As the study involves the observation of lot of technology articles and
reports produced by technocrats and industry experts, the present study finds the
Historical Research approach to be most suitable.
Also, the study needs to present facts from reporting events and conditions that
are suitable with VoIP implementation in the CRM industry, so the Historical
Research approach is taken.
78
Case Study Approach:
Case studies are the preferred research strategy when 'how', 'what', and 'why'
questions are being asked, when the researcher has little control over the event,
or when the research is being carried out in a real-life context (Burns, 1990; Yin,
1988). Yin (1988, p.23) defines a case study as:
“An empirical study that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-
life context; when the boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not
clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used”.
Case studies also allow a researcher to “reveal the multiplicity of factors which
have interacted to produce the unique character of the entity that is the subject of
study” (Yin, 1988, p.82).
Yin (1994) recommended the use of case-study protocol as part of a carefully
designed research project that would include the following sections:
• Overview of the project (project objectives and case study issues)
• Field procedures (credentials and access to sites)
• Questions (specific questions that the investigator must keep in mind
during data collection); and
• Guide for the report (outline, format for the narrative) (Yin 1994, p. 64)
The unit of analysis is a critical factor in the case study. It is typically a system of
action rather than an individual or group of individuals. Case studies tend to be
79
selective, focusing on one or two issues that are fundamental to understanding
the system being examined.
Case studies are multi-perspectival analyses. This means that the researcher
considers not just the voice and perspective of the actors, but also the relevant
groups of actors and the interaction between them. This one aspect is a salient
point in the characteristic that case studies possess. They give a voice to the
powerless and voiceless. When sociological studies present many studies of the
homeless and powerless, they do so from the viewpoint of the "elite"(Feagin,
Orum, & Sjoberg, 1991).
An attempt is made to establish the facts in order to arrive at conclusions
concerning past events or to predict future events with the emergence and
impact of diverse network technologies to arrive at the VoIP impact on CRM.
80
Advantages in Using the Historical Case Study Approach:
As the study involves a review of academic and technology research papers, it is
not possible to do a direct or experimental research study due to the costs
involved in direct experimenting.
The current approach offers the following advantages:
• The researcher is not physically involved in the situation under study.
• No danger of experimenter-subject interaction.
• Documents are located by the researcher, data is gathered, and
conclusions are drawn out of sight.
81
Data Gathering Methods:
In an attempt to collect the data, the study used the steps provided below:
Isolating the problem: The problem statement has been defined as “The Real
Impact Of VoIP in the field of CRM”.
Collect source materials, including primary and secondary sources: The
study gathers literature on different research opinions regarding the convergence
of VoIP with CRM. The study also collects industry facts from the articles and
news blogs to support the assumptions gathered.
Evaluate source material: The study evaluates the facts and assumptions in the
light of the case studies to identify the real impact of VoIP on CRM.
Formulate hypotheses: The study then intends to draw up the hypothesis.
Report and interpret findings: The study purposes to interpret the analysis as
findings in the coming section to determine the real impact of VoIP on CRM.
Sources of Information:
The study uses a secondary source of information such as books, Internet
sources, technology tutorials, news articles, online blogs, periodicals, and review
of the existing research, and other references to collect facts on the technology
82
architecture, assessments, and evaluates them with the case studies on VOIP
implementation to draw conclusions.
Originality & Validity of Data:
The collected information is checked with source authentication through proper
citations. Internal criticism is used by the researcher, to validate the accuracy and
relevance of the source with reference to the scope of the research. An unbiased
argument of sources is considered to make the study competent and honest. The
validity of the data is also maintained by using the latest and current information
on arguments and trend news.
Limitations of the Study:
The study also has the following limitations:
Ø Time: As a period of study becomes the major limitation,
determining the impact of the technology on the business outcomes
becomes time-consuming and one cannot consider the direct
observation of results.
Ø Available resources: The scope of the books and literature is quite
limited.
Ø Previous research: There is no significant research dealing directly
with the convergence of VoIP on CRM, limiting the established
facts for the study.
Ø The inherited limitations of the approach: As stated by Yin (1994),
“The body of literature in case study research is ‘primitive and
83
limited’ in comparison to that of experimental or quasi-experimental
research. The requirements and inflexibility of the latter forms of
research make case studies the only viable alternative in some
instances. It is a fact that case studies do not need to have a
minimum number of cases, or to randomly ‘select’ cases. The
researcher is called upon to work with the situation that presents
itself in each case.”
Summary:
The current approach intends to follow the Historical Case study approach, as
this is suitable to fact-finding and the observation of facts under relative case
studies. For this purpose, the researcher will collect information from secondary
sources including books, journals, online articles, and periodicals that have
published information on VoIP and CRM. Finally, the study observes the case
studies of CRM organizations implementing VoIP technology to observe the
