All of these necessary benefits are available through our clients’ already existing network infrastructure and cable systems.

TNS provided China Travel Service a demo of our solution, which has been used and perfected in-house for more than two years now. After a thorough cost-benefit analysis, and reviewing price quotes from other PBX providers, China Travel Service concluded that TNS’s solution was the most ideal and affordable solution to their PBX system.

The quest

As part of the solution, China Travel Service agreed to replace its older network with new, complete T1 circuits for its PBX and a new Internet connection with a higher bandwidth, an upgrade from 512KB to 3MB. The company also upgraded its telephone system from 12 analog telephone lines to 23 digital lines, plus three back-up analog lines.  Even with all these improvements in capability the monthly basic costs were lower than before.

And in just two days, with only two hours of downtime, the entire solution, plus new back-end cabling, was up and running. As a side note, most of the downtime was due to a delay in Telephone Company's (Telco) operations. 

With the new system in place, China Travel Service has complete redundancy if T1 goes down, for both incoming and outgoing telephone calls.  The company is also the proud owner of a new auto-attendant with bilingual support in English and Chinese. The system is also equipped with special call forwarding features via the PBX, meaning that telephone calls can now be automatically forwarded between the company’s offices.

As an everyday example of the new system at work: each time a China Travel Service agent receives a call, Microsoft Outlook automatically stores the caller’s information in Exchange public folders. This allows for a pop-up Outlook window, consisting of a caller’s history, to appear on any agent’s computer screen, even before the call is answered.

And what happens in the event that a call is missed? With a click of the mouse, an agent can automatically call the customer back.

An agent may also use Outlook to dial numbers stored in Exchange public folders or personal In-Box. If an agent must fax documents to a customer or vendor, the same Outlook contact’s fax number can be retrieved, and the fax can be sent via e-mail. Incoming faxes and voicemails are also automatically stored in the receiving agent’s e-mail inbox. With this type of integration, a China Travel Service agent is provided with all necessary modes of communication within one program, Outlook.

“The new phone system has a very flexible greeting and call distribution structure,” Pan said. “Unified messaging and Outlook features have improved our customer service, as well as the efficiency of our sales team.”

Pan said the new system’s call accounting and monitoring features have helped the company to better manage expenses.

The future 

TNS’s new solution opens the door to more cost saving when China Travel Service implements the VoIP gateway between its international branch offices. Agents in all time zones will be able take calls from offices that are closed. Plus, all inter-office calls can be routed via the VoIP gateway. By allowing a San Francisco agent to place calls to the company’s branch offices in China, China Travel Service will be saving on the costs of placing traditional long distance calls.

With TNS’s solution, China Travel Service can also take full advantage of its own built-in Call Center feature for sales and marketing campaigns.

Pan said the new IP-based phones also allow him the opportunity to expand his offices in the United States.

“In the future, after great coordination and approval from parent companies, it is possible that all major companies in CTII-HK systems will be able to go online and use IP-based phones,” Pan said. “That will allow us all to save and conference internally.”

We at TNS challenge you to realize the benefits of joining your PBX and IP networks. Please Click Here for more information and to view a demo.

Solution 2:

The client wanted to have an easy way of communicating internally within the company's multiple international locations as well as with their customers and vendors. However, their customers and vendors were using different electronic mail carriers such as AT&T, MCI, Internet, etc.

Since the client was using NetWare as their network operating system, Novell MHS was recommended and installed as a back-end messaging engine with various messaging gateways. The MHS hub was set up so it would dial out to different electronic mail carriers and other domestic and overseas hubs for uploading and downloading the electronic mail automatically.

This hodgepodge of communication carriers was brought under control resulting in a smooth flow of messages.  Client satisfaction was dramatic to say the least not to mention the increased efficiency in communicating with external customers and vendors.

Solution 3:

This client wanted to upgrade their messaging system from Pegasus freeware software to Microsoft Mail.  The post office was placed on a NetWare server where desktop users utilized client-based software and Unix users accessed their mail via Pop3 protocol. 

As time progressed, field operations purchased new laptop hardware thus requiring more sophisticated remote and robust connectivity sessions.  This need for more sophisticated messaging requirements led to the replacement of Microsoft Mail with Microsoft Exchange.  To facilitate the advanced messaging requirements like calendaring and contact management, a Windows NT server was installed replacing NetWare with all users being migrated to the new mail system without incident.

Worldwide communications thus became possible with increased reliability.  Eventually, VPN software became available and was installed which led to drastic reductions in charges for long distance telephone calls.