Fonality has just such a product. The box is actually an off-the-shelf PC tower running as a Linux server, which can be upgraded to a rack-mount server if you need the power. What turns a PC into a call center is the proprietary software and hardware interface cards.
The software that powers Fonality's PBXtra Call Center Edition is based on the popular Open Source Asterisk PBX software from Digium. You can get Asterisk software and third party interface cards and roll your own PBX, but you won't have what you get with Fonality. A good part of their value added is the modifications to the native Asterisk code that improve reliability & stability and add enterprise-class features in five different areas: Management software including a Web-based administration software and User Panel, easy integration of telecommuters, simple phone provisioning, system health monitoring, and LAN Interoperability with your existing network.
The other key piece in making a server into a PBX telephone system is the hardware interface. Fonality offers a range of plug-in cards that provide the signals necessary to operate analog telephones and telephone company lines. You have the option of using standard analog telephones or you can buy SIP-based VoIP phones from Fonality. Your phone service can be multiple analog phone lines, T1 / PRI digital phone lines with up to 96 channels, or SIP trunking service from a business grade VoIP carrier. A popular combination is to use VoIP phones within the call center and T1 / PRI voice lines for local and long distance calls.
The Fonality Call Center functions include everything you'd expect in a standard PBX telephone system, plus extras useful for call center operations. Unlimited call queues, full featured automatic call distribution, skills based routing, graphical queue reports, agent call recording, remote agents on cell phones or home analog phones, and support for unlimited VoIP providers are all included.
Most of the Call Center Edition upgrades to the PBXtra functionality is related to management and evaluation of call center agents. This product is intended to support from 2 to 200 agents, allowing you to start with a small phone order taking operation and expand to major catalog sales, customer support, or stand-alone call center services.
All this without the need for major in-house technical support. Fonality supplies its PBXtra and Call Center Edition servers pre-configured and ready to go. Phones also come pre-programmed to work with your system and are essentially plug and play. They include an Ethernet bridge so that a VoIP phone and desktop PC can share a single LAN connection.
If you are currently running a call center operation and would be interested in cost savings for your inbound and/or outbound calls, both local and long distance, our voice line telecommunications experts can negotiate among numerous carriers to get you the best per-minute rates.