direct scope of the study.
84
Methodology
Approach
As suggested by Yin (1994) the three principles of data collection for case
studies, are:
1. Using multiple sources of data
2. Creating a case study database
3. Maintaining a chain of evidence
The rationale for using multiple sources of data is the triangulation of evidence.
Triangulation increases the reliability of the data and the process of gathering it.
In the context of data collection, triangulation corroborates the data gathered
from other sources.
This study adopts the case study evaluation method and the document study
method to prove the hypothesis.
Case study observation provides very engaging and real time explorations of the
technological implementations of the topic. The study identifies the driving factors
and the challenges involved in the application of VoIP in the real time setting of
Call centers. The study observes the real impact of this technology up gradation
on the Customer Relation Management of the cases under study. The study has
taken content analysis provided in the form of Cases that are closely related with
85
the topic assumptions. The study observes the Narrative case study evaluation
by considering the cases of Click communications and Keycom Solutions.
Along with the case study evaluation, the study also performs Document study to
bring out a basic understanding of VoIP scenario in the field of CRM. The study
directly uses the abstracts and excerpts from several sources, to maintain the
meticulousness of the information. The types of documents used for the study
includes, study reports, online articles and journals. The validity of the documents
is maintained through proper citations.
The present study not only identifies the micro level impacts like cost and
technicality, but also observes the macro level issues like policy regulations and
the impact of Broadband regulations on the future of VoIP.
Hence case study analysis is chosen to observe the while comparing with the
real time experiences of Contact centers on implementation of VoIP.
The case study evaluation adds the knowledge to the current database on VoIP
impact on CRM among different industry sectors in the following ways.
Ø The broad, complex questions in implementation of VoIP with CRM are
addressed with reference to contact centers
Ø The individual experiences are observed, rather than standardized,
outcomes in general
86
Ø Provides a focus on sensitive issues like Costs and ROI while
concentrating with individual case.
Ø Illustrates relevant particular technical issues and highlights the issues
under the scope of the study.
Ø Demonstrates and communicates the impact of VoIP over CRM.
87
Objectives of Case study evaluation
The current study settings have the following objectives:
Ø Increasing the understanding of what CRM companies should and
should not do in implementing the VoIP successfully.
Ø Building the skills in assessing company resource strengths and
weaknesses and in conducting strategic analysis before and during
VoIP implementation and in facing competitive and expansion
situations.
Ø Getting valuable practice in identifying strategic issues that need to be
addressed while planning, implementing, evaluating strategic
alternatives, and formulating workable plans of action.
Ø Enhancing the sense of business judgment, as opposed to uncritically
accepting the authoritative crutch of the professor or "back-of-the-
book" answers.
Ø Gaining in-depth exposure into the field of CRM performance with a
shift VoIP, thereby acquiring something close to actual business
experience.
88
The strengths of this method are as follows:
Cases are stable. The variability of data is completely eliminated. As the
published data of the organizations doesn’t vary at a single instance of time, the
information is stable.
Cases are unobtrusive. Cases publish the rich profile of the organizations in
context to the topic under study.
The Cases gives exact information with names and figures
The cases being rich in information presents the broad coverage based on the
time span of the case.
Data Gathering Method
Case selection
The study used information oriented sampling while selecting the sampling rather
than random Sampling (Flyvbjerg 2006). As random sampling may not provide
information relevant to the topic, the cases that do provide relevant information
on problems and challenges involved in the contact centers and impact of VoIP
on CRM are taken. In addition, the deeper reasons to adopt a shift and growth in
income after the shift are can be understood through published figures and facts
of the cases.
89
Random samples emphasizing representativeness will seldom produce this kind
of insight; it is more appropriate to select a few cases chosen for their validity.
The study observes Paradigmatic cases as suitable to identify the impact and
scenario of VoIP technology on CRM practice.
Given the amount of time needed to compile a comprehensive case study,
careful and purposive selection of the particular cases to be studied is crucial.
Hence the cases of Click communications and KEYcom solutions are identified,
as both of them have the purpose of enhancing CRM by implementing VoIP.
90
Database of Study
Case studies
1. KEYCOM
The case study extracted from Techland website and used as it is basis to retain
the facts
The Customer:
Keycom is a telephone and Internet Service provider based in Midlands offering
services to major voice carriers in across the worldwide with a prominence in
U.K.
The profile of the company includes designing, developing, installing and delivers
communications solutions and services for the UK’s tertiary education market.
The company offered a number of proprietary systems and applications to
improve communication and MIS of higher education organizations. The service
base of Keycom includes more than 50,000 UK students at more than 160
locations.
The Challenge:
Keycom used high-cost IDN lines for telephony and dial-up access for internet
connections to student accommodation locations and Keycom’s Central Services
Platform in Manchester.
91
Keycom was paying nearly 1.1 and 4 pence per minute. Running costs were
about £200,000 per year to provide services to 14 sites for University College,
London. And day-by-day Keycom is experiencing the demand for non-metered
Internet access. Flexibility for the existing applications in terms of call capacity
