Fixed Mobile Convergence: Benefits
A convergent solution can help organisations save on three things: infrastructure, call costs and productivity.
Savings through convergence
Call cost savings are easy to measure but they offer the lowest scale savings. Infrastructure efficiencies and productivity can bring more benefits.
Fixed-line replacement strategies as well as green field site deployments can deliver infrastructure savings. This reduces the CAPEX as well as ongoing OPEX required to own a mobile and fixed fleet.
While convergence offers the best opportunity for organisations to reap the benefits of convergence, productivity and business process improvements are the most difficult to quantify. A converged voicemail system may reduce the effort required by employees by five minutes per day. However, it may not be worth having five extra minutes to do ‘productive’ work. Improved response times may result in customer satisfaction and repeat business. Businesses now consider customer satisfaction a key performance indicator. Customers will be satisfied if there is an increase in productivity or potential process reengineering.
These benefits include
- Mobile handsets can now extend fixed-line call features
- Reduce your call costs
- Improved responsiveness in the business
- Control – For example, compliance with FSA regulations
- Reducing duplication
- Facilitate capacity expansion
- Productivity improvement
Converged solutions allow employees to be more productive by allowing them to access direct dial extensions, mobile access and conferencing. Employees can respond quicker to voicemails and are able answer more calls the first time. These examples illustrate specific productivity gains:
- A Healthcare Consultingcompany saw a 10% to 15% increase in productivity due to a lower telephone tag.
- A Home Care Servicescompany’s caregivers saw time savings of 60 minutes per day due to fewer voicemails and more calls being answered first-time.
- As a result of improved responsiveness, 25% more calls were handled by a specialist call center within a travel insurancecompany.
- One hour of time was saved by a University IT support staff. This reduces the time taken to reach colleagues and resolve problems or issue job instructions.
- A Hospital allowed nurses to save at most 10 minutes every time they retrieve patient results. They were able access the results from any location in the hospital and could check them out.
It can be difficult to quantify productivity benefits and should be addressed individually. Calculating the time saved each day by using enhanced communication and business processes (e.g. Unnecessary visits to the office to collect voicemails or work schedules are time lost. A better level of service can also ensure clients are retained and gained by being able to answer client queries quickly and consistently.