Controlling Call Routing Can Save You Money…
When you imagine making a call to, say, the opposite coast, you probably picture a fairly straight delivery line in your head. Given the speed of voice over IP (VoIP) communications, however, and the wide variety of carriers these days, there are any number of routes your call might actually take—and that “line” might have quite a few zigs and zags although your call will still arrive in virtually no time at all. And sound great, with zero jitter or post-dial delay, all thanks to the Internet.
If you’re involved in your SaaS company’s communications, or even just the financial side of the decision making, you’ve almost certainly heard of Least Cost Routing (LCR). Any cloud communications provider that links to other networks is likely to use some version of a Least Cost Routing engine, where a rate table is utilized to automatically send your call via the least expensive route available (hence the zig or zag). Least Cost Routing can be applied in real time to inbound (toll-free) and outbound (domestic or international) voice.
The majority of CPaaS providers offer an LCR, and why not? Certainly everybody wants a cost advantage on that growing telecommunications bill, especially as their business scales—don’t they?
…But You Might Pay in Other Ways
Sometimes you get what you pay for, and sometimes you don’t. Saving money is important, of course, but at the end of the day (or the end of the call, in this case):
- You need your calls to connect quickly
- The audio should be clear
- There should be no jitter or latency (delay in sound that complicates conversing)
- And, there should never be call drop-offs; those are the worst!
All of this is especially important to call centers and other companies that provide communication support to their customers, where poor call quality could be seriously detrimental to the life of the business. But let’s be honest. Positive customer experiences—including uninterrupted conversations—are critical to the long-term success of every business.
So What’s Intelligent Call Routing?
Much like Least Cost Routing, Intelligent Call Routing (ICR) uses rate tables to look at which call route is the most cost effective for each of your calls. Unlike LCR, Intelligent Call Routing also uses machine learning to look at your call patterns over time to determine which of the routes is most likely to ensure deliverability and produce the highest quality call. The two meet in the middle to pick the highest quality, most cost effective route. In other words, the more calls you make, the better we route, deliver, and reduce costs.
Intelligent Call Routing is supported by the fact that Commio offers 40+ carriers (in addition to being a VLEC, or Virtual Local Exchange Carrier, ourselves). While most providers have a handful of carriers and use LCR, Commio’s ICR process is automatically carried out for all the 40+ high-quality carriers available on our platform. The use of multiple carriers also ensures redundancy so that you and your customers don’t have to worry about service outages, and delivers more calls—and higher quality calls—into hard-to-reach rural locations.
Commio works to save you money by billing in six-second increments, as well, vs. the 60-second increments used by most providers. So if you make a 12-second call, you’re billed for 12 seconds–not a full minute.
We Also Hand You the Controls
Beyond our automated Intelligent Call Routing process, Commio does something unprecedented: we provide our customers with complete transparency so you can see how and where your calls are going, and make carrier changes in real time if you ever experience an issue! Typically, calling routes are automatically optimized by ICR; when there is an outage or other problem, the calls will be rerouted. If you have a specific issue, our U.S.-based Customer Success team is only a phone call away. But time is money and if you wish to make a change immediately, you have that option, as well. More on that in next week’s blog.
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Least Cost Routing is a wonderful thing, but it’s not enough if your calls are static-y or don’t go through at all. A few too many of these calls can make or break a SaaS business.
With Intelligent Cost Routing, Commio is committed to providing you with both the best possible pricing, including scalability as your business grows, but also the highest quality calling (in this case, flipping “you get what you pay for” on its head!). The next time you talk to your telecommunications provider, we suggest asking them how their calls are routed—and whether they provide any mechanism to let you take control. Keep your customers happy with the highest quality calling, and enjoy peace of mind knowing those calls are on the most affordable routes.