became poor with the PBX system. The Quality of Service also became poor with
the PSTN fail-over. With this DASS-II interoperability was also became difficult to
maintain.
The growing demand of Keycom services made it difficult for the company to
reduce operational costs, increase margin and also to expand the business with
new services. This made the company to think of the pre-paid un-metered
Internet service offered through VoIP telephony system. The solution that it plans
to implement should be transparent to the end users. The company also needed
to cut two-thirds of its operational costs.
The Solution:
After the initial consultation with multiple VoIP vendors like Storm, Quintum, Pace
and Cisco, the company planned a profitable business case to its shareholders to
bag £600,000 for a six-site VoIP pilot project.
The company was looking for VoIP installation for channel-by-channel
aggregation, DASS-II, ISDN fall back with low cost. This has been provided by
Quintum technologies by offering carrier-class, legacy PBX interoperability,
92
modular switches, wide variety of codecs and the equipment to install with a
minimum training.
At the beginning, Keycom installed VoIP at six sites, and achieved a quick ROI,
with the evidence of this; Keycom expanded its VoIP installation to another site,
making a total of 28 sites. The VoIP architecture for Keycom business functions
includes 59 D3000 switches to student accommodation points and a fully
populated carrier multi-path switch at its Central Service Platform. This
configuration handles 32 x E1s for a maximum of 960 simultaneous voice
channels.
The Result:
Keycom realized the ROI from VoIP implementation within two to eight months
on a site-by-site basis. The profit gain was so recognizable to investors that they
started looking for more VoIP implementations to accommodate more service
lines.
The running costs were reduced from £200,000 per year to £20,000 per year at
UCL where a voice and data network was installed at an affordable cost of
£50,000.
The reliability of the company on VoIP is so evident with the complete absence of
PSTN lines at eight sites.
93
The company has taken a minimum service configuration from the vendor for first
few switches, then continued installing on their own by training eight of their
engineers. And now it has made its capability to ship a pre-configured Tenor to a
site, which can be easily plugged in at the site.
The modularity offered by Tenor switches made the company ready to sustain
the demand levels of different sites. The company was benefited from the wide
variety of codecs offered by the vendor through Tenor switches and with an
additional offer of DASS-II compatibility.
The company is also benefited by economizing the Packet size by opting for
packet server option, which reduces the VoIP bandwidth requirement, which was
proven by testing it. The metered services were benefited from accurate clocking
sources of Tenor switches.
The total savings of Keycom VoIP installation were drawn from on line
installation, line rental and call costs. With this Keycom could offer a choice of a
reliable, affordable, pre-paid or un-metered voice and data services called
KeyTalk and KeySurf to the students.
The VoIP implementation offered the Keycom a no-risk ability to migrate
gradually to VoIP, extremely rapid return on VoIP project investment, high Quality
of Service (QoS) to maintain CRM, and high speed of project deployment.
94
DATA PANEL
Sites served by VoIP 28 universities such as Aston, Cranfield, Edinburgh,
Exeter, Hertfordshire, UCL, London Institute, Loughborough, Salford, Sussex,
UOL.
VoIP switches 59 Quintum Tenor D3000s and 1 Quintum CMS960
Network Fibre between Tenors, Manchester CSP hub and ISP POPs ranging
from 10-60Mbps
Tenor interoperability Huawei routers, DigiTalk soft switch, Cisco AS5300,
various legacy PBXs
95
Figure 10 - Architecture of VoIP implementation at Keycom
Source: http://www.Techland.com
96
2. CLICK COMMUNICATIONS
The case study extracted from Techland website and used as it is basis to retain
the facts
The Challenge:
Click Communications is a wing of communications of KBS, Promotions of
Bradford, which is in the textile business with UK retailers. The organization has
nearly 300 distributors throughout the UK.
Click wanted to establish effective communication with all these distributors and
also wanted to enhance its retail customer relationship through more personal
contact. But the company perceived the cost of establishing a call center in U.K
is very expensive with high office overheads and HR costs. So the company was
looking to offshore the call center activities from Sri Lanka, where it could
achieve 50% of reduction in office set up and HR costs.
However, the major threat to the company at this point of decision stage is the
cost of telephone charges from Sri Lanka to UK, which costs more than the cost
of the office set up in UK. In this scenario, Click was looking for an easy and
affordable solution to establish its call center in Sri Lanka.
Solution:
97
The management of the company came to know that VoIP implementation would
help them to execute their new business plan, so they consulted with Quintum
Technologies.
Then Click was introduced to Techland Group, which is the UK partner of
Quintum Technologies. Techland is a specialist in converged voice and data
solution with 20 years of data communication experience. Techland
demonstrated the Tenor VoIP benefits to Click. With this Click decided on the
Tenor switches, which are well known as cost effective and intelligent VoIP
switches. Tenor switches reduce costs by eliminating costly ancillary equipment
and cost of software deployment engineers.
Click initially deployed one Tenor A800 VoIP switch in the month of March that
handled about 700 calls per day from Srilanka to UK through its eight call
centers. After examining the initial performance, Click has made another
deployment of second Tenor A800 VoIP switch in Colombo.
The technology back ground for the Click's successful VoIP implementation for
its CRM is as follows:
Click's operations involve only passage of voice traffic. Data transmission is not
practiced. The telephonic system in srilanka doesn't use PABX switchboard, but
instead operates on Tenor Switches.
98
