Telecommunications Resources & White Papers

Telecommunications Resources, Research Papers & White Papers

Welcome to the Specialty Answering Service telecommunications resource directory. Below you will find important links useful websites as well as research papers and white papers. If you find any of the papers useful, feel free to cite them as a reference.

Call Center Definitions

• Wikipedia Definition of a Call Center: A call centre or call center is a centralized office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone.

Answering Service Associations

• ATSI: Association of TeleServices International established in 1942 by and for entrepreneurs in the TeleServices business.
• CAM-X: Founded in 1964, CAM-X is an industry trade Association representing Call Centres and Telephone Answering Service companies from coast to coast across North America and Canada.

Research Papers Related to Call Centers & Call Center Technology

• How to Start A Call Center: A comprehensive business guide for anyone looking to start a call center business. Guide includes industry analysis, business model, planning for implementation, call center operations management, performance metrics, and financial plan.
• Queueing Theory Fundamentals: A guide to queueing theory models and queue management as used in the call center environment for better customer flow management.
• Call Center Metrics Essential Information: As telephone answering services evolve into call centers and into contact centers, tracking the right metrics is becoming more and more important to the success of the company. This research paper explores the metrics and provides a complete breakdown to foster the success of your call center.
• Agent Assisted Automation: Information about the use of automation in telephone answering services and how that automation can be used in conjunction with "live" call center agents. The goal of automation plus live agents is to keep customer service high while keeping operational costs low.
• Skills Based Routing: Interested in learning more about how inbound call centers route telephone calls to the customer service reps? It's not magic, it's something called skills based routing. A combination of hardware and software routes the inbound call to the best agents based on their skills.

Learn More Through Our 'What Is' Series of White Papers

• What Is PCI Compliance: Information about PCT DSS compliance including compliance requirements, the PCI-DSS compliance process, the relation to PCI and call center operations, implementation challenges, and improvements on making standards more secure and attainable.
• What Is Live Chat Support: Everything you ever wanted to know about love chat software including it's history, advantages, a bit about how the software actually works, and applications of live web chat support in the call center industry.
• What Is VoIP PBX: Want to learn about VoIP PBX? It's basically an IP PBX or an IP telephone system consists of one or more SIP phones, a server for IP PBX and an option of using a VOIP gateway in order to connect to present PSTN lines. Confused? Than you should read our resource on the subject.
• What Is Speech Recognition: Speech recognition is an acoustic technology with wide telephone answering service applications that allows users to "speak" responses into computer systems. The software interprets the spoken words and initiates commands or creates documents.
• What is DTMF Tone: DTMF is also known as Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency. Surprise - it's something you probably use every day! DTMF is the tech-e term for the sounds your touch tone phone produces. Ever notices that the tone of the number 9 sounds different from the number 3? That's DTMF!
• What Is Asterisk: Great question! It's an open source (free) PBX system that provides all the functionality of expensive business phone systems for free! It's flexible, customizable and used everywhere. Want to learn more? We've written a paper that takes you through it's history, gives you details on it's features, and even tells you how to build an Asterisk based call center.
• What Is The Voder: The Voder was the first electronic voice / speech synthesizer. It was invented by and patented by Homer Dudley in 1937 (US Patent 2121142). Thanks to The Voder, today's robots have a voice!

Compare Telecommunications Service Providers

• 800 Service Providers: Nothing says "Big Business" like a toll free number advertised on your website or literature. If you are looking for a provider, we have provided a list of companies who sell toll free numbers to companies like yours. Some numbers may be cheap, others 800 (or 866, 877, etc.).
• Compare Voicemail Providers: Pricing & Services: Thinking about getting a new voicemail system or changing providers? We've already done the research for you & organized data on the top 7 voicemail providers for you to check out. Specialty Answering Service does offer voicemail as an addition to our live operator service but we aren't going to be your best bet for straight voicemail, so we won't take offense when you choose another provider!
• Best Speech Recognition Software: Compare & Decide: Speech recognition is a large part of the call center industry. If you've ever spoken your account number to your credit card company over the phone, you were interacting with some type of speech recognition software. But what about using the same technology for your own personal use? Who do you choose? We've done the research on 8 of the top speech recognition software providers so you can review & decide for yourself.
• Compare the Best Telemarketing Companies: Outbound telemarketing can be difficult, but it's a great tool for business lead generation. If you are looking for the best telemarketing provider and are finding Google is giving you too many companies to choose from, we've researched the best and posted the data we found. Of course you could skip all the reading and just hire us to make your calls!
• Call Center Software Companies: Starting your own call center or looking to upgrade your call center software? We've complied some links to some of the most well known providers in the industry. The links are also applicable to telephone answering services as the two terms are used interchangeably.
• Compare PBX Systems: Looking for a hosted PBX provider? Excellent! Struggling to choose one? Not so excellent. Wouldn't it be nice to have a detailed comparison of some of the top virtual PBX providers? Great news! We've compared a billion virtual and hosted PBX providers and shaken them down to 8 then squeezed all information you'd need to know from those 8 so you can pick the best provider.
• Compare IVR Systems: IVR (or Interactive Voice Response) technology allows people to interact with computers by just using their voice. If you've ever called your bank or phone company and spoken commands into the phone, you've used an IVR system. But what if you are buying an IVR system? Wouldn't it be nice if a company researched the best providers and told you what they found? We did just that!
• Call Center Headset Reviews: One of the most important pieces of call center equipment is the headset. If you are in the industry and are looking for the best call center headset, how do you know which one is 'the best' to get with so many models to choose from? You may have always used Plantronics but a Sennheiser model just caught your eye. Maybe you are using USB headsets and want to switch gears and move to wireless or Bluetooth models. One option is to read our reviews and go from there!
• Call Center ACD Software & Phone System Reviews: If you are in the call center industry, you've heard the term ACD before. If you aren't in the know, ACD stands for Automated Call Distribution. It's a way for call centers to make sure the right agent gets the right call. If you are looking for a new ACD software provider, you've come to the right place. We've compared the top ACD phone systems so you can be sure you are choosing the right software for your call center.
• Internet Fax Review of 5 Popular Services: Still have a paper fax machine? If you said 'Yes', than you need an Internet faxing service. But who to choose? There are hundreds of them out there so searching on your own can get pretty tedious. We've researched the top 5 providers and posted what we've found here. And great news for you is any of these providers can be used with our answering service!

Telecommunications Tools

• Phone Number Converter: Type in your phone number to this script and reveal any possible word combinations. Great to find out what your phone number spells.
• Phone Bill Calculator: This calculator helps you discover how much your long distance phone bill will cost you after you enter the cost per minute and how long the phone call will be.
• Message Encrypter: Ever wanted to send a secret message? Input your message into this script and encrypt it. Send it to your friends & decrypt the message using the same script.
• Message Transformer: Type a message into the input form and choose what type of output you would like your message transformed into including pig Latin and all caps.
• Morse Code Converter: Ever wanted to send messages in Morse Code but were too lazy to learn? Use this converter to change your typed message into Morse Code.
• Wavelength Calculator: If you want to know more about communications, studying ham radios is a great place to start. This calculator helps assist ham radio operators in converting a frequency to its wavelength in feet or inches.

Privacy Policy Resources Terms Blog

© 2012 Specialty Answering Service, All Rights Reserved