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In a world where customer service can be the difference between success and failure, what really makes the difference? The answer is very clear, get the basics right. First point resolution Update customers even if you don’t have an answer Use the right technology Manage the solution through facts and data Sounds easy, right? Wrong! The amount of work that needs to happen in order to get these fundamentals right is extraordinary. The first thing to do will be to work out what sort of contact centre you want to offer your customers? Some examples are below: A Centre of Excellence - This involves highly knowledgeable agents, latest technology and large investment from the business. The centre provides a premium service, quick response times and multiple communication channels. The Customer Service Sales Funnel – This type of contact centre turns customer complaints into new sales. Typically reactive and offering anything in order to keep the customer. The ‘me too’ Contact Centre – This is where you provide just enough support for your customers but nothing more. You offer the industry standard for your industry and this is acceptable for the business. Sales – We’ve all seen these, typically commission-based type of operation, staff can be knowledgeable but usually a high turnover of individuals and requires a lot of calls to make a sale. There are many permutations of the different types of contact centres, but the first step is understanding what experience the business wants to offer. I’ve lost count of the amount of contact centres I’ve gone into who state they want to be a centre of excellence but they don’t have the investment or ‘will’ to make it happen and it turns out that the ‘me too’ contact centre is perfectly acceptable to the business. Once you’ve decided what type of contact centre you want to be, then you can start on the journey to fulfil your ambition. Having the right, relevant and aligned infrastructure forms the foundations. This means a CRM that presents the ‘right’ information to agents when they need it, a technology platform which is intuitive, offering different media channels and lastly an environment which is suitable and appropriate for what you want to portray to your customers. Secondly you need the right people and the right investment from the business to create a proactive culture. This can be very difficult and may be hindered by location, available skills or lack of funds. And lastly you need to offer continuous improvement. This is not just about achieving or exceeding your SLA’s, this is about continually optimising the entire operation in order to be more efficient, provide a better service, look for new opportunities and show how you are different from the competition.

Soniza are very pleased to announce that we've signed an major retailer in the UK. The project is to scope, develop and execute the digitisation of engagement both from within the business and external communications. We look forward to helping this fantastic brand grow and develop into a world leader of customer and internal comms. The Soniza Team

One of the questions we pose to clients when looking at contact centre procurement projects is ‘do they actually need a new contact centre’. You would probably be surprised how often the answer is ‘no’. Contact Centres are sold on functionality, supplier X can provide integrated WFM, supplier Y can provide flexible cost model, Supplier Z can integrate with Social Media etc. But functionality alone misses the point of what customer service should be about. The question should be not what functionality a product can do but what outcome do you want to achieve. For example; your contact centre may be running at 110% and you think that by reducing the number of calls or shifting channels may reduce the overall strain on the contact centre. Certainly, the functional response to this is to implement new technology which allows you to service your customers via other channels, but what if the answer is not to shift inbound traffic but increase outbound traffic, reducing the need for customers to contact you altogether. What if you looked to proactively push data to customers before they’ve even asked for it? What if you took the top 3 communications wrap-up code and broke them into their component parts? Then evaluate the code via an automated process which engaged the customer post contact before an escalation is required to a call into the contact centre. What if you could interrogate your CRM system when a customer contacted your business and then route the contact automatically based on the current interactions or credit status of the account? Now, what if you could do all this without changing the underlying infrastructure. Interesting thought?