The VoIP calls are routed over an Internet link of 128kbps and terminated in the
UK at a managed Tenor CMS carrier-class switch at Telehouse in London. From
Telehouse, the calls are routed to the customer over low cost PSTN lines. To
combine the packetised voice calls from all 16 call centers in Srilanka, the
implementation uses compression software called Packet Saver. This software
combines the packetised voice calls into a one IP header on the 128k
Internet link. The specialty of the deployment is that click does use any network
management tools, but relies on standard Internet connection for call
performance. The call metrics show that Click maintains a round trip call delay of
less than 500ms.
Result of VoIP implementation on Click Communications:
As a result of VoIP implementation in Sri Lanka, Click is now paying less than the
BT standard tariff for all the outbound calls from Sri Lanka to the U.K. This is
used to maintain good customer relations within the U.K., saving the office set up
costs and HR costs in the U.K.
Click is also experiencing reliable calls by using Tenor switches and is expanding
its customer list in the new areas. In another terms Tenor switches offered low
cost, guaranteed call quality and ease of use to the call center operations of Click
communications.
99
The company could save 50% of its overhead costs immediately by making it
possible to establish a call center in Sri Lanka. Considering only call charges, the
company expects to see a complete return on investment in another few months
by this VoIP deployment.
Now Click's call center operations are running with 16-full time operators making
about 2500 calls per day. This has allowed Click communications to develop
effective Customer Relationship Management with UK customers to increase
textile sales in the UK, while communicating from Sri Lanka.
Validity of Data
Validity is one of the main concerns with research. "Any research can be affected
by different kinds of factors which, while extraneous to the concerns of the
research, can invalidate the findings" (Seliger & Shohamy 1989, 95). Controlling
for all possible factors that threaten the research's validity is a primary
responsibility of every good researcher.
The study is thoroughly checked for internal validity with a proper balance in the
structure of design and adoption of appropriate research instruments. The
adoption of case study evaluation is highly suitable to find out the impact of the
VoIP implementation over CRM by observing the cases of Contact centers.
"Findings can be said to be internally invalid because they may have been
affected by factors other than those thought to have caused them, or because
100
the interpretation of the data by the researcher is not clearly supportable" (Seliger
& Shohamy 1989, 95).
101
The internal validity of the data is checked, with the following factors:
Ø Subject variability: The study has taken care to avoid subject
variability, by keeping concentration on the hypothesis through out the
structure of the paper
Ø Historical evidence: While considering the Case study selection the
study observed the historical background of the companies chosen.
Ø Maturation: the study also observed the maturity of the cases taken
and Industry before commenting and summarizing the issue
Ø Instrument/task sensitivity: the study is purely valid in terms of
instrumentation, as it intends to observe the impact of VoIP on the real
world scenario of CRM.
The study is also checked for the external validity by generalizing the findings to
a larger group of companies that are not involved in the study and to the other
sectors of Industry other than CRM, to observe the general technical
architecture, standards and environment of VoIP.
"Findings can be said to be externally invalid because [they] cannot be extended
or applied to contexts outside those in which the research took place" (Seliger &
Shohamy 1989, 95).
102
The study has checked for the external validity with the following factors:
Ø Population characteristics (subjects)
Ø Interaction of subject selection and research
Ø Descriptive explicitness of the independent variable
Ø The effect of the research environment
Ø Researcher or experimenter effects
Ø Data collection methodology
Ø The effect of time
Originality and Limitation of Data
The study proves its originality by taking a key issue such as the real impact of
VoIP in the field of CRM, which has not been given attention in any prior studies.
The study adds a new dimension to the knowledge base of VoIP on CRM.
The current study has the following limitations:
Ø The information retrieval from the cases is bit difficult and limited, subject
to the scope of the information present in the case.
Ø Biased selectivity may also intrude based the limited selection of the
cases.
Ø Subjectivity of the researcher during case selection and reporting the
analysis may also fall in to this category.
103
Summary
The study has observed the case study evaluation of Click Communications and
Keycom Solutions. The document study reveals the inputs of architecture of
VoIP, the emerging trends of VoIP and in CRM, and the reasons for the CRM
field to adopt VoIP, the benefits and risks of adaptation and the market growth
and future trend of VoIP in CRM. The information maintained its validity with
proper citations and has observed few limitations in case study evaluation.
104
CHAPTER-4
Data Analysis
By analyzing the facts published by Techland about the the two cases Keycom
and Click communications, the study makes the following interpretation.
In both Keycom Solutions and Click Communications, the VoIP shift has realized
cost savings through:
Ø Labor cost reductions as a result of networking centers over IP.
Ø Savings on Call tariffs even from different locations
Ø Expansion of business without cost increment
Ø There is a dramatic savings through 50% reduction in operating costs in
both the cases
Ø The Break even time is also very less
Ø Keycom realized the ROI from VoIP implementation within two to eight
months on a site-by-site basis.
Ø Expansion of business activities became very simple and sophisticated
Ø Both the cases used hardware implementations for VoIP deployment with
built in software compatibility.
The study also found that the rapid adoption of VoIP technology in today’s
contact center is more customer-centric effort than ever before. A typical contact
