Protecting Against Toll Charges and Toll Fraud

Posted on September 15, 2011 by G3 Technology Partners. Posted in Controlling the Chaos | Leave a comment.

By: Mark Waterman, System Designer

Are you getting charged for expensive long distance calls but you’re not sure where they are coming from?  Where is the security breach?  If you can’t answer these questions, then you may be experiencing Toll Fraud.

There are two major areas of concern:

Unauthorized Access- And/or use of your telecommunications equipment from both, internal or external sources, is often referred to as Toll Fraud.  Simply, toll fraud happens by means of hacking into the system or utilizing an internal extension, calls can be directed off-net, while racking up long distance charges, which your company is responsible for.

Unexpected Toll Charges- This happens when users have access to certain numbers that will result in charges much higher than your normal local and long distance rates.

Although there is no way of protecting your phone system 100% from incurring unexpected toll charges, there are known steps that can be taken to minimize your exposure.  Check your system with these recommended Best Practices regarding system security:

Toll Fraud Prevention Recommendations

  • Secure access to your system, physically as well as electronically.
    • One of the biggest concerns is having access to programming of the system.  The system should be in a locked and environmentally conditioned room.
    • If your system resides on your network, the system should be protected by appropriate firewalls and adhere to network security best practice policies.
  • Review administered logins & password settings.
    • Minimum of seven characters long with combination of alpha and numeric characters.
  • Review of Class of Restrictions (COS) settings.
    • Limit the ability of the users to transfer or forward calls off-net.
  • Review Trunk to Trunk Transfer settings.
    • Limit the ability of users to transfer a connected call off-net using another trunk for an outside number.

Unexpected Toll Charges

  • Review of Class of Service (COR) settings.
    • Block the ability to dial “0” to eliminate calls to outside operator for transfer to unauthorized numbers.
    • Restrict users from dialing information numbers such as 411, 1-XXX-555-1212, XXX-555-1212, 555-1212.
    • Limit, if not totally disallow, calls to international numbers beginning with 011 or 012.
    • Preclude numbers that are now part of the North American Dial Plan (1-XXX-XXX-XXXX), that are numbers to many Caribbean Islands and foreign countries. These calls are billed at international rates much higher than the expected Local or Long distance charges. This list is too large to post here, free copies are available upon request: fill out the contact us page on our website for more info.
  • Review Facility Restriction Levels (FRL).
    • Utilize the Facility Restriction Level to assign users different levels of access to outgoing call types. The FRL ranges from 0 to 7, with 1 having the least amount of permissions and 7 the most amount of permissions.
  • Review Remote Access Settings
    • It is recommended to disable Direct Trunk Access Dialing to avoid users from by passing the ARS (Automatic Route Selection) table, which would override the restricted numbers.

Help to ensure your system is safe by investigating these items on your own.  However, don’t be afraid to bring in the pros, your system’s security is one of our primary concerns.

 

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Show and Tell – Listening – Part 3 (of 3)

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Julie Melton Director of Implementation and Professional Services. Posted in Controlling the Chaos | Leave a comment.

This blog series has been dedicated to the most valuable asset you may have in your organization: your people.  As I have mentioned, maintenance on machines is critical for top performance.  What about the maintenance for your team?  Ongoing skills enhancement is one important aspect as is collaboration.  Here are some ideas that I have found very beneficial to the maintenance of my Contact Center teams.

  • Take time to listen to what your agents have to say.  They see trends in your business, they talk to your customers every day, they have ideas that can streamline processes, improve your value to the client, etc.  Encourage their feedback.
  • Provide training to enhance customer service skills.  Sometimes the easiest things can be forgotten in the heat of battle.  Refresher training is key to keeping skills sharp and adding new ones to your arsenal.
  • Send out short tips and helpful facts about Customer Service to your agents.  Get ideas from your more experienced staff  but be sure to give them credit for the idea.

Working within a Contact Center takes a great team, but without great leadership, the team can struggle to meet its potential.  I hope that you have found this series (Appreciation, Motivation, & Listening) thought provoking and were able to take action on some of them.  Speaking of which…. “Thank you!  If you have any questions, please let me know… I’m listening”.

I look forward to hearing about how you show appreciation in your Contact Center, keep your agents motivated, and maintain your teams.

 

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Show and Tell – Motivating – Part 2 (of 3)

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Julie Melton Director of Implementation and Professional Services. Posted in Controlling the Chaos | Leave a comment.

You’ve had a week to work on Appreciating your contact center agents.  Remember we all do routine and preventative maintenance on our communication systems, on our PCs, and on our servers, but we also need to have “well oiled machines” (agents) working for our business too.   The second part of this series concentrates on Motivation.