The traditional IT model is for infrastructure to be located ‘on-premise’, with access being granted to users via secure verification and secure network connectivity. If a user wants to access services outside of the corporate environment, (i.e. via the Internet), data routes via the corporate ‘on-premise’ security services. This enables businesses to manage the security threat both inbound and outbound, private and public. As businesses move their infrastructure either completely to the Cloud or more likely to a hybrid model (services are both ‘on-premise’ and in the ‘Cloud’), routing all data via an ‘on-premise’ gateway is both inefficient and unnecessary. By moving Security to a Cloud service, users can work from anywhere and data routes via the ‘Cloud’ based security platform which is typically close to the main Cloud Vendors (Microsoft, Amazon, Google etc.). This enables efficient routing and appropriate security to be applied based on the application required or a user’s profile. Specifically, a Cloud security option offers benefits including: Scalability – Customers are a growing across the globe and as such adopting a Cloud security platform ensures a common security standard with centralised policy management. Security tools, cloud-aware security apps, and secure monitoring and management mean it’s much easier to manage and ensure a comprehensive cybersecurity solution across the business which scales infinitely. Secure Access – The first cloud security objective should focus on limiting the possibility of authentication and authorisation threats. Cloud security provides each member of staff with a single login profile. This means that identity and access management (IAM) is streamlined. With a cloud-facilitated single sign on process, each member of staff can access what they need, when they need it across all of their cloud and on-premise applications while leaving a full audit trail. Access to required programs, data sets, and other materials can be easily limited by IT using a single interface. Automation - Cloud-based computing makes it easy to connect staff and new sites wherever they are located, and automation of policies and services means that they are secure from the moment they are connected, without the need for human intervention. Arguably, ‘the human aspect’ to cybersecurity is the number one threat. By limiting the ‘human error’ the network is more secure and reduces the human resource required to manage a secure network. Being Part of a Global Security Platform – By adopting a mainstream Cloud security platform, customers can benefit from billions of interactions across the globe, identifying and updating the security threats in near real-time. This ensures that as soon as a threat is identified globally, customers will be secure against it. In addition to the above customers will also benefit from the general principles of the ‘Cloud’: flexible capacity with lower capital cost outlay, improved availability and business continuity, inter-operability, portability, network resilience, reversibility and elasticity of resource allocation on demand. We'd love to hear from you so if you have a project, please feel free to contact us to discuss how we can help.

Why is Cloud security increasing in popularity? Cloud security is similar in principle to traditional ‘on-premise’ network security. It encompasses similar protection categories including; data loss prevention (DLP), intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS), identity/access management (IAM) and email security. The push to Cloud security is being driven by changing conditions in how services are being delivered to business and how businesses are changing working conditions, specifically: Cloud Infrastructure: Businesses are moving I.T. infrastructure to the Cloud, and out of their traditional protective domain. Agile Working: Staff no longer only work in the office and expect services to be delivered wherever they are located securely and without degradation to service. Couple these issues with increasing regulation and ever more sophisticated security threats and enabling a Cloud security platform is perhaps an obvious solution. Indeed, many organisations are taking security a step further and implementing ‘Security as a Service’ (SECaaS), completely removing the security management from the business operation. Market Summary Through the rapid adoption of Software as a Service, the Cloud security market is growing rapidly. Suppliers can range from offering a single Cloud security application through to a complete security solution encompassing Next-Gen Firewalls, Sandbox, Advanced Threat Protection, Secure Web Gateways, DDoS, URL Filtering, SSL inspection… The list of suppliers is large and growing and there are differences in capabilities and functionality. Global companies such as Cisco, Zscaler, Syamantec, Barracuda and McAfee all provide solutions and are based on different but granular licencing models. If customers are to investigate migrating to a Cloud security platform, we would always recommend a market test is completed in order to identify the right product for the business. For more information about the Cloud security market, please feel free to contact us for more information.

First of all it is worth reminding ourselves what SD-WAN is? Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is a network management tool or set of tools offering a transformational approach to designing and deploying an enterprise ‘wide area network’ (WAN). By utilising multiple connectivity streams and rules to determine the most efficient way to route data traffic to remote locations, branch offices and Data centres, the solution will intelligently adapt to changing environments in real-time enhancing the efficiency of the network. Through a series of processes and artificial intelligence SD-WAN allows customers to manage the performance of individual applications utilising all of the resources (network capacity) available. An SD-WAN solution is by design, separate from the underlying infrastructure layer, this means that customers may choose a network from one or multiple suppliers but manage them via a third-party application (SD-WAN Application). There are many advantages of SD-WAN and we've summarised a few, please click here. However, there are certainly some limitations as well. Although SD-WAN provides many important steps forward in wide area networking, there are some limitations which customers will want to be aware of, namely: Quality of Service (QoS) – If traffic is crossing the public Internet, QoS cannot be guaranteed. Suppliers may argue that there are other priorities that can be aligned to achieve QoS like experiences, such as packet duplication but this is not a guaranteed service and therefore potentially this could affect real-time applications such as voice and video. The SD-WAN Market – SD-WAN is a relatively new technology for suppliers and therefore it could be argued that there is still a lot of volatility in the market. Cost – While cost savings are often stated as an advantage of SD-WAN, our experience is that the costs are largely neutral when comparing with MPLS and calculating a total cost of ownership. Service Standards – Currently there are no standards governing the SD-WAN market. SD-WAN Resellers – Due to the products being a fairly recent breakthrough to the mainstream market, most suppliers won’t have tens of installations with which to completely learn the lessons of good and bad SD-WAN deployments. If you'd like to discuss how we can help with your project, please do not hesitate to contact us.

