Unified Communications
Payroll company reduces TCO with VoIP UC
Unified communications solution saves company $52,000 a year.
Based in Winnipeg, Canada, Payworks Payroll Services relies on its phone system to provide its customers with a flexible payroll solution. As a services company operating a large call center, responding to customer calls quickly and professionally is critical to Payworks. In addition, with offices located throughout Canada, constant and uninterrupted communication is key to daily operations.
“As a call center-driven company receiving 300 to 400 calls per day, I can’t have my phone system going down,” says Kevin Sokolowki, vice president of information technology at Payworks. “A VoIP phone system that was easy for my team to manage with Active Directory was critical. But we also wanted something that would enable the company as a whole to work more effectively.”
Sokolowki and his team set out looking for a solution that was reliable, easy to manage, and could integrate with Microsoft platforms and offered high cost-to-benefit ratio. Ultimately, Sokolowski’s team selected Objectworld’s UC Server SIP Edition to deliver a voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) enabled unified communications solution that integrated Payworks’ multiple office locations with existing Microsoft applications. Specifically, Objectworld delivered Active Directory and existing third-party hardware with a low-cost, flexible solution that the IT team could administer easily. The company selected three main offices to roll out the solution, two in British Columbia and one in Toronto.
Using Objectworld’s solution, Payworks is now experiencing ease of maintenance and integration with Microsoft Exchange Server. Additionally, the integrated visual service builder assists Payworks in building new software-based applications, such as customer self-service. UC Server also allows “just in time” setup for new employees, which reduces backend costs and time associated with a traditional PBX, and improves turn-around for getting equipment up and running. With the UC server, Sokolowki’s team can deploy a new user in about 15 minutes.
“My team can roll out telephone assignments of new hires into our IT checklist without having to manage a separate phone system as we did previously,” he says. “Further, remote employees can access e-mail, voice mail and other messages from the road.”
Payworks is also reducing long distance charges with the built-in VoIP capabilities. “Looking at our last phone bill, the long distance charges were about $1,400 per month, so that cost will be saved each month,” says Sokolowski.
In addition, Payworks will not have to hire a professional to manage the phone system. Anyone in Sokolowki’s team can manage new employee activity with the phone system, such as moves, adds and changes, via Active Directory and the UC server. Sokolowski says Payworks expects to save about $52,000 each year with the Ojectworld solution.
Based on the immediate benefits already resulting from the deployment of the solution, Sokolowski plans to use the company’s ODBC-enabled call flow capabilities to build an interactive voice response (IVR) system. This will allow customers to obtain self-service over the phone. Since the business is call center driven, there are many calls each day that could be handled by an automated system rather than place the call in a queue to wait for a live agent.
“An IVR application will provide quicker response time for customers and increase productivity for the call center staff. They’ll have more time to manage high-impact calls instead of looking up data like the status of a check being submitted or a remaining balance. That will streamline the business processes and improve productivity for the whole organization,” says Sokolowski.
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