center offers different modes of customer contact. In general the Contact centers
adopt service models like immediate assistance, deferred assistance, or
engaging with the company via self-service.
105
The immediate assistance service model delivered through live agents,
immediate e-mail replies and web chat. Deferred assistance service models
come with automated response systems along with the earlier mentioned
features. Whereas, self-service features are delivered over the web in the form of
knowledge base information or over the phone via an IVR. (McFadden, Joseph)
A contact center can use one or more of the above options depending on the role
it has to play in the industry for effective CRM, through certain advanced features
like, “follow me” messaging, and voice/video/whiteboard conferencing tools. The
integration of these models again depends on the hardware and software the
contact centers are using with cost of investment as baseline for any kind of
adoption. Herein lies the advantage of VoIP Collaboration in CRM, eliminating
the inefficiency of the Silos Architecture design of the hardware and software
integration.
The VoIP technology integrates all three-customer service models into a single,
consolidated software application on the corporate network. Today’s VoIP based
customer response management applications are coming as pure software
architectures facilitating the companies to deploy it very easily to escalate the
functionalities of CTI to routing of customer database.
106
And among the reasons for the contact centers to shift to VoIP, the study found
that along with cost efficiency, the features offered by the solution also make
sense.
Customer needs, Customer responses, Customer value to the business are the
priority issues in Customer response management. With an integrated Customer
response system, the contact centers can respond to the needs of basic and
valued customers with a variety of services. VoIP attributes such feature of
accumulating data of customers, those who contact the company through
different modes like, Phone, e-mail, chat or SMS.
Companies strategize their promotional activities to fit their customer database.
When a company has different databases loaded with customer responses
through different modes of contacts separately like, e-mail, live agents, web or
phone, the data amalgamation and targeting will be time consuming and may
result in duplication. Such arduous work will be made easy by the VoIP
integration by maintaining a single customer response database on a converged
platform of voice and data communications.
Consolidating, comparing and analyzing becomes very smooth through a single
administration and decisions making will become much sophisticated very quickly
and affordably.
107
Traditional customer contact-routing or contact-handling applications like ACD,
IVR, etc. have been built around a vertical solution approach which is costly and
complex to deploy with less interoperability of different solutions and networks.
The current infrastructure for contact centers is less cumbersome and has a set
of telephony-based switching components sitting on the telephony network; a set
of data applications (CRM, e-mail, chat, etc.) sitting on the data network, and a
third layer that consists of plenty of CTI hardware and middleware to integrate
the voice and data components. This third layer is costly to maintain and add
new items under expansion.
Those that have gone all the way to integrating CRM with an IP telephony
system have had to rely on a system integrator to create specialist software, off
course, which is lengthy and an expensive process.
The new software integration of VoIP-CRM allows companies to leverage a
common hardware platform for all enterprise applications, typically based on low-
cost generic servers. The network layer relies on the company's IP data network.
The contact center's voice and data are carried over this single network. The
software layer sits on top of the network layer and is based on a set of industry
standards (e.g., VXML, XML, VoIP, SIP, SOAP, ODBC) adopted by vendors to
support interoperability and faster deployment. And finally, the application layer,
108
call routing and queuing, IVR, self-service applications, Web chat, etc., are built
according to these standards.
This integration offers the benefits of deployment as well as benefits of contact
centers in terms of Low-cost deployment, Interoperability, New distributed
architecture and Multimedia contact routing on a single platform.
The difference between vertical telephony-based solutions and horizontal
software-only solutions lies in its integration approach. The integration for
telephony-based solutions occurs in the telephony switching components. In the
software-only, in contrast, the integration occurs at the desktop and application
layer, dramatically lowering the complexity of integration.
To aid the growth of VoIP in the field of CRM, the giants Cisco and Microsoft
have brought a single platform software package for VoIP-CRM.
Cisco, in partnership with Microsoft, has launched this package for the benefit of
small and midsize contact centers seeking a more cost-effective solution.
According to Peter Alexander, vice president of Cisco's commercial market
segment, the “purpose of the new software is to simplify the effort it takes to
make the vendors' products work together”. The vendors' coordinated
development efforts should make it easier for resellers to set up these systems
109
and therefore less expensive for businesses without the in-house expertise to
implement the integrated systems, he says, “With Microsoft’s emergence in
CRM, as a key player, the industry expects a massive growth of VoIP
convergence with CRM. Cisco also feeling confident that their business will grow
much better with the advent of Software partnership. Now it is looking forward to
fill the gap.“
110
CHAPTER 5
Summary
The study the real impact of VOIP in the field of CRM has tried to analyze the
advantages and disadvantages of VOIP in CRM. In order to understand this, the
study has closely observed the functional architecture of VOIP, the security
protocols,
The study observed the list of technologies that are being used by CRM
applications and the technologies that are the evolutionary ones in VOIP
