The Pluss Organisation is one of the largest employment specialists that assist people with learning disabilities, mental health issues, physical disabilities and long term health conditions to find work. Pluss passionately believes that people with disabilities or long term health issues can have a rewarding, contributing role in society and serves the needs of these ones throughout its 32 sites.  This includes two rapidly growing call centers which take on more than 2,000 calls a day.

Expanding with Alcatel was not an Option

With 650 employees, Pluss wanted to expand their operations but found that doing so with their proprietary Alcatel Omnipcx VoIP PBX would be too expensive. Pluss would have also needed to hire external Alcatel consultants for such an expansion, further increasing the costs.

“Alcatel only offer support to certified engineers and their online support is very limited. With its cost, our planned expansion would have been too expensive. Combined with the costs for outsourcing support, the Alcatel PBX was simply too expensive to expand.” said Martin Langmaid, Server and Network Architect, Pluss.

Unified Communications and Call Center Solution Needed

The cost of the expansion wasn’t the only hindrance. It was important that Pluss used a phone system that integrated Unified Communications as they offer flexible working – various sites and workers on the road or at home needed to be easily connected. All Pluss employees needed to be able to communicate with their supervisors from wherever they were.

With two busy call centers answering more than 2,000 calls a day, a robust call center solution was needed. The company wanted to monitor all calls for quality control purposes and assign call-backs, create call queuing systems and make use of administrative features such as listening in to calls.

As well as offering the required features, it was important that a new phone system was competitively priced and easy to deploy within all of Pluss’ offices. Above all, they wanted to be supported by the new PBX provider as the support they received from Alcatel was near non-existent.

3CX Phone System is the Right Candidate for the Job

3CX Phone System 10 was the perfect candidate for the job as it uses open standard low cost IP phones, meaning Pluss could spend less than $200 per new handset, including call licensing. Being a VoIP PBX meant that no additional phone wiring was necessary as 3CX Phone System sits on the network and is just another server application.

Scalability was another factor in Pluss selecting 3CX as they needed a phone system that would be easy to scale, even after their latest expansion. They didn’t want to be faced with any surprises such as hidden extra license costs being added for every new phone, IVR and voicemail.

Pluss added 270 Yealink T22P and T26P IP Phones to their set-up at a cost similar to what it would have been for just 80 of the Alcatel handsets. They work with Beronet Berofix gateways for their 3 PRI and 2 BRI ISDN lines and 15 SIP trunks. As Yealink phones are supported by 3CX, they can be auto-provisioned, thus saving Pluss valuable time.

The IT department at Pluss was pleasantly surprised when they had provisioned 200 phones in only two days throughout their sites, including two main call centers, rather than the five days they had estimated. Pluss couriered handsets to its various locations over a phased rollout that meant all phones were quickly active, using SIP trunks for external connectivity. Their IT engineers visited each location over the following ten days where router configuration was required. Having worked with other PBX’s in the past, the IT team braced itself for a long-haul install that would take weeks before they could get it off the ground. With 3CX being installed incredibly efficiently, the IT team even had time to take care of other, non-related matters.

“3CX Phone System works right out of the box. Any configuration questions were easily answered by the massive and enthusiastic online community. There is a great deal of 3CX company and partner driven documentation and tutorials, which made extended configuration easy,” said Martin Langmaid.

The ability to run 3CX Phone System as a virtual machine allows Pluss to use High Availability and Fault Tolerance features of VMware to provide a resilient solution. One of the biggest benefits for Pluss is the ability to run a cloned copy of 3CX Phone System in a test environment, which they use for upgrade and new configuration test purposes. This testing area is isolated from the production environment and all changes are analyzed before rolling them out.

Pluss more Features

The Unified Communications features in 3CX MyPhone, the web-based interface for 3CX Phone System, together with real time agent/queue status and statistics from the 3CX Call Center Module, meant that Pluss could streamline their staff efficiency. They can now analyse which areas of the call center aren’t producing the levels required and design their call flow to provide a better customer experience.

The Listen In, Listen & Whisper and Barge In features allow the call center supervisors to better manage their staff in real time. Call center reporting makes identifying any issues a lot easier, and the supervisors can see which members of staff are performing or underperforming.

