Achieving Excellence in Serving Customers

The editorial staff of Internet Telephony magazine is proud to announce the winners of this year’s Internet Telephony Excellence Awards. These companies are as varied as there are products that fit under the IP telephony umbrella. In fact the only thing more varied than the vendors serving their customers are the customers themselves. And, as we can see from the following companies, they are increasingly turning to IP Communications solutions to build their businesses, and grow their bottom lines. This year’s crop of award winners submitted case studies featuring a wide array of end users. For example:

• A global tire manufacturer in Germany turned to IP contact center technology to upgrade their customer interactive center, which handles 98 percent of the company’s customer contacts in Germany. Adopting VoIP has resulted in a 10–20 percent operational savings for the manufacturer.

• A residential real estate developer was able to unify their company’s communications serving their employees as they grew from three to 20 to 40 in just over a year.

• An Idaho-based University was in need of a system to manage the diverse communications needs of a variety of constituencies: students, employees, donors, alumni, community leaders, and a faculty that splits time between the Idaho campus and teaching centers in Europe.

• A 27-location integrated healthcare delivery system in California and Texas, needed tools to manage their hybrid telephony solutions. They turned to an IP-based solution and is now in control of their networks and subsequently, is able to maintain high levels of voice quality.

• A NYC-based brewery recovered from a PBX fire and adopted an outsourced phone system strategy. The company has ended up saving over 35 percent off their existing annual telecom spend.

• A major Swiss insurance company chose IP-based Web conferencing technology to increase efficiency of communication between their 8,800 employees scattered about the globe.

• A UK-based digital television solutions supplier is deploying a unified communications solution to help keep their 3,000 employees in touch from over 20 internationally dispersed sites.

• Most compelling is the case study of an award winner that offered free teleconferencing services to victims of Hurricane Katrina as well as the organizations that were involved in the recovery efforts.

Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Internet Telephony Excellence Awards. These companies all have proven products and services, and most importantly, customers that are willing to speak up and offer themselves as references.

And as I like to remind readers, always check out those customer references. These days — through the efforts of companies such as those gracing our winners’ list — that’s becoming ever easier to do.