technologies like, PBX, Router based, PC based and multi path switching
gateways. Then the study observed the shortfalls f the traditional phone system
adaptability for CRM and found that the normal phones are expensive, high
resource utilizing, non scalable, lethargic and are offering poor data transmission
services. Then the study observed the specific business advantages of VOIP for
CRM like- Unified Messaging/Converged Communications, Call Identification and
Routing, Call Recording and Monitoring, IP Paging, Date Tracking and Reporting
facilities, etc., which are highly demanding at this age of customer service.
Then the study found Cost savings, improved efficiency and productivity,
Simplification and consolidation and Improved capability as the driving reasons
for the CRM industry to prefer VoIP.
111
Then the research has made a detailed observation on what to consider before
moving to the deployment of VOIP for CRM and strongly recommends for having
a concrete business plan, implementation plan with deployment and support
functionalities as a part of risk reduction practice.
The study also made a detailed observation on the technological architecture of
VOIP and the major components like Call processing server, User devices,
Media/VoIP gateways and IP Network with illustration of pictures. The study
made a point on Quality of Service and the Standards and protocols that are
supporting VOIP.
The study also observed the general myths, the industry has regarding VOIP and
tries to overrule them while giving the facts to consider for the implementation.
Under Implementation issues with VOIP, the study observed the aspects like -
Functionality for interoperability, reliability, availability and accessibility, Fault
tolerance and management, Accounting and call billing, Configuration
management, Addressing and directory management, Access control,
authentication and encryption, Security, Legal considerations and Network
deployment.
The factors that influence VoIP growth for CRM are observed as Simplified
CRM integration, saving in money, converged data transmission, Best routing of
contact on the network, leverage on investments etc., Flexibility, Efficiency and
Scalability are the parameters for Productivity impact of CRM with VoIP.
112
As part of risks involved with VOIP for CRM, the study observed Voice quality
and availability, Application contention, MAC-related risks
The Challenges involved in the VoIP implementation of CRM are found to be
Reliability, Securing the Line, Security issues’ Impact on Quality of Service,
Interoperability Concerns, Providing 911 Emergency Services (E911), Processor
Drain etc.,
The study identifies the areas of significant cost Impact of VoIP when compared
to the normal network.
Free calls without tariff and Long distance savings are the part of Capital and
expensive savings. And the converged network results in Infrastructure Savings
like - Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TOC), Reduced Instrumentation cost,
Facility to expand and change of single network, Desktop cost efficiencies, Easy
and fast efficiency tool upgrades, Reduced wiring costs, Easy transit to wireless
infrastructures, Efficient database maintenance through Unified messaging
(integration of data and voice files), Productivity Savings, Management and
support savings, Employee productivity enhancements, Maintenance, upgrades,
and additions etc.,
The study made some estimates of cost and ROI and highlights the savings like-
The Overall average installation costs, VoIP cost per unit, Circuit savings for
converged networks and Cost details for Audio conferencing savings.
The study made a Historical Research approach in eliciting the above facts and
also observed case study approach to identify the above facts in the practical
scenario.
113
The study analyzed the case studies- Key com and Click communications
published by Techland which is a tenor switch provider of VOIP.
By using the Tenor switch solution, Key com, which is a internet connection
provider to student locations, achieved a quick ROI within two to eight months on
a site-by-site basis in 28 sites.
And the other case published by Techland is of click Communications which
maintains a communication network with its distributors. This company has
observed to experience reliable calls by using Tenor switches and is expanding
its customer list in the new areas. Also the company could save 50% of its
overhead costs immediately by making it possible to establish a call center in Sri
Lanka.
The overall costs savings agreed from the literature and the case study approach
include- Labor cost reductions, Savings on Call tariffs, Expansion of business
without cost increment, dramatic savings through 50% reduction in operating
costs, Less Break even time, ease of use of deployment with built-in software of
hardware installation.
Against the perception of all odds of the technology, the study found that there is
an increasing demand for VOIP adaptability among CRM implementers.
114
Recommendations
The study encourages contact centers that are trying to deploy VoIP to have a
concrete business plan to figure out the features required to derive the cost of
such configuration. Savings from the deployment are to be well planned and
projected from administrative and implementation areas.
The other recommendation includes the usage of integration software for the
deployment rather than third party software integration to get more
interoperability and savings, if the firm is small to medium size.
Recommendations for Future Implications:
The recent trends in broadband migration to Voice over IP and the growth in
notebook sales has increased the concentration of technology from desk top
technology to wireless networks. Also the recent Mobile technologies like
WiMAX extend the broadband wireless beyond the limits of existing technologies.
In this context, the extended vision of VOIP technology needs to be observed for
customer support through wireless devices.
So the current research recommends investigating further on the deployment and
implication factors of VOIP for the wireless and mobile applications to increase
the sector growth in Industry.
115
Conclusions
Several factors are driving the adoption of VoIP. Reduced telecommunications
costs are obviously one of them. By bypassing carrier toll charges, companies
