Harnessing the power of VoIP

Communications How one company used voice-over-Internet protocol to fuel growth

Erin Dwyer
For the Telegraph-Journal

Published Monday October 8th, 2007

Appeared on page B1

Neri Basque likes to think of it as cubicles of a call centre in different communities in New Brunswick.

In 19 different towns across the province - from Saint-Louis-de-Kent to Norton - Virtual Agent Services (VAS) operates contact centres that handle inbound calls.

It's a concept the company calls its distributed workforce - one that allows it to tap into an abundant supply of skilled labour who want to work in their own community and to still keep the economies of scale associated with having one large centre.

It's also one that allows the company to avoid high turnover rates - a plague of large city-based call centres - and, as a result, provides a quality of service that recently saw it capture a North American award.

But Basque, the company's executive vice-president of IT and strategic development, said this business model could not have been achieved efficiently without the voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) technology.

"With the technology, we are able to do it cost effectively," Basque said.

VoIP refers to phone calls being transmitted over the Internet. A computer digitizes your speech - turning it into a series of zeros and ones - and sends the data over the Internet where it is translated at the other end back to voice to the person you are phoning. While the technology has been around for awhile, it is has become more mainstream in Canada since providers, like Primus Canada, began offering service to consumers in 2004.

Tech gurus have heralded it as the technology of the next century, and some say the market is set to explode. Just last year, VoIP service revenue worldwide jumped 66 per cent to US$15.8 billion after more than doubling in 2005. According to Infonetics Research, it's expected to more than triple by 2010, with residential service fueling the market, and the business segment slowly beginning to catch on.

That's also been the trend among Atlantic Canadian businesses, say two officials with Aliant, which offers the service. While many are assessing the technology, its uptake has been modest.

"The analysis of it is quite extensive," said Mike MacNeil, director of Aliant's service development. "The adoption of it is not quite so."

Still, he and John Rocca, team leader for service development for business markets, say Virtual Agent Services is one Atlantic Canadian company that is at the forefront of making the technology work for it.

"There's been a lot of hype about it over the last couple of years," MacNeil said, "but I think there are some exciting real things happening close to home in our humble little backyard."

Virtual Agent Services, headquartered in Illinois, set up shop in New Brunswick in 1998 at the urging of former premier Frank McKenna, who wanted to create employment opportunities in rural communities. By 2004, it had six call centres in New Brunswick, with inbound calls bouncing between them.

With plans for further growth, the company realized it needed a new model.

It adopted VoIP as the solution.

For some businesses, VoIP provides big savings by lowering long-distance expenses. It also eliminates the need for several different phone numbers.

IP phones can be programmed to forward calls unlike traditional phones - they can forward only certain incoming calls to a cell phone, for example, or forward them during specific times. It also means employees aren't confined to their specific cubicles.

They can simply log their ID onto a business IP phone, much like they do with their PC, whether they are at the office or in a boardroom in Halifax.

For Virtual Agent Services, it offered several other benefits.

Opting for Aliant's hosted IP-based VoIP telephony service allowed it to expand its distributed workforce concept without the extra costs of duplicating equipment and technology at its various centres. While its 1,300 employees are decentralized among 19 different locations in New Brunswick, its technology is centralized.

At the same time, it allowed it to make its call centres look and feel as though they were one. Because it uses Aliant's server in Saint John, all incoming calls dial a Saint John number, landing on Aliant's hosted switch. Aliant's technology converts the call into an IP signal and sends it over the company's LAN network to an agent in Neguac, Petitcodiac or Minto.

"So the technology is enabling us to be spread but still grouped virtually," Basque said.

The technology is also preventing its customers from being bounced from one call centre to the next waiting for the next available agent. With VoIP, every agent logs into a phone, which sends a message to Aliant's server in Saint John, telling it what state they are in - whether they are busy or waiting for a call. When a call comes in, the system looks for the next available agent among its many call centres.

"This is as if I was in one big building and all of those communities are sections of that building," Basque said. "Regardless of where they are, they are fully efficient and the next one will take the call."

Because VAS opted to use Aliant's hosted services, rather than installing its own switch, it also gained access to the phone company's slew of phone lines. As a result, its customers never get a busy signal even when a client begins a campaign that might generate 10,000 more calls a day.

These are some of the reasons Virtual Agent Services recently captured a silver honour for best technology innovation at ContactCenterWorld's world awards.

"This technology is a small enabler to allow us to reach great people to handle our calls," Basque said. "Our success is really because of the great employees we have in all those communities. But the enabler is the technology that allows us to do that."

Virtual Agent Services is Aliant's lead customer when it comes to using its VoIP services, but the telco expects others will soon follow - albeit at a modest pace.

"This is a big part of the future, no question," said MacNeil. "This is real - it's still in its very early days, but it's very real and very material, and we are advising our customers you should have a serious look at this kind of capability."