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Ensuring the Quality of Every VoIP Call

At InfoCision, a leading provider of contact center solutions, delivering quality services is not just a slogan: it is the company’s mission that is put into practice every day. For Kevin Nastase, InfoCision’s Network Analyst, great service begins with the quality and reliability of every call. “We operate 35 call centers in 13 locations across Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Canada. Our VoIP network is large and growing as our company continues to expand. The performance of our network is a critical component to our success and to our commitment to quality. That is why we selected PathSolutions VoIP Monitor (now TotalView for VoIP Networks) to manage and monitor our network,” said Nastase.

Continuous Monitoring Down to the Interface Level Delivers Total Network Visibility

Founded in 1982, InfoCision Management Corporation is the second largest privately held teleservices company and is a leader in customer care services, commercial sales and marketing for a variety of Fortune 100 companies and smaller businesses. InfoCision is also a leading provider of inbound and outbound marketing for nonprofit, religious and political organizations. A winner of 18 straight MVP Quality Awards, InfoCision’s philosophy is simple: achieving the highest quality in everything they do which translates into the highest possible return on investment for their fundraising and corporate clients. The company takes its commitment to quality very seriously, encouraging all of its employees to look for ways to work smarter and to invest in technologies and applications that enable it to operate more efficiently. The smooth operation of its 35 call centers plays an integral role in delivering on that commitment.

“InfoCision has more than 4,200 employees located in three states as well as Canada. We have over 200 pieces of network equipment and even more servers. My group is responsible for ensuring that the network that runs all the call centers is performing optimally and that each call is of high quality,” said Nastase. “It became clear to us that automatically monitoring the performance of our VoIP network would help us meet our responsibilities. We turned to our call center automation provider, Interactive Intelligence, for assistance and they recommended PathSolutions. We then worked with PathSolutions to install and deploy its VoIP network performance management tool.”

For Nastase, installing and deploying TotalView was an easy process. “I entered some basic information about our network and within 20 minutes, TotalView was up and running. I could see my entire network, down to the interface level, which is pretty impressive,” said Nastase. With TotalView, Nastase’s Data Communications group had total visibility into the network and was able to continuously monitor its performance. “Details about every VoIP telephone, including the Mac and phone IP address were provided. We were able to see every phone in our system which made it much easier for us to address and fix network issues that, if left unchecked, might have resulted in poor quality or dropped calls. This is very important to us.”

Network Management Begins and Ends with the Weather Report

While total network visibility plays a key role in InfoCision’s network performance management strategy, PathSolutions’ Weather report determines the day-to-day network tasks. With the Weather report, InfoCision is able to analyze and identify—down to the router or link—potential problems. Recommendations on how to fix those problems is provided by TotalView’s Prescription Engine.

About TotalView’s Network Weather Report

TotalView’s Network Weather report is a quick and easy way to determine how your network is performing on a daily basis. It provides information on your network’s errors, performance, and administration. Based on the utilization rate you set, it will display the interfaces that are experiencing a higher utilization rate, including error rates and peak daily utilization. It will also display a number of “top tens,” including the top ten interfaces with the most errors, top ten interfaces with the highest daily percentage transmission, and the top ten interfaces with the highest daily received percentage.

“We consider the Weather report the one-stop shop for all our network issues. I look at it every day as does my manager. My manager is able to see the performance of our network at any given time and uses the report to identify and address potential network bottlenecks at a macro level. I use the report to address and fix network issues as they occur throughout each day,” said Nastase. “Before PathSolutions I would spend hours trying to troubleshoot a problem. Now I spend minutes.”

Bottom Line—A Third Party Perspective on the Health and Performance of InfoCision’s Network

As a company that builds quality into every marketing service they provide, the health and performance of InfoCision’s network infrastructure is critical. After all, if the network experiences problems, dropped or poor quality VoIP calls could occur. For Nastase and InfoCision’s Data Communications group, TotalView ensures that the network is reliable. “To me, TotalView provides a third party perspective on how our network is doing at any given time. Sometimes you can be too close to the problem, making assumptions that may or may not be accurate. TotalView looks at the entire network down to the interface level, and analyzes the performance of it, including error rates and peak utilization. It is an independent evaluation of how our network is doing at any given point in time and is the tool we use to ensure that our VoIP network is reliable and optimized for performance,” said Nastase. “With TotalView, we ensure the quality of every VoIP call.”

Challenge:

Monitoring and managing an extensive VoIP network of 35 call centers in 13 locations to ensure reliable call quality performance.

Solution:

PathSolutions TotalView for VoIP Networks

Result:

Continuous monitoring, fast issue identification and resolution, freed up time and resources to focus on network optimization.