can significantly cut their phone costs even as their call volume continues to rise.
It is also less expensive to own one network rather than two. So, by moving to a
converged voice-and-data network, the contact centers can reduce both their
infrastructure costs and their overall management overhead. A converged
network also reduces the expense of setting up new offices and supporting other
types of organizational change.
The study also found that the Customer Relationship Management is greatly
affected by the upcoming VoIP and multimedia-enabled networks. These new
generation applications improve employee productivity and customer care which
are the hot demands of today’s’ business models. Finally the study makes a
recommendation on further research of VOIP deployment on CRM through
wireless channels.
116
BIBILOGRAPHY
Brito, Michael. “Internet-based Phone Service for Small to Mid-size Companies”.
03 Sep 2006. <http://www.8x8.com/file.php/156/White+Paper+-
+Virtual+Office+May+2006.pdf>
Britto, Michael. “VoIP for Small Business: A No Brainer”. 03 Sep 2006. 22 Oct
2006.
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/59143/voip_for_small_business_a_no
_brainer.html>
Bednarz, Ann. "Microsoft offer VoIP/CRM package". Network World, 30 Aug
2004. 07 Sep 2006.
<http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3649/is_200408/ai_n9410062>
Burkardt, Tom. “CRM Platforms Need a Voice for Collaboration.” CRM Platforms
Need a Voice for Collaboration - VoIP Magazine Online 15 Mar 2006: Page 1-3.
29 Apr 2006. < http://www.voip-magazine.com/content/view/2402/0/1/0/ >.
Burns, Robert B. Introduction to research methods. 4th ed. London: SAGE, 2000.
“Cisco: 12 New IP-Based Telephony Products,” Unified Communications Alert,
<http://www.ucalert.com/2001_issues/1101-6.html#Cisco:%2012%20New%20IP-
Based%20Telephony%20Products>
117
Coggins, James. “BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR VOIP.” 3 Feb 2004: Page
32-46. 15 Feb 2006.
<http://searchvoip.techtarget.com/searchEnterpriseVoice/downloads/CiscoEvolch
2.pdf>.
Dibbs, S. Simkin., L. Pride, W. M., and Ferrell, O. C. Marketing Concepts and
Strategies, 4th ed. Houghton Miffin Company, U.S.A.
Feagin, Joe R., Anthony M Orum, Gideon Sjoberg. A case for case study. Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1991.
Friedman, Matthew. ”Five Steps To Take Before Implementing VoIP”. Networking
Pipeline | Five Steps To Take Before Implementing VoIP 16 May 2005: Page 1.
05 Jan 2006. <http://www.networkingpipeline.com/handson/163103851>.
Gareiss, Robin. “The ROI of VoIP”. A step-by-step guide to determining the true
cost and benefits of VoIP. Network World, 07 Nov 2005. 10 May 2006. <
http://www.networkworld.com/research/2005/071105-voip.html?page=1>
Gregory, Richard. “VoIP In Business”. CRM in the VoIP era. Feb 2005.
December 2005. < http://www.voipinbusiness.co.uk/VoIPdecisionsCRM.asp>
Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm, HarperBusiness, New York, NY, 1991,
ISBN 0-88730-519-9.
118
John Q. Walker and Jeffrey T. Hicks, Chapter One: Building a Business Case for
VoIP: The Essential Guide to VoIP Implementation and Management,
<http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/Resources/12258/MNT2005/Assignment%20
2%20Resources/VoIP%20and%20IP%20Telephony/NetIQ_VoIP_Chapter1.pdf>
“Making VoIP Work for You”. 11 July 2006.
<www.heartlandtechnologies.com/Newsletters/Customers/Panurgy/Making_VoIP
_work_foryou_Feb06.htm>
Marin Perez, News: 2005 Was a Good Year for VoIP Service Revenue, July 27,
2006, <http://www.voip-news.com/news/voip-revenue-report-072706/>
McFadden, Joseph. “The Impact of VoIP on the Customer Service Experience”.
18 Oct 2004. 07 May 2006.
<http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=4491>
McFadden, Joseph. “VoIP Cost Effectively Simplifies the Integration of CRM with
the Contact Center”. 21 June 2006.
<http://www.crm2day.com/highlights/EEpFpFFFZVPIFuhAhM.php?topic=299068
>
Moore, Geoffrey A., Crossing the Chasm. New York: Harper Business, 1991.
119
News. Cisco Announces New IP-Based Telephony Products that Deliver
Tangible Return on Investment for Enterprise Customers. 29 Oct 2001. 12 May
2006. <http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/prod_102901b.html>
Seliger., Shohamy. “External and Internal Validity”. 1989. 07 Aug 2006
<http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/henrichsenl/ResearchMethods/RM_2_18.html >
Shunra Corporation. “Taking the Risk out of VoIP Deployment and Ownership”.
Seven Best Practices for Convergence Success. 10 March 2006.
http://www.v2oipqualityalliance.org/docs/VoIPWPFinal.pdf#search=%22The%20
primary%20risk%20associated%20with%20VoIP%20is%20the%20potential%20t
hat%20voice%20service%20may%20at%20times%20lose%20quality%20%E2%
80%93%20or%20fail%20entirely%20%22
Roberts, Chris. “VOICE OVER IP.” March 2005: Page 4. December 2005.
<http://www.ccip.govt.nz/ccip-publications/ccip-reports/voice_over_ip.pdf>
Roberts, Chris. “VOICE OVER IP SECURITY.” May 2005. December 2005.
<http://www.ccip.govt.nz/ccip-publications/ccip-reports/voice_over_ip_security.pd
f>
Torres, Johanne. “Special Report: Impact of VoIP Bypass on International Calling
Gradually Diminishes.” 20 May 2005. 18 Mar 2006.
<http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/enterprise-voip-gateways/enterprise-voip-
gateways-articles/voip-bypass-international-calling-diminishes.htm>.
120
JOHANNE TORRES, Impact of VoIP Bypass on International Calling Gradually
Diminishes, May 20, 2005, <http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/enterprise-voip-
gateways/enterprise-voip-gateways-articles/voip-bypass-international-calling-
diminishes.htm>
VoIP Case Study - Keycom. 15 May 2006.
<http://www.techland.co.uk/index/quintum_voip_case_keycom>
VoIP Case Study - Click Communications. 16 May 2006.
<http://www.techland.co.uk/index/quintum_voip_case_click>
Walker, John Q., Jeffrey T. Hicks. Taking charge of your VoIP project.
Indianapolis, IN: Cisco, 2004.
Walker, John Q., Jeffrey T. Hicks. The Essential Guide to VoIP Implementation
and Management. NetIQ Corporation: 2002. 21 Apr 2006.
<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:KDqND18ktZ0J:www.ete
-hager.ch/pages_press/downloads/VoIP%2520e-
book%2520chap%25202.pdf+related:KDqND18ktZ0J:scholar.google.com>
Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. 3rd ed. UK: SAGE,
2003.
121

