IP Telephony in a Commercial Company

Today, telephone systems (telephony) built based on the Internet Protocol (IP) have almost universally replaced traditional systems due to their clear advantages. The benefits of IP telephony compared to traditional telephony are quite evident: it helps reduce monthly communication operational expenses, enhances communication efficiency, is user-friendly, provides high-quality communication, adds innovation and modernity to the office.
Utilizing IP telephony significantly expands the functionality of telecommunication systems, adding important business capabilities such as interactive voice response menus; call recording, flexible handling of incoming and outgoing calls, call center organization, and more.
Furthermore, the adoption of such innovations by a company clearly positions it in the market as modern, competent, and customer-oriented.
Throughout this series of articles, we will use the term "telephony" to specifically refer to IP-based services.
In a commercial company, telephony, as one of the technological tools for conducting business, should generate or aid in generating profit. This primary consideration will help you evaluate whether the decision to implement this tool is right or not. In doing so, you will need to strike a balance between the company's expenses and convenience for your customers.
The process of building an effective telephony system is cyclical and can be related to the standard PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) quality management cycle.

In the Plan stage, you need to define the initial requirements and conditions for building the office telephony system. These requirements are determined based on experience and the specific nature of the business.
During this stage, the company formulates the goal it wants to achieve through system implementation. This could involve increasing the number of orders, attracting new customers, improving employee efficiency, or any other goal aimed at increasing business profitability. Based on this goal, the company sets specific tasks that the telephony system should address and formulates requirements for the organizational and technical components of the future system.
At this stage, you need to determine the total number of system subscribers, their roles and functions, requirements for the necessary number of external connections, the need for a dedicated call-processing center, call handling algorithms, staff size, and more.

The implementation of the system construction plan takes place in the Do stage. During this stage, the call handling process is designed, and the actual implementation of this design takes place. Executives are assigned roles in the call processing process, equipment and software system settings are configured, and the operational process begins.

In the Check stage, the effectiveness of the created system is analyzed. Based on statistical data collection, report analysis, and other performance indicators, the extent to which the initially set goal has been achieved and the tasks outlined during the Plan stage have been resolved are evaluated. The overall statistical picture is supplemented with "feedback" statistics obtained from both customers and internal company employees.

Statistical data is visualized in the form of graphs, enabling a clear presentation of data for evaluating the effectiveness of selected solutions. The use of 3D graph representations can enhance clarity, a feature available in our software product. These graphs enable the analysis of statistics related to incoming call volume, the percentage of calls handled, the dependency of these parameters on time of day/week/day of the month, allowing conclusions to be drawn about the need for processing scheme adjustments, increasing or decreasing staff, or deciding to establish a specialized structure for call processing, like a call center.
Based on the analysis of the current situation in the Act stage, necessary changes are made to the current system settings and the organizational structure of the company. Following these adjustments, the PDCA cycle begins anew.

Throughout this article series, we attempted to shed light on certain aspects related to the approach of building an effective telephony system from the perspective of the PDCA methodology. We also discussed some system configuration options that can facilitate the creation of your own telephony system with minimal expenditure of time, human resources, and finances.

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