Call transfers and inter-department communications, as well as call flow rules that allow for call forwarding to homes and mobile numbers, have seen staff productivity and mobility rise by 40%. Pluss employees can make and receive calls from anywhere as though they are in the office. All they require is an internet connection and 3CX Phone System takes care of the rest. These employees can work comfortably in any environment and are making use of 3CXPhone for Windows, 3CX’s free softphone.

Any travelling Pluss employees make use of 3CXPhone for Android and 3CXPhone for iPhone. These apps connect with 3CX Phone System, allowing these staff members to take their extensions with them whilst they’re on the road, at home, in mobile training suites or at exhibitions.

Customer Driven Development

3CX Phone System was the right choice for Pluss as it provides ongoing savings and clever functionality. 3CX allows them to be more mobile, which assists them to better focus their time on assisting people with disabilities.

“The best bit is that 3CX proactively embraces feature recommendations from its customer base via ideascale so the product is continuously evolving to fulfill feature requirements as they arise. I have never seen product development done in this way before – anyone can make a suggestion and the ones with the highest demand are developed. Product development is therefore inclusive, proactive and customer requirement focused with laser guided accuracy.” – Martin Langmaid.

The rich feature set of 3CX, which include Unified Communications, meant that Pluss realised an instant increase in staff productivity, whilst improving their customer service levels by adding the 3CX Call Center Module. Due to 3CX’s easy to use web-based admin interface and its ability to run on Pluss’ existing Windows server, administration of the phone system is quick and effortless.

“We recommend 3CX Phone System to all businesses. You’re not just purchasing a state-of-the-art PBX, but are joining a community that provides support right when you need it.” – Pluss

“Few apps are as powerful as 3CXPhone for iPhone. If your office is using the terrific 3CX Windows-based PBX, then putting this app on your iPhone is a no-brainer. Connect your phone to the same LAN the PBX is on, and 3CXPhone is provisioned automatically for you. But even if you’re on a different PBX (Asterisk, for example), 3CXPhone works just as well.” – Voxilla.com

3CXPhone for iPhone uses your contact list, which makes calling a breeze. Its dialer is easy to use and as Voxilla puts it, “more powerful than the standard iPhone one.” The app takes full advantage of the iOS 5 Notification Center, can handle all your GSM calls and above all, is free! With 3CXPhone for iPhone and Android, you can take your office extension with you and make calls via WiFi and 3G.

Features of 3CXPhone for iPhone include:

• Automatically provision settings
• Multi-line
• Transfer calls
• Record calls to disk
• Shows personal call log/history
• Supports G.711, GSM and Speex codecs
• Easy to deploy and manage
• Works with 3CX Phone System, Asterisk and popular VoIP providers

Download 3CXPhone for iPhone, Android and Windows
3CXPhone for iPhone is free and can be downloaded via iTunes or from here. Click here for more information on 3CXPhone for iPhone.

If you have an Android device, you can download 3CXPhone for Android from the Android Market for free. 3CXPhone for Android also includes the 3CX Tunnel, which proxies all the traffic over a single TCP port, allowing you to bypass restrictions that GSM providers may place to block VoIP.

3CXPhone for Windows is a free, powerful SIP softphone, which allows you to make calls via your desktop headset. Download 3CXPhone for Windows here and click here for more information.

Monthly Fee: $25.00 (including 2500 texts)
Per min: .25c (to anywhere in NZ excluding 0900 numbers)
1GB Data: $20

If you are interested give us a call on 0800 NZ VoIP

“Thank you Nick to your very professional team and the way you have completed the install this week.  Not only have you exceeded our expectations, but it has been a pleasure to work with your staff”

If you or your business is looking for PBX systems or phones we are the company to call 0800 NZ VoIP

Christchurch 03 377-VoIP (03 377-8647)
Hamilton 07 855-VoIP (07 855-8647)
Auckland 09 377-VoIP (09 377-8647)

We also always have our 0800 NZ VoIP number as we.

www.kiwivoip.co.nz

If you would like to contact the CHCH branch please call 0800 NZ VOIP or email chch@kiwivoip.co.nz

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Purchasing a router may sound like a pretty simple task. This however can become somewhat challenging when VOIP comes into play.

There a couple of core functions that your choice of router needs to perform so as to simplify your configuration for use with 3CX.