Degree Level Dissertation

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Degree Level Dissertation

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

www.MA-Dissertations.

com Dissertation Writing Service

THE IMPACT OF VOIP

ON CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Faculty of [INSERT FACULTY NAME HERE]

[INSERT SCHOOL NAME HERE]

Of the Requirements of the Degree of

The ever-growing sector of customer relationship management (CRM)

depends on the network industry as a back-end hardware support for

communication. The current study observed voice-over-Internet protocol or VoIP

VoIP is able to solve the questions. Technology architecture of VoIP, VoIP

standards were closely observed. The myths of VoIP deployment,

impact of VoIP on CRM is analyzed under Productivity and Cost as prime

concentration. Return of investment in VoIP is understood in terms of costs at

implementation in two CRM companies – Key com and Click Communications.

complexity in technical adaptations resulted as major limitations of the

deployment. The study recommends for a thorough business plan before

pursuing technical deployment of VoIP for CRM and usage of integration

software as connector to realize the maximum interoperability and savings. Also

Wireless applications for wide spread utility of technology.

Chapter 1: Introduction .....................................................................................................1

Chapter 2: Literature Review .........................................................................................10

Cost Impact of VoIP ........................................................................................ 63

Chapter-3 - Research Methodology: ...........................................................................77

CHAPTER-4 ...................................................................................................................... 105

CHAPTER 5....................................................................................................................... 111

BIBILOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................. 117

Figure 1 - Simple VoIP System……………………………………………………37

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a process or

to develop stronger relationships with them.

it is sales- or service-related. An example of a CRM would be a database

containing detailed customer information that management and salespeople can

reference in order to match customer needs with products, inform customers of

fragmented records as it can save time in tracking communications and

transactions with a particular person.

More specifically, CRM is a business application derived from technology, and

confused as to how precisely it will benefit users and their customers.

implementation trend is continuing as a preferable deployment. But the risks,

doubts for the organization’s IT architectures in considering VoIP deployment.

insight into how the sector functions.

VoIP implementation is showing a rising index in the enterprise and

Purpose of the Study

These days, a growing number of enterprises are focusing their efforts on

building more comprehensive CRM models to enhance their customer relations.

Through the development of a more holistic, seamless and integrated approach,

– The competitive organizations want to offer customer services through call

customers. By connecting such live data, it’s possible to escalate performance

These CRM analytics need an uninterrupted linkage of client connectivity at low a

deployment of the technology for the profitability of the business application.

impact of VoIP on CRM.

Importance of the Study

implications as well as from a business prospective. Hence the study

concentrates on the architecture as well as the commercial aspects of the

know about the VoIP impact on CRM applications.

Scope of the Study

VoIP over CRM.

Ø Trends of Technologies in the field of CRM

Ø Considerations for the VoIP implementation to CRM

Ø The myths about VoIP

Ø The technological architecture required for VoIP for CRM

Ø Factors influencing VoIP growth in CRM

Ø Risks involved in the VoIP implementation of CRM

Ø Cost impact of CRM with VoIP

Ø The ROI of VoIP in CRM