  • Have a board that shows compliments from customers recognizing the achievements of the agents.  If a customer feels that they went above the call of duty, shouldn’t we as well?
  • Ask the agents what motivates them, everyone is motivated differently.  Just because something motivates me, doesn’t mean that it motivates everyone.
  • As a manager or supervisor, reward and motivate yourself so you can motivate and reward your agents.    Some of my favorite websites are http://callcentercafe.com or http://www.icmi.com

Stop what you’re doing, and take a minute to look around you.  When was the last time you took the opportunity to motivate, congratulate or compliment someone working in your Contact Center?  Don’t forget how appreciation can go a long way. Do your homework and remember, happy employees are productive employees.  What are you doing to motivate your agents or employees?

Do you listen to their needs?  We’ll address that next week in the 3rd part of the blog series: Listening.

 

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Show and Tell – Appreciating – Part 1 (of 3)

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Julie Melton Director of Implementation and Professional Services. Posted in Controlling the Chaos | Leave a comment.

In most contact centers the most expensive resource that you have are the agents.  What are you doing to take care of your expensive resources?  As a business we make sure that we do routine and preventative maintenance on our communication systems, on our PCs, and on our servers, but what are we doing for our human friends. I’ve divided the list into 3 parts and I am going to present them to you in a 3 part blog series: Appreciation, Motivation and Listening.  I thought I would share what I have learned throughout my career in Contact Centers and as a Manager.

  • Show your appreciation when an agent goes the extra mile.  A hand written note that points out specific items that the associate has done goes a long way.
  • During peak times, have the management team deliver treats to the agents’ desks.  Popcorn, candy or a soft drink are appreciated when the calls are coming in hot and heavy.
  • Celebrate Customer Service Week and celebrate the people that are the face and voice of your business.  Visit http://www.csweek.com/customer_service_week.php to learn more.
  • Have an impromptu drawing for movie tickets or a gift card.  It makes anyone’s day to get a freebie just “because”.

It’s important to put these ideas like these into action as everyone likes to feel appreciated.  What do you do to show your agents or employees that they are appreciated?  Come back next week for the Second part of the series: Motivation.

 

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Once you get past the acronyms

Posted on July 21, 2011 by G3 Tech Partners Account Executive. Posted in Controlling the Chaos | Leave a comment.

contributors: Amanda Morris and Erin Darnell

I don’t think there are a lot of people who as adults are working in the field they dreamt about as a child.  I certainly did not anticipate going down the technology path when I started my career.   I rather fell into this field- just as many people do in a lot of different industries.

I vividly remember my first month on the job and suddenly being among people saying things in English, but it seemed like a foreign language. I had no idea that the tech world was full of acronyms, almost as bad as a hospital diagnosis “need an mri, ekg, chem7, stat” WHAT?! A co-worker saw me flailing and kindly (and secretively) lent me an acronym dictionary. My frustration faded as I quickly learned most (admittedly not all) had a simple definition.  So….in order to help explain where my frustration came from I have my top 5 most annoying acronyms with my “telecom for dummies” descriptions.

  • POTS-plain old telephone service  (AKA…a regular analog telephone line. You probably have one of these in your house but I bet the last time you moved you didn’t call up the local telephone company and say “hey, can I get a POTS line installed?”)
  • PSTN- public switched telephone network (…or the telephone company once again, your “POTS” line stops working and so you call the “PSTN”? LOL)
  • PBX- private branch exchange (WTHeck is this? It turns out businesses use these things called “telephone systems”….or…. PBX)
  • DID- direct inward dial (Sounds fancy, right?  Actually all this means is that instead of people calling your office number and dialing an extension you are assigned a DID so that people can dial you directly)
  • PRI-Primary Rate Interface (Instead of having a bunch of separate lines you may elect to purchase a PRI.  This allows your voice and data traffic to be routed through one big “pipe”.)

Simple, right?

Four years later I may not understand why technology lives in an acronym world. But, I do understand the meaning of the acronyms even though my dictionary was out of date within 8 months.  Here’s to CTC in your OE: Controlling the Chaos in your Office Environment (I just made those acronyms up!).

 

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Posted on July 8, 2011 by G3 Technology Partners. Posted in Controlling the Chaos | Leave a comment.

By: Ann Livengood, Converged Applications Business Analyst

Do you ever sit down and just think about your favorite things?  Do you even have time? Life a little chaotic? I know you have a list of favorites.  Come on, what’s your favorite food… how about favorite color… favorite gadget… favorite gizmo? Easy answers for me: tacos, purple, egg slicer and software (some things are favorites because they make it easier and/or more enjoyable to do something). My gizmo is a software program.

I do a LOT of work on my laptop. My favorite software application is the Interaction Client by Interactive Intelligence. This application is integrated with our work phone system and it allows me to handle my calls using my laptop, plus so much more. Recently, I took a few minutes to make a list of the features I like about Interaction Client. In 5 minutes I came up with 35 features and functionalities that help make my job easier and more enjoyable. I’ve narrowed my list down for this blog entry…

My top 3 favorite features of Interaction Client:

  • PRESENCE MANAGEMENT: Where am I?

