{"id":5205,"date":"2007-01-23T15:00:33","date_gmt":"2007-01-23T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/e-commerce\/dirigo-telecommunications.html"},"modified":"2007-01-23T15:00:33","modified_gmt":"2007-01-23T15:00:33","slug":"dirigo-telecommunications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/technology\/dirigo-telecommunications.html","title":{"rendered":"Dirigo Telecommunications"},"content":{"rendered":"
Call centers are responsible for so much but often don’t get the credit they deserve. In the early 1990s it was the call center’s need for screen pops that pushed Novell and Microsoft into pushing the CTI market which for the first time allowed a phone system and a Intel-based server to communicate. These big operating system vendors essentially copied what Rockwell and IBM had done by connecting the former’s ACD to the latter’s mainframe. <\/div>\n
\nIndeed the CTI market eventually spun off IP telephony applications which became today’s better-known VoIP applications. Ironically when the VoIP market was presumed dead between 2001 and 2003 the call center market came to the rescue by purchasing thousands of gateways deployed around the world to allow offshoring of call center services.<\/div>\n
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\"\"This came up today after the first keynote<\/font><\/a> at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo<\/font><\/a> and it makes a great segue to a conversation I had with Bill Hunt the President and CEO Dirigo Telecommunications. Before I get into why these two topics are related I should point out Bill spent a few minutes with me explaining how the recent name change from Dirigosoft to Dirigo Telecommunications is going well. One of the reasons for the name change was to ensure people understand the depth of communications experience within the company.<\/div>\n
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But more on that later. Now for the segue. Bill tells me the reason their IP PBX is so intelligent is because its parents were ACDs. You see in virtually every other case a company starts with PBX and then adds ACD functionality later. In many cases it makes more sense to start with an ACD and subtract some functions to end up with a PBX. One other company using this approach is Interactive Intelligence with their Vonexus product line.<\/div>\n
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Bill tells me the Intelligent Assistant in the company’s iQueue IP PBX really separates their phone system from others in the space. It gives you ACD functionality in a PBX he tells me proudly. Bill thinks they have the only PBX on the market with third party call control. He says the call control looks like first party to the user.<\/div>\n
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What are the advantages of this approach? <\/div>\n
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Well if you wanted a customer service quality check, you could offer the chance for a caller to take a survey after the call is hung up. Why? Third party call control recaptures the call and sends it to a survey application<\/div>\n
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It also means their solution has the reporting capabilities of an ACD. Not just CDR but averaged calls to answer and the ability to know how long calls are in voicemail before they are listened to, etc.<\/div>\n
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He also emphasized the pricing of the iQueue IP PBX is the same as a PBX which makes the product that much better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
I mentioned how the name change was meant to highlight the years of experience at the company and Hunt says the company has 17 customer contact and telecom patents. This is a very good amount for an organization with perhaps the newest IP PBX on the market.<\/div>\n
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I asked Bill about his outlook for 2007 and beyond. He says the company is in major growth mode with new product releases, new resellers and they feel these initiatives will help keep them ahead of the market.<\/div>\n
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The response from the reseller channel seems to be very strong and according to Bill most PBX vendors aren’t liked by the reseller community. Dirigo wants to be the best vendor there is. The company is spending great care to continue building a solid reseller base and to become a recognized presence in the PBX and ACD marketplace.<\/div>\n
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So with all the consolidation in the market it is good to see new entrants coming into the space with a strong focus on quality and service. It is good for companies of all sizes as well as the resellers looking for strong backing when they go out into the market and compete for business.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Call centers are responsible for so much but often don’t get the credit they deserve. In the early 1990s it was the call center’s need for screen pops that pushed Novell and Microsoft into pushing the CTI market which for the first time allowed a phone system and a Intel-based server to communicate. These big<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,202,199,118,191],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}