Case Study: TTA Communications

Established in 1991, TTA Communications is a PR & Marketing consultancy specialising in the high-tech sector. With its head offices based in Bristol, TTA provides a comprehensive range of PR and marketing services from product launches through to on-going media communications programmes. The company's philosophy is to foster intimate and long-term relationships with its clients, delivering agreed activities for a known cost.

The Application

TTA Communications was looking to upgrade their existing telephone system so it could offer clients an enhanced level of service. The company was also looking to sever ties with its existing PBX manufacturer, as the costs of maintaining and upgrading the system to accommodate more users, were becoming prohibitive. Key features that were important were: cost, ease of use, user-configurable call routing, calling from the desktop and integration with the company's contact management solution, Microsoft Outlook. The use of call routing was particularly important, as this would enable increased availability of staff regardless of location.

The solution

Much of TTA's day to day work is centred on sending and receiving communications via the PC, whether it's for e-mailing a news release or confirming a press meeting with a journalist. Consequently it made perfect sense for TTA to consider an IP-based telephony solution that meant all communication whether, e-mail, phone or fax could be managed from the desktop. An IP based solution would also be able to give them the flexibility to add new extensions easily as well as give them many new features that if they had retained their traditional PBX would have not been affordable.

TTA Communications chose a software based IP PBX aimed at SMEs from Swyx Solutions. The solution was installed within a few days. Once the PRI (Primary Rate ISDN) line was operational, a PRI card was installed on the Windows 2000 server followed by the Swyx 10 user licence software. The users were configured according to TTA's requirements and client (SwyxIt!) software was installed onto the relevant PCs. After a few days the old analogue lines were disconnected. Individuals chose whether they wanted to work with a conventional looking deskphone or alternatively go for a PC based softphone or headset, all of which were provided by Swyx.

Feature and special benefits

So, if they are expecting an important call or decide that they always need to be given the option of taking a call from a particular client or journalist, they can route calls appropriately.

Because of the integration of calls with Microsoft Outlook it is possible to define the path of calls dependent on their CLI. So if a client or important journalist calls, the system can recognise where to send the call to. The system can even personalise a voice mail message that greets the person by name! The benefit of this feature is that staff can change their preferences from day to day, without the need for a specialist person with IT or telecoms knowledge.

In the event that a user is not at their desk, calls can be transferred to a mobile, different extension (e.g. meeting room) or in some cases even sent to a person's e-mail box as a voice attachment. The latter is particularly useful when working abroad when the time differences make it easier to communicate via e-mail than by phone. TTA Communications works for many clients in different countries, so the flexibility of the Swyx solution enables them to provide faster and more responsive communications both with clients and the media.

The ability to dial direct from the desktop is also critical to TTA's business, as it saves considerable time in looking up phone numbers from other applications or resources. Since using the Swyx system, TTA has pooled all its customer and media data into a single resource, Microsoft Outlook. The simplicity of this approach has improved operational procedures, so the company can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on more cost-effective projects such as writing feature articles and communicating with the press.

Future

TTA has just started a new business development drive to secure future clients from the technology sector and one of TTA's new business managers will be taking advantage of the Swyx system as a remote user. This means they will contactable through the TTA central switchboard and will be represented simply as an additional extension to which calls will be forwarded. Using the call routing features it will also be possible for them to re-direct calls to a mobile or e-mail if they are unavailable.

TTA is also planning to take advantage of the unlimited conferencing facilities provided with the latest version of SwyxWare 4.0. This will allow TTA to invite clients and/or journalists to join virtual telephone conferences, the minutes of which can be automatically recorded using Swyx's built-in digitised recording facility.

Jane Moores, Marketing Director said:

"The whole concept of using telephony from the desktop has changed our way of working. We can now manage all communications from the PC and the total integration with programmes such as Outlook means we can dial contacts directly from the application, saving us considerable time in looking up numbers. The other advantage of the system is that if a caller's details are logged in your database, the information will automatically pop up on screen, so you instantly have all of their data in front of you."

"We chose the Swyx solution because it takes a different approach, enabling you the flexibility to re-direct calls, so some kind of response is always possible regardless of location or time of day."