SIP – a flexible game-changer during the Coronavirus pandemic
SIP technology makes it much easier for employees to take their entire calling infrastructure and collaboration tools home with them.
As Coronavirus began to spread across the globe, travel was one of the first sectors to feel the pain.
With countries and borders beginning to close, people were forced to cancel or rearrange their flights resulting in a significant spike in contact centre traffic.
Thankfully, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) technology gave us the flexibility to route calls to wherever the airlines had agents. This helped people change their plans and get information about their flights.
Routing calls to wherever there are agents
For the travel sector, intelligence and flexible routing using SIP proved critical in the early stages of the pandemic. After that, the next challenge was agents’ ability to travel to contact centre locations. Again with SIP-based and cloud contact centre capabilities, we helped agents work from home with no impact on service.
With the lockdown in full force in many countries, employees had to work from home. In a legacy voice environment, customers would have a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) hardwired in the office. With SIP technology, it’s much easier for employees to take their entire calling infrastructure and collaboration tools, such as Teams, Skype and Zoom, home with them.
Improving customer experience as remote working continues
From a corporate customer’s point of view, it’s this flexibility that really makes SIP a game-changer. A brilliant example of this is videoconferencing. In the office, they’re large, bulky systems that you can’t take home. But with today’s SIP-based video technology, you can have a similar experience working from your kitchen table.
The speed at which Coronavirus spread across the globe and impacted business operations has brought both challenges and risks. Within a matter of days, call volumes across our platform doubled and even now, we’re seeing around 30 per cent more traffic than usual. Some networks are more robust than others so having the right SIP partner is critical.
Choosing the right SIP partner is critical
The other critical factor is network coverage. We address the demand where our customers operate and are committed to adding further coverage globally as countries open up SIP services. We recently launched services in Brazil and Mexico – that’s in addition to the 22 countries we already have.
What we’ve seen through the pandemic is that, despite a massive increase in demand, our network design is keeping us operational and still serving our customers. That’s because our network design includes planning for times of crisis.
Find out how we can build a partnership and transform your legacy voice estate for the future - speak to an expert.