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2023: Year in Review
3CX Version 20
While the proliferation of Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies has taken off over the past 15 years, 2018 marks the 45th anniversary of the Network Voice Protocol, which was developed by Danny Cohen and others to carry real-time voice-over Arpanet (which was the precursor to the internet). Just one year later, in 1974, it was successfully tested, marking the first implementation of VoIP.
Unlike more nebulous phenomena like blockchain, string theory, and unicorn food, the potential and promise of VoIP were well understood from the start, even though it would take an exceedingly long time for network technology to reach the point where it could viably supplant traditional telecom. Now that VoIP has reached a level of maturity, we can safely peek over the horizon and consider the trends in the sector that we’ll likely hear more about in 2018.
For VoIP providers, 5G will help eradicate the longtime nemeses of latency, jitter, and packet loss. For SMBs, it will also aid with continuity, allowing users to maintain high-quality connections without call drops. However, this is still a trend to watch, since 5G isn’t predicted to be widely available until 2020.
In the call center, for example, your PBX software most likely already allows you to route calls based on a range of variables, including the time of day or the skill level of the agent. Combining IVR and artificial intelligence, you can take what you already know about your customers (e.g., personal preferences, interaction history, etc.) and measure their current disposition (e.g., are they in good spirits or angry?), to ensure they are connected with the right agent.
While artificial intelligence and machine learning may conjure up frightening echoes of “Open the Pod bay doors, HAL,” the technology also can accentuate the human connection between your agents and your customers. AI has the power to provide instant translation services so an interaction between an English-speaking agent and a customer who speaks Mandarin doesn’t end in frustration for both parties. For VoIP users, natural language processing and instant translation will continue to move from the realm of science fiction into reality in 2018.
The most significant impact in the world of VoIP will be within the customer support center, where broader rollouts of conversational assistants, IVR, and chatbots will allow customers to solve more problems without waiting for an agent.
Contact us today if you’re looking for ways to stay ahead of the curve or are creating use cases around these technologies. With our open API and our dedicated engineers in the Vox DevGroup, we’re ready to help you bring these ideas to life.