London, May 11 2011 – 3CX, international telecommunications developer, today announced the availability of 3CX Phone System version 10. This new release includes a new user-friendly web-based app, 3CX MyPhone. Other PBX’s that include unified communications do not make features such as conferencing easily accessible for the end user. The new 3CX MyPhone portal makes it easier for users to take advantage of advanced unified communications and VoIP features by bringing conferencing, presence, transferring of calls and other rich features together in one easy to use application.

“3CX has raised the bar in the unified communications market by providing a new, easy to use, lightweight user portal that makes it much easier for users to take advantage of unified communications, whilst at the same time making life easier for administrators” said Nick Galea, 3CX CEO

New Advanced User Portal – 3CX MyPhone

The new user portal – 3CX MyPhone – is web-based, but leverages Silverlight to provide a rich –“desktop like” user-friendly experience. With 3CX MyPhone, users can easily manage their extension from their netbook or desktop and avoid having to use a cryptic phone interface. 3CX MyPhone works in tandem with softphones, IP phones and even iPhone and Android smartphones, retaining flexibility for users to choose what phone device best suits them.

3CX MyPhone Allows Users to:

• See status/presence of other users
• Launch calls from a web page, outlook or phonebook
• Transfer calls to other users.
• Divert calls to voice mail
• Monitor queue calls (if they have the rights to)
• See missed / inbound / outbound calls
• Create and manage conference calls
• Configure call forwarding options when away/out of the office

More Manageability and Security Features

Version 10 has also gained enhanced management and security features. Administrators have finer control over blacklisting of clients trying to register against the server. It is possible to automatically block outbound calls during night time or when the office is closed, as well as block outbound calls to countries or continents to which a company never makes calls. 3CX server event notifications were expanded, and administrators can now be notified by e-mail of critical system events such as a losing connection to a remote office or SIP trunk.

Improved PBX Performance

3CX Phone System v10 is the only native SIP PBX for Windows. This focus on Windows allows us to optimize our code for the platform. 3CX Phone System v10 performance was improved, whilst significantly reducing memory and processor usage. 3CX Phone System can run virtualized or alongside other server applications – thus not requiring a dedicated server!

Improved IP Phone & Smartphone Integration

3CX Phone System is SIP standard based and integrates with a range of popular SIP phones. In 3CX v10 integration was further beefed up with seamless support for PnP deployment of IP Phones, softphones and smartphones. Administrators just plug in an IP Phone or ask the user to install the 3CX smartphone app on their smartphone (via the Appstore/Android Market). The new clients will be visible in the management console and allow the administrator to push out the settings automatically.

Improved IP Phone Management

3CX Phone System has gone further in easing the life of the network administrator. IP Phones can now be managed end to end from the 3CX Management Console.  Vendor Independent! IP phone firmware versions can be checked and upgraded remotely – either one by one or in batch mode. This significantly reduces administration time and increases control for the administrators.

Improve Customer Service

3CX Phone System can now match caller IDs to customer names, and show these in 3CX MyPhone or even on the IP Phone. Employees will be able to answer the phone knowing the customer’s name and significantly increase customer service.

What’s new in 3CX Phone System V10?

All Versions

• Easier to use 3CX MyPhone that incorporates 3CX Assistant
• 3CX MyPhone is now Silverlight based, incorporating the old assistant and is therefore much easier to deploy
• 3CX MyPhone now also supported on Macs
• Notification to Windows Event log, 3CX Event Log and optionally by e-mail on key events (show Event log)
• Ability to blacklist IPs
• Ability to block extensions being registered from outside the network
• You can configure that particular extensions can not be used outside of the local network
• Ability to limit extensions registering externally to use tunnel (which provides additional layer of security via password)
• Ability to record prompts via the phone  – simply click on prompt, enter extension name and record prompt
• Reduced memory footprint and elimination of extra service
• Class of Service – Specify extension group in outbound rules to easily create Class of Service rules
• Themes support in 3CX MyPhone / 3CX Assistant

Small Business, Pro and Enterprise Editions

• Improved conferencing page in 3CX MyPhone allows for easier setup of conference calls
• Queue tab in 3CX MyPhone which gives an overview of the status of queues
• Improved BLF page – now allows provisioning of Speed dials, custom codes
• Complete G722 support (Requires G722 capable phone)
• Server will query phone book to match Caller IDS to a specific name

3CX has also created the What’s New in 3CX Phone System v10 video which discusses the latest features which can boost your company’s sales and increase productivity. This video, along with all other 3CX videos can be viewed on the 3CX Channel on YouTube.