1. Cost Allocation – Calls identified and charged back to cost centers, departments, and accounts. “Joe’s department made all of those calls; he should pay for them.” If you don’t know how much you spend and how it measures up against your budget, how do you know you are doing a good job? Cost allocation is sensible management.
2. Client Bill Back – Tracking and billing of telephone calls and time to respective projects or clients. Many companies bill for their services, to include: law firms, engineering companies, accountants, architects, advertising agencies, public relations people, medical clients, insurance agencies, government contractors, etc. Good records allow good bill back.
3. Management of Sales and Customer Service Departments – Your best salespeople will make more and shorter calls. Call accounting can help you motivate and manage sales and service people.
4. PBX Telephone and Line Verification – Are calls going where they are meant to go? Are the lines even working? If you don’t check, who will?
5. Abuse Control – Excessive personal calls, calls placed by unauthorized personnel, calls to dial-up recordings, unauthorized calls to expensive places. Controlling abuse saves money and time!
6. Resale of Phone Calls – Reselling phone calls is often a big money maker for hospitals, condominiums, resorts, hotels, and motels.
7. Personnel Evaluation – By looking at how much time your people spend on the telephone, you can get a good idea of their productivity – either positive or negative. Call accounting is mandatory to manage personnel anywhere!
8. Misuse – Chronic use of directory assistance, calls over inappropriate trunks, unnecessary calls, longer than necessary calls. Classic – “Why are you complaining? I made that two-hour call to Hawaii – it’s free isn’t it?” Better use saves money and time.
9. Network Optimization – Using the least expensive facility for call completion. Choosing which long distance service to buy can make as much difference as 200% in the price of a call! Use trunk reports and area code reports to “tune your system”.
10. Long Distance Bill Verification – Are bills accurate from your phone company? You’d be surprised! You’ll need to have your own, trusted source for comparison – a TEL call accounting syste
