Phone systems, what do people like?

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Were relocating our head office to much larger premises, our existing Avaya IP500 probably won't cut it for what we need!

I'm looking to put together a contact centre with 40+ agents and up to 60 normal office users. They're wanting reporting, call recording and wallboards. SMS and email integration would be nice. As far as im concerned a desktop app for the agents and CTI/screen pop ability is a must. They're also talking about handling automatic outbound calls

So what do people like, what neat new features are around at the moment? I've been out the loop for a bit, last time I put a new system in was about 5 years ago.

Not too bothered about reusing the existing handsets as I can use the system at another site. Anyone used the higher end avaya stuff? I quite like the IP Office for small deployments.

I've used Alcatel before which I liked and have a demo of the current kit in the new year. I also want to look at cisco.

I know a lot of it is personal taste, so what do people like?
 
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Cool I'll check it out, means we can reuse the existing phones I guess.

I thought the first suggestion around here was going to be asterisk, which i was ready to rubbish and dismiss. But looking at switchvox....:eek:, looks awesome!
 
Have a look at Mitel.

We have an Intertel (Bought by Mitel) and it's about the size you are looking at, options include call centre option etc. Very nice to use and easy to manage.
 
Cool I'll check it out, means we can reuse the existing phones I guess.

I thought the first suggestion around here was going to be asterisk, which i was ready to rubbish and dismiss. But looking at switchvox....:eek:, looks awesome!

You cannot go wrong with Avaya! :)

For SMS and email integration you could look at Avaya Aura Contact Centre, reporting is a cross between either CMS or the new (perhaps long term replacement) Avaya IQ.

If you need any info just shout!
 
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Another vote for Avaya. I've just rolled out 3 CM5.2 based systems across our group, big and small deployments and about to do another bigish one in the new year. Ranging from a single G450 with S8300 and about 80 stations to an S8800 with two G650s, custom messaging and wifi handsets with ~500 (mixed digital, analogue and IP) stations and growing. Each is as reliable and easy to manage as the next.

The fact I could do those upgrades with no formal training on that kind of scale is testement to the ease of use tbh.
 
Keep the IP500, it can handle everything you want to do upto 384 users.

For the call reporting you can use CCR and/or Oak Report 09 - CCR for the agents and then oak for all other users.

For call recording you would want Voicemail Pro with Contact centre.

For CTI/Screen popping you could use One-X (this is the replacement for phone manager).

For the automatic outbound calling I would recommend something like NMS-Adaptive - currently only tested this in a 6 user call centre, but it works very well.

NMS also do an SMS service - although never used it so cannot actually comment on it.

What do you mean by email integration?
 
Forgot to mention earlier, Wallboards and reporting are all handled by Avaya BCMS Vu. Which is client server. Server sits somewhere talking to the Call server and the clients either produce reports or drive wallboards or both.

It's a bit of a **** to set up but once its' working it ticks over for years without intervention.
For Call logging we use Tim Enterprise. But probably Tim Professional is better for smaller outfits.
(Though runs best in a VM because the obscure licenseing system pulls HDD serial number and thus craps itself on a raid5)
 
Oh, just reading pepp's post... reminded me, if you're interested in power/predictive dialing, the Noble Amcat are basically the daddy in that field, they also do specialise in other contact centre technologies. Might be a little belt & braces however, but IIRC they do scale and charge on a per seat basis.
 
Had good experiences and reliability NEC-Philips Neax IPS (medium sized enterprise) or Univerge (Total Scalability/Resilience) system with Zeacom CTI are probably worth a look.

http://www.nec-philips.co.uk/
http://www.zeacom.com/

Not sure they still make the Neax though... it's been a while

Will have a look, I used zeacom in my last place, albeit with a cisco PBX - it's exactly what I want, although not sure what cost is like.


Keep the IP500, it can handle everything you want to do upto 384 users.

For the call reporting you can use CCR and/or Oak Report 09 - CCR for the agents and then oak for all other users.

For call recording you would want Voicemail Pro with Contact centre.

For CTI/Screen popping you could use One-X (this is the replacement for phone manager).

For the automatic outbound calling I would recommend something like NMS-Adaptive - currently only tested this in a 6 user call centre, but it works very well.

NMS also do an SMS service - although never used it so cannot actually comment on it.

What do you mean by email integration?

The IP500 is great, but not for this purpose. Weak features, no redundancy (unless you buy another and then it's pretty poor redundancy), CCR is a bag of crap and were having to put a new system in anyway as they are moving individual departments.

By email integration, I'm thinking of what zeacom would call multimedia queuing.
 
There are various business phone systems out there in the market, each one of them offers different features. I think internet is the best place to look for quality business phone systems, you will find lot of options to choose from. Make sure that you see the reviews before taking the final decision. You can have a look at Alcatel phone systems too, as they have become very popular these days.
 
ShoreTel is well worth a look - has a full contact centre option with it.

If you are wanting to consider open source solutions, make sure you stick Trixbox on the list.
 
Good experience with Avaya, middle of the road with Cisco (it's capable and reliable but seems to find new and interesting ways to implement simple features - largely because they've never been a telecoms company, always a network one). Bad experience with Mitel, too many problems particularly with IP systems that didn't crop up with other vendors in exactly the same configuration, it's powerful but fragile and not that cheap.
 
ShoreTel is well worth a look - has a full contact centre option with it.

If you are wanting to consider open source solutions, make sure you stick Trixbox on the list.

I'd deem ShoreTel "ok" - it's not that good, it's not particularly bad either, if you do look into ShoreTel, don't get the 115 phones for people, they have a software switch in them which will kill any kind of large transfers over the network. We found this out the hard way when people were moaning about slow speeds, then had to fork out a load of money on 230's for where we had 115's. Awesome.
 
I'd deem ShoreTel "ok" - it's not that good, it's not particularly bad either, if you do look into ShoreTel, don't get the 115 phones for people, they have a software switch in them which will kill any kind of large transfers over the network. We found this out the hard way when people were moaning about slow speeds, then had to fork out a load of money on 230's for where we had 115's. Awesome.

The 115s are a basic handset - but are very much "unlocked" when used in conjunction with the Call Manager software. Not sure what you mean by "software" switch..but all ShoreTel handsets have a 2 port switch to allow daisy chaining from phone to PC (as is pretty much the case with any business-class VoIP handset). The IP115 only supports 100mb.

If Gigabit speeds are required, then you need a handset with a Gigabit switch such as the 230G, or simply don't daisy chain that particular machine off the phone (if capacity allows).

In fairness, this is the sort of thing that should really be established before buying a load of kit...I wouldn't have said it was a limitation of the system personally.
 
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I'd put a vote in against running PCs through phones full stop. It never performs that well at all even on Gigabit handsets. If I find myself short on data points in an office I tend to put the printers through them because they don't need all the access bandwidth. But it's always as a last resort.

PS. If you go with Avaya and manage to get VLAN Separation working properly on the 16xx handsets, get in touch. I'm convinced it just doesn't bloody work :(
 
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