Why aren’t your computers talking with your phone system?
Thursday 09 April 2009 by Rupert White
Law firms love the phone. They love letters too. This may be why they like faxes so much, given that they are a true combination of the two. These days they also love email, and even teleconferencing.
So if law firms like communication so much – law firms are, after all, factories creating documents and communications – it would make sense for them to see their infrastructure in communications terms. I mean that the computer network in your law firm should really be connected to – nay, the same thing as – your phone network.
It’s called CTI – computer-telephony integration. Call centres understand how much can be gained from such things. They use this kind of connection between phones and computers to know when you call them (I’m thinking of an internet bank I know) and who you are, and to make sure they have your details up and ready. Why shouldn’t your law firm be like that?
Peter Goodman, a partner at SA Law in Hertfordshire, dropped by the Law Society the other day to talk about how his firm has done exactly this. SA Law brought in a local IT/telephony company called 500 to tear out the ageing (and cranky, he told me) phones and exchange and wire everything up together. In future, SA Law hopes to save a bundle on doing voice-over-IP (you know this from the brand name Skype, probably) calls outside the firm – they’re waiting for security assurances for that at the moment.
The savings that could be made sound dramatic, and the capabilities that have become available to the firm since tying these areas together make a lot of sense. The phones are a lot cheaper, they can start recording calls easily, all voice work can be tied into case management, and their teleconferencing sounds vastly improved.
I told Goodman about a neat trick with CTI. Because the system can route calls according to rules you establish for individual clients, you can set it to route people who owe you over a certain amount to always be put through first to accounts, no matter who they dial. When they get through, accounts know why.
I think he rather liked that idea…
Comments
CTI
It's all about Unified Communications and flexibility. I can click that link in Outlook "Call Contact" and the call is made. I've been wanting to do that for years! Add to that desktop faxing, IM, web-conferencing, recording calls, easy to apply call handling rules etc etc. We're well pleased.
The concern with VOIP was that the security might be lacking both in terms of packet delivery and also confidentiality. We've reasearched that pretty thoroughly and are now satisfied that the hardware and the systems can deliver what we want efficiently and safely and at a substantial cost saving.
Skype is not, in my experience a great example of VOIP. The products we are involved with are Business Grade IP telephony, a totally different animal.
Best to ensure that you use a supplier whose products are compatible with the open standards. There are a number of suppliers whose products are compatible only with their own system and if there's only one supplier you're not in a great place.
Hard to think of a reason not to get involved.
Not quite Skype
Thanks for that, Peter - you're right, of course, what you and other law firms are not going to do is Skype – I was referencing the most popular form of VOIP out there in consumer land so people know what we're talking about.
One of the links in my blog post is to a description of business-grade VOIP - hopefully that'll help people work out the difference.
I do like your reasoning in re the 'open' nature of the solution chosen - the last thing you'd want is to invest in a system that made your life more difficult... though I'm always surprised to hear how many people do that.