What is SD_WAN? Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is a network management tool or set of tools offering a transformational approach to designing and deploying an enterprise ‘wide area network’ (WAN). By utilising multiple connectivity streams and rules to determine the most efficient way to route data traffic to remote locations, branch offices and Data centres, the solution will intelligently adapt to changing environments in real-time enhancing the efficiency of the network. Through a series of processes and artificial intelligence SD-WAN allows customers to manage the performance of individual applications utilising all of the resources (network capacity) available. An SD-WAN solution is by design, separate from the underlying infrastructure layer, this means that customers may choose a network from one or multiple suppliers but manage them via a third-party application (SD-WAN Application). Advantages of SD-WAN Below we have listed some of the main benefits of an SD-WAN solution. This is by no means definitive but show’s why SD-WAN is such a hot topic in the industry right now. Application Performance Management – Prioritise applications, route Cloud traffic direct to the Internet, real-time bandwidth management. Increased Resilience – For sites with more than a single connection, in the event of a single circuit failover, traffic can be managed and routed through alternative destinations easily and with no I.T. involvement. Application Visibility – The solution provides deep application visibility with the ability to manage all business applications which cross the network. Dynamic Path Control – The solution dynamically monitors performance of each connection and based on loss, latency, jitter and throughput allocates the best route for traffic. Circuit Bonding – The ability to bond circuit types together, creating a virtual high capacity circuit. Agnostic Network Layer – SD-WAN solutions can work across multiple different network suppliers. Potential to Reduce Costs – In theory, private circuits aren’t required, therefore costs may decrease. Quick Provisioning – Provisioning of branch offices requires no technical expertise. Scalability – Solutions can scale to thousands of sites from a single controller (Dependent on manufacturer) For more information on networking or for help with your migration to SD-WAN, please feel free to contact us for more information.

Soniza are please to announce a new global client in the manufacturing sector. Soniza have been awarded the contract to review and compare MPLS vs SD-WAN and make recommendations of an approach to support the businesses aggressive growth plans. The project includes, different network architectures, Internet breakout, Microsoft Azure regional connectivity and hosting and Office365. Additionally, Soniza will create a global framework/code of conduct which will allow distinct suppliers to form a set of directives which enable interoperability between different networks. This not only applies to existing suppliers but also new suppliers as acquisitions are made in the future. For more information on how Soniza can support you with your WAN project, please contact us at info@soniza.co.uk or call on: 0800 334 5878.

Soniza have launched a new service to Maximise Your Cost Savings. We've been savings clients hundreds of thousands of pounds for years, either by Auditing and removing unused services and infrastructure, Procuring new services for clients, or Negotiating contracts to achieve market rates. Typically these services are based on a consultancy day rate, however, we've listened to our clients feedback and created a new service based on performance. We now offer a comprehensive savings solution, the idea is that we use all of our experience, in-house tools and resource to maximise the savings for our client's. This may include Auditing, Benchmarking, Service reviews, Supplier Consolidation, Expense Management, Contract Negotiation and even Procurement. We charge a flat rate of 22.5% of the savings we achieve based on tangible savings. How's this different from other savings suppliers? We'll only invoice you as you make the saving, month on month throughout the lifetime of the contract. This means we continue to monitor savings performance and ensures the real savings are being implemented. We can offer this across all of your telecoms or just a single service. Typically the biggest areas for savings are: Wide Area Networks, Mobiles, Telephony, Managed Services, Landlines, and Conferencing. For more information contact us now.

Soniza have launched their new website. It's now easier to find what you're looking for. We've added our new services, including Print savings, CRM consulting and I.T. Hardware procurement. We've added a 'Services' page to easily identify how we can help and our Expertise and Services in each area. The 'About Us' is now more current and we've included some case studies of some of our clients where particular challenges have been overcome. See for yourself here. We'd love to know your feedback as well so feel free to contact us at info@soniza.co.uk.