| Many businesses and organizations employ a "use | | | | effectiveness of marketing efforts. Analyzing how |
| it or lose it" strategy when it comes to setting | | | | an employee spends time on the phone can be an |
| annual budgets, particularly in the technology | | | | effective measure of productivity. |
| sector. Often the end of year budgets yield a | | | | Traffic Analysis is a good way to track needless |
| frenzied spending spree on the latest gadgets | | | | spending. Telecom managers can monitor the |
| without any real perspective on whether or not | | | | efficiency of the phone system by locating |
| the purchase is even beneficial to the company. | | | | unused trunks and can verify the correct routing |
| Any surplus can be the ideal time to consider a | | | | of calls in order to achieve cost effective routing. |
| tried and true technology purchase that can | | | | Additionally, call accounting can help to spot |
| actually generate a return on investment - call | | | | fraudulent or incorrect billing practices by vendors, |
| accounting systems. | | | | as well as identify and provide documentation of |
| Telecom managers wrestle daily with keeping | | | | down trunks and malfunctioning circuits that may |
| track of a vast inventory of telecom equipment, | | | | make it possible to obtain rebates from vendors. |
| vendors, bills, and endpoints, not to mention the | | | | One of the greatest ROIs that can be enjoyed |
| time it takes to sort out who made what call and | | | | through a call accounting system is the ability to |
| to which department it should be allocated. | | | | catch and minimize toll fraud and internal phone |
| The benefits and return on investment of a call | | | | abuse. Toll Fraud costs businesses billions of dollars |
| accounting system far outweigh the initial costs. | | | | per year according to the FCC. Repeated |
| Cost allocation is used to hold departments, | | | | incoming call attempts over a trunk can indicate |
| divisions or individuals accountable for usage and | | | | hacker attempts to gain access to the switch in |
| to ensure they stay within budgets. Calls can be | | | | order to loop back through it for outgoing call |
| charged back to departments for phone costs | | | | purposes. By using a call accounting system, you |
| based on their actual usage. A call accounting | | | | can identify suspicious calling patterns, monitor 411 |
| software can save time and labor by distributing | | | | and directory assistance calls, check for abuse of |
| telecom expenses by department. Often personal | | | | incoming 800 calls from employees' friends and |
| calls or calls that don't normally fall within the | | | | relatives; track illegal or suspicious destinations to |
| corporate calling patterns can be billed back to the | | | | the station originating them; monitor production |
| person or department. By keeping track of call | | | | time spent on the phone. Legal departments can |
| detail records of each department, project or | | | | track employees suspected of revealing |
| product, it can be determined which are profitable | | | | confidential information to competitors, the news |
| and which aren't. | | | | media, or headhunters, and can provide proof that |
| Take employee productivity. Call accounting | | | | a call took place in the event of obscene or |
| systems can be used to provide managers with | | | | harassing calls. |
| reports showing number of calls, types of calls, | | | | When planning for end of year budgets, telecom |
| cost, average duration for each person/station; | | | | managers can be the heroes with a purchase or |
| evaluate calling patterns and calls completed per | | | | upgrade of a call accounting system with a call |
| hour (useful for collection agents, customer | | | | detail record feature that can provide a cost |
| service agents, telemarketers and sales persons); | | | | savings benefit that will stretch far into the future |
| monitor the number of incoming calls per hour to | | | | and is easily applicable now with legacy PBX |
| correctly estimate the number of staff needed at | | | | systems, or later with VoIP deployment. |
| the right time and at the least cost; verify the | | | | |