    I select a Status from a drop-down list – statuses such as Available, At Lunch, In a Meeting, or Out of the Office. By doing so, I tell the system whether to ring my phone or send the call to my voice mail. If the call goes to voice mail, the system automatically plays my name and selected status; or I can record a personal greeting to override the name and status prompt. The best part of presence management is that my co-workers who also use the Interaction Client can see my Status, whether I’m on the phone, and when I expect to be available. And, I can see their status as well – whether they work in one of our offices or from their home office. How cool is that?

    • OUTLOOK CONTACTS: Who I know

      I have a lot of contacts in my Outlook address book. I added a tab in my Interaction Client that shows all of my Outlook Contacts. I can simply click to dial any of the numbers I have entered for a contact. The simplicity it provides keeps me from having to manually dial numbers.

      • AVAILABLE, FOLLOW-ME: Staying in Touch

        When I am out of the office, sometimes I still need to be available for clients. To avoid confusion, I want my callers to have to dial just ONE number to reach me. So, I use “Available, Follow-Me” status which allows others to call my office number and the system follows me to another number(s) I have configured. If I don’t answer at any of the numbers, the call goes to my office voice mail, gets attached to an email, and placed in my Outlook Inbox – and I get the email with voice mail attached on my smart phone! (Okay, that’s a couple of features I just described).

        If you use the Interaction Client – or similar CTI application – hopefully you make good use of the many features it offers to increase your productivity and make it easier for others to reach you.  See… your favorites list just got a little longer… your gizmo: software! Just another way to Control the Chaos in an office environment.

         

         

        Hardphone vs Softphone

        Posted on June 23, 2011 by G3 Technology Partners. Posted in Controlling the Chaos, G3 Technology Partners | 1 Comment.

        By: Mark Waterman, System Designer

        Traditional multi-line telephones are no longer the only option in business communications.  Having been in the business world for longer than I care to admit, I am, as most of us are, very familiar and comfortable with the standard multi-line telephone.   As technology continues to advance, making changes within an office structure to meet the demands and new standards in communications means that answering a phone when it rings and hanging up when I am done just doesn’t cut it anymore.

        I am embracing the newest development and leaving the hardphone (traditional multi-line phone) like a tumbleweed rolling from the Old West. A few years ago, I moved to the Softphone on my laptop, then to a phone client on my smart phone and now looking at a tablet or smartphone that allows me not just to do “phone calls” but to integrate video and web collaboration.

        In today’s environment, I find myself trying to do much more with much less time and doing it from everywhere but my desk.

        The Softphone has made my life a lot easier and after a little tug-o-war, I GET IT. I still answer it when it rings, and still hang up when I am done, but all of the in-betweens (conference calls, lots of buttons on my phone, voicemail, speed dial)  is where the Softphone really shines.

        For instance… conferencing is more efficient, with a cool Drag & Drop feature.  I can look at my screen and see in advance if the party I need to talk to is on the phone, in DND mode, in a meeting, at lunch, at home (slacker), on vacation (lucky) and I can quickly communicate to my current caller what that status is.  AND…if someone I need to TALK to is on the phone, I can still contact them via instant message chat or email to resolve an issue or communicate the best time for a follow up instead of playing the fun game of phone tag.

        The Softphone provides message indication on my screen and I can receive notification through syncing to my Outlook and smartphone… that old hardphone only blinked a red light when I had a message.

        The Softphone goes everywhere with me, it’s right there on my laptop, always open and ready when I am working. Even when I have the chance to work remotely, it only requires connection thru internet or VPN access.  I can use a headset or dial-able phone (my own cell, a desk phone at a customer site or even in a hotel room).  The directory integrates with my Outlook contacts and gives me immediate information on my screen. The tablet applications allow me to do video collaboration which in turn saves me time.  There is less driving to meet with teammates or clients and I still get the face to face time that is vital in developing business plans. Less travel time equals more time for other projects.

        Even though it was tough, I am accepting new technology, regardless of how well I thought my desk phone worked.  The Softphone is really quite a time saver and does allow me to represent my company in a more efficient manner. Being “connected” is critical for good business and having access regardless of where I am is just as important as when I am in the office. Just another way I have been able to Control the Chaos, in my office environment.

        Stop The Chaos

        Posted on June 6, 2011 by G3 Technology Partners. Posted in Controlling the Chaos | Leave a comment.

        It’s easy to let chaos take over. It doesn’t ever start as chaos. At first, it’s just a few phone calls, you never got the chance to return. Then it’s those warm leads you forgot to follow up on. And what about those TPS reports you forgot to file? Pretty soon, a short list of a few things left undone turns into a whole mess of chaos waiting to take over your life.

        Control the chaos with G3 Technology Partners.

        You spend 40 hours a week at work (on a good week!). Why spend 39 of them fighting chaos? G3 Technology Partners helps businesses of all sizes focus on eliminating chaos in communications. Instead of forgetting who talked to whom and making sure that the email, voicemail, and phone systems are all working properly, you’ll finally be able to actually get work done. Imagine, instead of playing “Whack-A-Mole” with all the chaos at work, you were actually able to be productive!

        G3 makes this possible.