Why Consulting Firms Need Call Accounting
May 29, 2015
By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor
Mobile – it’s one of those things that has made life so much easier for all of us. At the same time, it’s made it more complicated to track costs and understand what we have going on in telecom spending. It helps if you have someone dedicated to tracking activity and spending, but it’s even better if you implement call accounting.
This is especially true for the consulting firm. Being on the go and accessible through mobile devices is critical to the firm’s ultimate success. It’s all about being productive, without allowing costs to get out of control. With proper telecom management tools focused on client billing, voice and data optimization and immersive video recording, costs are maintained while accessibility is protected.
The consulting firm must be able to manage billable hours. Telecom costs must be billed back according to those hours and the easiest way to do so is with a Time & Billing System. Call accounting solutions provider, ISI (News - Alert) offers its Infortel Select that allow for both capabilities. In addition to a wide variety of report options, users easily track billable hours for landline and wireless calls according to department, user or organization. At the same time, management can monitor for abusive calling.
In a mobile environment, it’s also important to be able to capture meeting notes for later reference. Perhaps the topic is sensitive and your consultants need to record the conversation, or perhaps your main focus is simply accuracy. Nothing captures the words better than video and voice recording. Whether the conversations are taking place in house or in the field, the ability to capture the information for later use is critical to success.
Likewise, the individuals responsible for telecom spend must be sure they have the right tools in place to identify errors and unnecessary spending. This includes the ability to identify payments being made on accounts that are no longer active or billing for services that were never used. Call accounting solutions with the ability to optimize spending and the telecom audit help to streamline the use of resources. This is especially critical in an environment where the money made is tracked back to active clients and expenses are monitored to the penny.
The consulting firm with corporate-liable mobile devices that does not want to use dedicated IT hours to address issues can take advatnage of Infortel’s Help Desk. An add-on to the call accounting solution’s telecom expense management (TEM) option, Help Desk managers upgrades, adds and removes data, offers a voice/text service and manages the daily, weekly and monthly mobile optimization fluctuations of the firm so staff can focus on the business.
No matter the end goal, the point is consulting firms need call accounting to have the clear visibility they need into the activities of the firm and its telecom users. Without it, money is likely going out the door that could be used for more profitable endeavors.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi